Well I finally broke down and bought a HD system: Samsung TV and Blu Ray player. I have been all over the internet trying to find out if there even is a Version 1.3 HDMI cable available. I ended up buying a Monster 400 HDMI cable which works and the picture is incredible. But I am only finding catagory 1 and 2 cable information and nowhere on the package can I even find if it's a cat 1 or 2 cable. Can someone enlighten me. Version 1.3 is supposed to give you more bandwidth but it would be nice to know if the cable is capable. TIA.

My HDTV is a samsung, Sorry but you threw away money. It's a digital signal. The $100.00 cable you purchased is'nt going to give you a better picture then a $20.00 cable. The monster cable comes two ways if you noticed in the store. One cable is thinner and one thicker. The thinner one is good up to 720P and the thicker one to 1080P. You just paid for the monster name. HDMI as you know passes audio and video in one cable, HDMI 1.3 means the following.



New HDMI 1.3 capabilities include:

Higher speed: HDMI 1.3 increases its single-link bandwidth from 165MHz (4.95 gigabits per second) to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps) to support the demands of future high definition display devices, such as higher resolutions, Deep Color™ and high frame rates. In addition, built into the HDMI 1.3 specification is the technical foundation that will let future versions of HDMI reach significantly higher speeds.
Deep color: HDMI 1.3 supports 30-bit, 36-bit and 48-bit (RGB or YCbCr) color depths, up from the 24-bit depths in previous versions of the HDMI specification.
Lets HDTVs and other displays go from millions of colors to billions of colors
Eliminates on-screen color banding, for smooth tonal transitions and subtle gradations between colors
Enables increased contrast ratio
Can represent many times more shades of gray between black and white. At 30-bit pixel depth, four times more shades of gray would be the minimum, and the typical improvement would be eight times or more
Broader color space: HDMI 1.3 removes virtually all limits on color selection.
Next-generation “xvYCC” color space supports 1.8 times as many colors as existing HDTV signals
Lets HDTVs display colors more accurately
Enables displays with more natural and vivid colors
New mini connector: With small portable devices such as HD camcorders and still cameras demanding seamless connectivity to HDTVs, HDMI 1.3 offers a new, smaller form factor connector option.
Lip Sync: Because consumer electronics devices are using increasingly complex digital signal processing to enhance the clarity and detail of the content, synchronization of video and audio in user devices has become a greater challenge and could potentially require complex end-user adjustments. HDMI 1.3 incorporates an automatic audio/video synching capability that allows devices to perform this synchronization automatically with accuracy.
New lossless audio formats: In addition to HDMI’s current ability to support high-bandwidth uncompressed digital audio and currently-available compressed formats (such as Dolby® Digital and DTS), HDMI 1.3 adds additional support for new, lossless compressed digital audio formats Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™.
Products implementing the new HDMI specification will continue to be backward compatible with earlier HDMI products.

“The dramatic increase in maximum speed achieved in HDMI 1.3 will enable HDMI to stay far ahead of the bandwidth demands of future high definition source and display devices,” said Leslie Chard, president of HDMI Licensing, LLC. “As the de facto standard digital interface for the high definition and consumer electronics markets, HDMI is implementing the most innovative technologies today to fulfill the demands of tomorrow’s consumers.”


Enjoy your wonderful clear HD picture!

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I did not know about the thickness of the cable and assumed it was better shielding. The only options I had at the time were Energy and Monster cables which had a 1080P sticker so I grabbed it but I will know better next time.

Best place to get HDMI cables is online. Like i said i know you paid a mint for that monster cable. Go ahead buy a 10.00 one online. Come back and tell me if you see the difference. It's a digital signal. Enjoy the TV you should have a wonderful picture. Your in canada so if you have expressVU or Bell or another sat service you'll really see it if your on a HDTV channel. Cable HDTV IMHO is blah. I just want to clear up one more thing with you. HDTV service at the moment is only 1080i ( Interlace ). There is no satellite company that sends a 1080P signal that i know of yet. In the U.S., However i doub't canada either. But your DVD player will.

Yeah I am hooked up to HDTV cable box (720P) atm and it's ok. The reason I asked this question in the first place because in both my TV and Blu Ray manual it says this ( the part in bold.)

Connect an HDMI Cable between the HDMI IN (1,2 or 3) jack on the TV and the HDMI jack on the DVD Player or Cable Box/Satellite receiver (Set-Top Box)


What is HDMI?
- HDMI(High-Definition Multimedia Interface), is an interface that enables the transmission of digital audio and video signals using a single cable.
- The difference between HDMI and DVI is that the HDMI device is smaller in size and has the HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection) coding feature installed



Each DVD Player or Cable Box/Satellite receiver (Set-Top Box) has a different back panel configuration.
The TV may not output sound and pictures may be displayed with abnormal color when DVD players/Cable Boxes/Satellite receivers supporting HDMI versions older than 1.3 are connected. When connecting an older HDMI cable and there is no sound, connect the HDMI cable to the HDMI IN 1 jack and the audio cables to the DVI IN (HDMI1) [R-AUDIO-L] jacks on the back of the TV. If this happens, contact the company that provided the DVD player/Cable Box/Satellite receiver to confirm the HDMI version, then request an upgrade.
HDMI cables that are not 1.3 may cause annoying flicker or no screen display.

When HDTV's first came out they only had 1 HDMI input. The newer TV's today have 3 or 4 HDMI inputs. Thats still not enuff for me. I have another box that i hookup to the TV to give me a total of 5 HDMI inputs. The cable box or satellite system if you ever get one you don't even have to hook that up with HDMI. You can use component video thats good for up to 1080i. I have dishnetwork satellite with complete HDTV programming with two dishes as the 61.5 sat is where there HDTV programming is. In the U.S. DirecTV there HDTV programming and equipment IMO stinks. There is a difference in picture quality from cable to satellite HDTV. Only thing i did do is take the 3yr extended warranty. Without it you would pay thru the nose and be unhappy if something happened. And thats in home service i have. I have a 50+ inch screen. It would be a real pain dragging that out of your house to a repair shop. Let them get a hernia

HERE'S a lengthy thread on HDMI 1.3. It deals primarily with audio and AVR receivers, but it's a good read. Some of it is several months old though.

Very good and informative information on HDIM 1.3 and even ealier version . Thanks.

Thanks for the info Dan. I actually found a 1.3 certified cable for less $$ than the Monster 400 and it seems to work better as I kept loosing the signal when the DVD drive was loading or searching. This seems to have fixed that problem.