Cables, to aficionados of home cinema, are like tyres to car enthusiasts; a desperately essential part of the mix with wide- ranging effects on performance.
The subjective merits of each brand, their price-to-performance ratio and the validity of manufacturers' features and claims can be discussed endlessly. But that is only half the reason I am a cable guy.
The other reason is that wireless AV connectivity has always been a fiasco - and appears to be getting worse for the HD-era. Worrying then that a recent report by ABI Research predicts a wireless future for HD and AV in the home by 2013.
The current state of play does not look so promising to me: at least four competing formats (UWB Wi-Fi, WirelessHD, Wireless HDMI and WHDI) none of which are actually finalised. They all have limited range and (like HDMI to be fair) are designed to maximise copy protection rather than enhance AV performance. The technologies using 5GHz or 60GHz carrier signals have a directional 'beam', compounding issues of trying to broadcast to multiple receivers, and a low-power 60GHz signal has about the same chance of penetrating a UK brick wall as a marshmallow drill bit.
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