HDMI cable for Sky+HD box

GSPfan

Would anyone be able tell me what i would be looking for in a HDMI cable if i were to buy one to suit a standard sky+hd box. The reason i ask is that i have to buy a 10 metre length HDMI cable to reach from the sky box in the attic to the tv. I checked online and there are so many variations of type and price from €15 to €200. Im just not sure what to be really looking for.
I am not likely to get a hd subscription off sky anytime soon so im not looking for the HDMI cable to be giving me crystal clear top notch pictures. I just need it to provide picture and sound to the tv. The coax cable i ran to the tv from the RF2 output has interference on the sound so i can only use that for the magic eye. Need a HDMI cable for good picture and sound.

Any specs on the type of cable i should buy would be appreciated.

John mac

cheap and cheerfull all the way..

watty

Dunnes or a Euro Store. Even Tesco is joining the "snake oil" overpriced brigade. It's simpler cheaper and less critical than SCART unless it's more than 3m long.

zg3409

GSPfan wrote: »

Would anyone be able tell me what i would be looking for in a HDMI cable if i were to buy one to suit a standard sky+hd box. The reason i ask is that i have to buy a 10 metre length HDMI cable to reach from the sky box in the attic to the tv. I checked online and there are so many variations of type and price from €15 to €200. Im just not sure what to be really looking for.
I am not likely to get a hd subscription off sky anytime soon so im not looking for the HDMI cable to be giving me crystal clear top notch pictures. I just need it to provide picture and sound to the tv.

Any cheap one will work fine. The more expensive ones are designed to seperate fools from their money. It is very, very unlikely you will suffer interference over HDMI

GSPfan wrote: »

The coax cable i ran to the tv from the RF2 output has interference on the sound so i can only use that for the magic eye. Need a HDMI cable for good picture and sound.

This should not be the case. Is there a TV aerial connected into the "aerial in" port on the Sky box. If so take it out. Does the interference dissapear? If so then you need to change the "RF CHANNEL NUMBER" on your Sky box.

See here for the procedure depending on your model of box:
http://www.sky-remotes.com/setup-sky-magic-eye.shtml

The default seems to be 68 so try other numbers.

When you have done this you will need to re-tune your TV to find the Sky box again. You need to choose a channel number that is not in use in your area for analogue TV nor Digital TV nor Cable TV (if possible) Try different numbers until one works.

A normal Sky box only has one HDMI port so if you want to connect multiple HDMI's to one Sky box you may have a problem.

stevenf17

Have a read of this!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1/why-all-hdmi-cables-are-the-same/

With HDMI cables, because the signal is Digital. they either work or they don't.
There's no difference in picture quality!

Storm 10

Could I just ask is there a picture difference between cheap scart cable V dear ones. Reason I ask is I have a UPC digital box and quite honestly the picture could be better there is no HDMI connection on the box only a scart one.

stevenf17

Storm 10 wrote: »

Could I just ask is there a picture difference between cheap scart cable V dear ones. Reason I ask is I have a UPC digital box and quite honestly the picture could be better there is no HDMI connection on the box only a scart one.

With scart, the quality of the cable does actually make some difference.
The signal is analogue so it can deteriorate or be susceptible to interference on cheaper cables and especially if you are using longer cables, eg. +3m

zg3409

Storm 10 wrote: »

Could I just ask is there a picture difference between cheap scart cable V dear ones. Reason I ask is I have a UPC digital box and quite honestly the picture could be better there is no HDMI connection on the box only a scart one.

Firstly you must have a non HD UPC box. Also even if you had a HD UPC box 99% of channels are still standard definition. On very large TV's the quality does look bad.

Some better scart cables have 21 wires and can send the signal via RGB instead of composite. I am not sure if the UPC box can do this but you would need a "thick" scart cable and then set the TV to Scart number 1 or 2 RGB. There also may be a setting on the UPC box for RGB on scart, however I don't think it will really help if you have a 50" TV.

GSPfan

zg3409 wrote: »

This should not be the case. Is there a TV aerial connected into the "aerial in" port on the Sky box. If so take it out. Does the interference dissapear? If so then you need to change the "RF CHANNEL NUMBER" on your Sky box.

See here for the procedure depending on your model of box:
http://www.sky-remotes.com/setup-sky-magic-eye.shtml

The default seems to be 68 so try other numbers.

When you have done this you will need to re-tune your TV to find the Sky box again. You need to choose a channel number that is not in use in your area for analogue TV nor Digital TV nor Cable TV (if possible) Try different numbers until one works.

You may be onto something here. No i have no other cables going into the sky box. Just the two from dish and the RF2 output. My sky dish is mounted on the chimney beside the saorview antenna. Both recently installed. I renovated an old house. The idea was to put the sky box in the attic and run a coax from the RF2 into the bedroom. All was working fine until i plugged in the coax into the tv. Done an auto tune to find the sky channel and i got normal picture but fuzzy sound. But i also picked up a few of the irish channels, rte etc. and they are fuzzy too. So my thought was that they are interfering with each other somehow. Unplugged all the sky gear but the rte etc. channels were still fuzzy.

I have not tried the RF channel number thing but i will when i get home. I stretched a scart from the attic sky box into the tv and it all worked fine so my thoughts were that i could buy a scart or hdmi cable and run that to the tv through the attic and down the wall were the tv is hanging and only use the coax to control the magic eye. If i could get rid of that bloody fuzzy sound it would solve everything.

zg3409

OK. I don't really understand properly.

You say you have a Saorview TV aerial. This SHOULD be connected to the RFIN on the SKY BOX. Then from the RF2 should be ran down and into the coax connector on the TV (via the Sky eye box)

Do you currently have two coaxes both going to the TV? One from Saorview aerial and another from Sky box?

Also if you have a Sky box what is the Saorview aerial for, which TV etc?

In the basic case the RF2 from the Sky box should be the only cable going to the TV. If you also want to put Saorview to the same TV the saorview aerial needs to be connected to the RF in on the Sky box.

GSPfan

zg3409 wrote: »

OK. I don't really understand properly.

You say you have a Saorview TV aerial. This SHOULD be connected to the RFIN on the SKY BOX. Then from the RF2 should be ran down and into the coax connector on the TV (via the Sky eye box)

Do you currently have two coaxes both going to the TV? One from Saorview aerial and another from Sky box?

Also if you have a Sky box what is the Saorview aerial for, which TV etc?

In the basic case the RF2 from the Sky box should be the only cable going to the TV. If you also want to put Saorview to the same TV the saorview aerial needs to be connected to the RF in on the Sky box.

You are understanding me better than i am explaining. 😊.

My knowledge of the saorview antenna and signals and whatever are less than basic. To be honest i had no idea about saorview until i got a guy out to align my sky dish and he asked if i wanted the saorview antenna installed while he was on the roof. So i got it installed without ever intending to use it.
When i re-wired my house i ran two coax cables each to 4 rooms from the attic.

So at the moment i have a saorview antenna on the roof and a cable which runs into the attic and into a splitter. Then 4 coax cables run from that splitter to a tv face plate in each of the 4 rooms.

Also

I have another 4 coax cables from the attic to each room which i intended to use to distribute sky around the house. I got two cables from the dish ran into the attic where i have placed a sky box.

But here is the funny thing. I have no cables from the saorview antenna connected to anything with the sky box. I even unplugged all of the saorview cables out of the splitter in an attempt to eliminate interference with the sky box.
Yet i still am able to pock up fuzzy channels on my tv when i try tune stations in and thats without any cables run to it. Strange. Its a panasonic viera tv which is about 5 years old. It has dvb wrote on the front but ive no idea what it means. I basically used it in my old house with the sky box beside it and a scart lead doing the job of linking the box to the tv. Now with the coax from the rf2 output im getting this fuzzy sound problem.

Sorry for the mess of information. I appreciate your help. If i could solve this without having to run a new hdmi or scart to the tv it would be brilliant.