Cables - a rant.

[andrewducker]

The other day, an lj friend* was ranting about the price of HDMI cables at Richer Sounds. Pretty justified, as they charge £15 for a cable you can get at Amazon for a fiver.

Today I was in Currys (and PC World) as a break from clothes shopping with meaningrequired, and thought I'd check out their prices for cables.

They started at £40, and went up to £100.

Now, checking their website, it seems like they have cheaper ones, at pretty reasonable prices. But if you're buying a new TV and Blu-Ray player (or whatever) then you're going to want cables to go with them, and chances are that if you're ignorant you're going to get suckered into paying over the odds and buying one of these. Or if the sales people really get to you, splashing out on something like this.

Frankly, I'd like to find a way of making this kind of thing illegal**. If you can't demonstrate an actual difference in the picture being transmitted by the cable over one costing less than half its price then you shouldn't be allowed to bloody well sell it.

*I've just remembered who it was, but it was flocked, so I'm not naming them. They can feel free to claim responsibility in the comments if they like.

**Ok, I'm exaggerating somewhat. If people want to spend their money on stupid things then it's up to them. I'd settle for crucifying*** any sales person who tries to tell you that you get a better signal through them than you do through the bog standard ones that you can buy for a fiver.

***Publically. In front of the store. With rusty nails.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I got a perfectly good HDMI cable off an amazon marketplace seller, brand new, for £1.97.

[andrewducker]

I was nervous of unbranded ones, having had an HDMI cable fail on me after three months before. Paying the extra £3 for the AmazonBasics one seemed worthwhile in this case.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Of course I assume it is perfectly good, I've never compared it to any other sort of cable. But I assume being digital, the loss of signal must be minimal anyway. Is it not a case of being either (1) or (0) with HDMI cables?

[andrewducker]

Oh, yes. If your picture and sound are both there then your cable is functioning perfectly.

In my case it started going intermittently unless I took it out and put it back in again, and then ceased functioning at all. I suspect I just got a duff one.

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

The price of those cables is outrageous.

Here we have "Fry's Electronics," where they always try and sell you the wrong thing, and then give you the runaround when you try and return said thing.

We love to hate them.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I'd like to speak from a position of experience since I used to write software which helped BICC design cables but frankly any experience I have will be 15 years out of date:

> If you can't demonstrate an actual difference in the picture being transmitted by the cable

I'm not sure this is reasonable. There might be lots of things that you put into a generic cable to make it perform better which will not result in picture quality. I am thinking of electromagnetic shielding, water proofing, fireproofness, cores more resiliant to bending, and so on. Of course most of these don't matter for a simple home digital cable.


> if you're ignorant you're going to get suckered into paying over the odds

And that is the problem. I have said for years not to buy any cables from the high street. Get them online unless you need them right now. Many people are paying for the convenience of having it there and then, and also for the convenience of not having to learn about it. They *are* getting something for their money - it just isn't a very good something.


So what is the solution? More awareness through "Which?" and tv consumer programs might be a good start.

[andrewducker]

The resilience to bending, proofing against hazards, etc. I totally approve of. But I find it unlikely that that's where the £100 cost of Monster cables comes from.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I was once asked if there was any point in buying a SuperBit DVD

I replied with 2 questions:
1. do you watch DVD extras [yes]
2. do you have a 40+ inch Plasma tv with THX surround sound [no]

I advised buying the regular dvd.

People who *need* to pay top dollar already know they do, and where to spend it. Everyone else, doesn't.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

Poundland!

PS3 seems to be fine with a Poundland HDMI cable, inc watching BluRays with their protection and games

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

On one hand, the markup is drastically unfair. On the other hand, that's where computer companies tend to make all their money. When I was working in a computer store I was shocked to find how much cables and printer cartridges were marked up. But I was also shocked to find that pretty much all the hardware wasn't marked up at all; some of it was even being sold for less than it'd cost to produce. They mark up the peripherals not because that's where all the profit is but because that's where pretty much the *only* profit is.

[andrewducker]

Oh yeah, you can tell it's where they make their profits. But I'd much rather they made them honestly, by selling stuff at a small profit everywhere, rather than ripping people off (and not getting any cash for me, as I head straight for poundland, Amazon).

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You may need to redesign the customers first.

[andrewducker]

And also their competitors.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Not really-- if customers were interested in all associated costs of a big ticket item, then sellers and manufacturers would handle things differently.

I can hope that reviewers and search systems will eventually make it easier to do an associated cost check.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, agreed. Which is why I get cables online. I get the logic of "But people won't buy hardware if it's too expensive!!" having been a fear in times past, but let's face it, we so do/would.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It's the same in pubs - they make all their big money out of selling 2p pints of coke for £1.50.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

and tea. I can't be bothered figuring out how much a tea bag and hot water costs, but I'm certain it isn't £2.25

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

The main product a pub or coffee shop sells you is a seat to sit down on in the warmth, that costs the same to provide irrespective of what you drink. Similarly the cost of the staff to clean up after you and make the drink doesn't change. The material cost of beer is about 70p more than that of coke or tea so beer should cost about 70p more per drink. Of course if you follow this through to it's logical extent halves sold as part of a round should cost only 35p less than the full pint but it seems that the customers object.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

yeah, I get that, which is why I'm perfectly willing to go to Tea Tree Tea and pay silly money for tea & cake

the price for a teabag in a pub still seems *slightly* excessive though

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I recall a conversation with the manager of a cafe my school/ uni chums and I used to go to. We'd grabbed a big table with comfortable sofas and all ordered coffees after a boozey night out the night before and one of us apologised for blocking one of his best tables.

He replied that a) we were regulars during the week when it was quiet and b) he made more of a mark up on a coffee than on beer so he was happy for us to sit and drink coffee all day long if we wanted. Which we did.

There is a reasonable amount of tax on alcoholic drink and I wonder if this masks the price of soft drnks. If you took the 60p of excise duty and VAT on excise duty of the cost of a pint of beer and then compared the price of that with a coffee or a pint of coke I think customers might not like the new price differential.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Agreed, I've always felt that the main product is table rent.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

that reminds me: there's a printer on sale for £30. I'm wondering whether it'd be cheaper to buy that or pay for printouts at college/uni

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I'm all for personal printers, to me the biggest drawback is cost of paper and cartridges and maintenance.

I've found having a printer at home really convenient. If you're running late for something, it's so much easier to print something out while you eat your toast, than running like a mad thing into the library (or printer depo) to get a few pages before a seminar or meeting.

Also, if you ever want to print anything unusual, its much easier to do it yourself, than faff with someone else's printer, or go to a print shop and try to explain what it is you want.

I don't know what your course will be like, but a lot of my lecturers used to provide paper copies of the lecture/notes at the start of class.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think there was some skeptic noise about cable woo at some point.

There was also some recent experiments on decision making when buying which suggest that the way to milk most money out of people was to break up the purchase of larger complex items (i.e. a TV, DVD, games console and cables) in to many smaller transactions.

I would go on to suggest the sales technique is not an accident but deliberate policy based on empirical research.

[andrewducker]

Oh, it's definitely a deliberate policy (see, also, extended warranties).

I just don't approve. I'll stick to online.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

This is why micropayments for things like DLC in computer games (not just big ticket items like whole new sections of game, but new outfits etc) are taking off too.