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Reid Malenfant
14-09-2010, 17:35
I'm pretty sure i'm not the only person on here with some kind of AV system judgeing from the replies to my TV licensing thread :eyebrows:

So i thought i'd share something with you all...

As Mark linked to a few items he had on at sale prices on another thread instigated by Joe (The Black Adder), i thought i'd try out one of his HDMI cables. I needed a 5M cable to run from a dual output 5 way switch box to my projector so i purchased one over the weekend & it turned up today.

Let me tell you that this cable is a true revelation!

Here is why ;)

In case you don't know it i run a Panasonic DMP-BD80 blu ray player, this has been modified so it'll play any region blu ray as well as DVD. I never had a single problem with the Panny until i bought a new TV - Philips 56PFL9954H. The big problem was that it had a distinct problem getting a consistant handshake & occasionally the picture would drop out & the dreaded U73 would appear on the panny display. This was with 1080P BDs, if i put in a 1080i disc it'd mess about even more until i'd give up & remove the disc & stick it in a Sony BDP-S550 & get used to a slightly rougher picture.

With DVDs it was worse still & i'd lose over 50% of the screen being up.

I tried lots of different & decent cables but in the end i figured it was just a problem between the output of the Panny & input characteristics of the Philips. I couldn't have been more wrong :lol:

Said cable arrived today & i thought i'd give it a go on my other DMP-BD80 in the other room on a 42" Toshiba. That happened to be connected with another 5M long cable that gave a pretty picture with lots of nice random sparkly bits all over the show :doh: Replacing it with the G720 & the thing is totally clean with no random sparkles, great, so it's better than the other cable.. I spin a blu ray & marvel at the picture for about half an hour when i wonder if it'll do any good with the 56" in the cinema room...

Plugged it in & the Panny splashscreen is totally stable :eek: This has never happened before! So i left it for 15 minutes with not a single glitch, then i got out a BBC BD with 1080i content & lo & behold we have a totally stable screen with zero dropouts 2614 Perhaps i forgot to mention that i couldn't ever get the audio to run on the TV via the Panny? Sony was fine but now i have perfect audio from the Panny on the Philips to 2614

The interesting thing is that i was using only a 1.5M & 2M cable previously :scratch: So this Mark Grant 5M cable gives much better results than Chord 1.5M Silver Plus HDMI lead & QED Qunex 2M lead :eyebrows:

Not only that but looking at the picture i have a feeling i'm going to have to re-calibrate the TV as colours are bolder & screen brightness appears to have increased into the bargain as well. I'm using the same input that i calibrated the Philips to with the Panny player.


So all in all this is a totally solid recommendation for Mark Grant HDMI cables, i'm so impressed i'm likely to change every cable for these or the newer G1080 within a week :trust:

Mark Grant
15-09-2010, 21:58
Thanks for the comments Mark, much appreciated.

The HDMI cables with the G720 part number are an older design hence they are on a clearance price.

(Nothing wrong with them and are perfect for 1080P, 3D etc and really are high quality and 'High Speed'.)

There are a few left here if anyone is interested:
http://markgrantcables.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=35_53

http://markgrantcables.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=38_26

Many lengths are out of stock as I will soon have newer version HDMI cables with ethernet. ( also known as 1.4)


Mark.

Reid Malenfant
18-09-2010, 17:32
Thanks for the comments Mark, much appreciated.

Mark.
Hi Mark, you just can't imagine how happy i was to finally have a connection with zero handshake problems, no picture drop outs when viewing de-interlaced material & audio :eyebrows:

I know there is a bit of an issue between the Panasonic player & the TV, the Sony has no problems at all so it's all been a bit puzzling :scratch:

The 8M G1080 & 4M G720 that i ordered off of you arrived this morning :) Very fast delivery thanks!

I tested them both, the G720 was obviously going to do the trick though this will be used elsewhere. The 8M G1080 intially didn't like the Panny splashscreen but everything else was ok. However, as i'll be feeding at least 2 HDMI inputs on an Octava 5 x 2 distribution amp & then outputs to both the TV & projector i thought i'd wire it in & see what happened ;) The TV will actually be fed via the 8M cable so it makes sense...

The splashscreen came back up with no problems & i'll be damned if the picture isn't even better than the G720 cable (which was the best i had ever seen previously) :stalks:

I did notice improvements in the picture over a period of a few days with the G720 so i'll now leave this hooked up & see if it does the same trick :eyebrows:

Reid Malenfant
18-09-2010, 20:01
I did notice improvements in the picture over a period of a few days with the G720 so i'll now leave this hooked up & see if it does the same trick :eyebrows:
No s**t Sherlock :eek:

About 4 hours or so of continuous video input & the picture is looking better than ever :eyebrows: Colours are just incredible, the more difficult shades are the most noticeable. Detail has gone through the roof...

I have been playing a BBC blu ray - South Pacific & i just noticed that they used 720P cameras to do the filming, never noticed this previously as it just wasn't clear enough on one of the video diaries (third episode, last 10 minutes). This disc is ending so i'll stuff on an animated film which i know very well & see what it does with that, the G720 with Monsters Vs Aliens was pretty incredible as there were noticeable pores & stubble & vastly more colour shades on the characters faces. Looking forward to this one :smoking:

These HDMI cables are the dogs danglers ;)

Reid Malenfant
14-10-2010, 20:50
I have now installed Mark Grant G1080 between the Panasonic blu ray player & the Octava switchbox :)

The picture on my 21/9 TV has improved even more, I didn't think it was possible but changing from a 1.5M non descript cable to a longer 2M MG G1080 has resulted in an even better picture :)

Ok, so these are not audio cables but if the video is anything to go by (which requires vastly more bandwidth) then the audio cables should be Nordost (or indeed any cable) killers :eyebrows:

I think i'll have to try the MG audio cables, if they do what these do for video then it'll be a real revelation :wow:

By far the best value for money HDMI cables i have ever come accross, just incredible performance from what i'm seeing :lol:

I keep coming back for more....

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 07:27
Took a punt on one,daft not to at that price! Ta for the heads-up.

Thermionic
15-10-2010, 09:46
Fascinated to read that such changes can happen with HDMI leads Mark. I don’t know anything about digital video, but I wonder if by changing the cable lengths from standard 1.5m to longer we are into the realms of changing VSWRs at the sort of frequencies involved? Or perhaps timings of the various signals or data stream through different lengths of cable changes the error rates through reflections and phase cancellation? Perhaps there are ideal lengths of this type of wire. I know that in an analogue TV studio cable run lengths can be important for timing and signal quality (actually isn’t HDMI lead very thin?), and getting the correct length of RF feeder to the arial can be important for best transmitted signal strength. Just a few random thoughts.:)

Reid Malenfant
15-10-2010, 13:21
Took a punt on one,daft not to at that price! Ta for the heads-up.
Ali, this is the only cable i have found that sucessfully handshakes the Panasonic blu ray player to my Philips TV :eyebrows: Even 1.5M of other very good cable gave significant problems with zero audio (read my first post).

Very good VFM imo & the only cables that allow my system to work properly ;)

Fascinated to read that such changes can happen with HDMI leads Mark. I don’t know anything about digital video, but I wonder if by changing the cable lengths from standard 1.5m to longer we are into the realms of changing VSWRs at the sort of frequencies involved? Or perhaps timings of the various signals or data stream through different lengths of cable changes the error rates through reflections and phase cancellation? Perhaps there are ideal lengths of this type of wire. I know that in an analogue TV studio cable run lengths can be important for timing and signal quality (actually isn’t HDMI lead very thin?), and getting the correct length of RF feeder to the arial can be important for best transmitted signal strength. Just a few random thoughts.:)
Hi Gino, i don't think VSWR is much of a problem in this instance, what is a big problem though is cable capacitance. What we are dealing with here is a pretty high frequency but the real killer is that the signal being digital must keep the rising & falling edges of the signal as square as possible (seeing as we are dealing with ones & zeros). Significant cable capacitance will round these edges until they start looking almost like sign waves :eek:

The Mark Grant G1080 is a pretty thick cable (about 1CM) & uses silver plated 24 gauge copper conductors. That silver plating will certainly help at the frequencies that are attained & no doubt the insulation will be thicker reducing the cable capacitance. From what i have read each individual data pair is also screened rather than the overall bundle as in most cables & then the whole lot is double or triple screened. They are very well made indeed, much better than a few i have tried that died due to broken connections between cable & plug :rolleyes:

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 15:34
Be interesting what effect it has.It'll be used between Sky+ box and Toshiba 42" LCD.

Reid Malenfant
15-10-2010, 15:40
Ah, so 720P output or 1080i. Well it'll deliver a better signal to the TV that's for sure :) If i remember right my Toshiba 42" did a very good job of de-interlacing & scaling come to that so i expect you'll notice a difference ;)

Reid Malenfant
15-10-2010, 15:46
Another thing, give the cable a few days to let the picture really get to where it's going to be. Yes the picture does improve with a few days use even though it's stunning from the off - it gets better :)

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 15:56
Good to know,I'll give it a couple of days. I thought Sky only went up to 720?

Reid Malenfant
15-10-2010, 16:02
They broadcast either 720P or 1080i & i don't know if there is any way you can tell what's being transmitted? :scratch: Frankly i'd rather get 1080i as then only de-interlacing is involved & you have the full frame at 1920 x 1080.

Scaling is usually a bit more problematic & takes more processing. Definately from 1280 x 720 to 1920 x 1080 :eyebrows:

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 16:33
I'm sure my other half mentioned something-she works for Sky.I will ask.

Thermionic
15-10-2010, 18:07
Thanks for the info Mark, I need to get up to speed with modern TVs!

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 18:23
She says they don't quite make the 1080, the very best you get is about 1072-ish!

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 18:24
..and most HD stuff gets nowhere near that.

Reid Malenfant
15-10-2010, 18:30
Thanks for the info Mark, I need to get up to speed with modern TVs!
There is a lot i need to learn to, but i'm getting there gradually :eyebrows:

She says they don't quite make the 1080, the very best you get is about 1072-ish!
Ooooh, that's good enough. What's 8 lines when you are taking 1080? :lol: Remember the old 625 line 4/3 TVs? Well a lot of that was teletext information as only 576 lines were displayed, though sometimes you might see odd black & white bits at the very top of the screen crawling accross - that was the teletext information ;)

..and most HD stuff gets nowhere near that.
Except for blu rays ;)

Ali Tait
15-10-2010, 18:32
Yes indeed,I'm just talking about broadcasts!

Ali Tait
16-10-2010, 09:38
Just wanted to comment on Mark Grant's service. You can see from the time of my previous post when I ordered the cable yesterday. It arrived in the post this morning. How's that for service!

Reid Malenfant
16-10-2010, 10:52
Indeed, all three orders i have placed with Mark got here very fast indeed :)

Don't forget to let us know what you think of the cable Ali ;)

Ali Tait
16-10-2010, 11:18
Will do.

Canetoad
16-10-2010, 11:20
Yep, I've received everything I've ordered within a day or two as well. Great service!:)

Darren Cotter
02-03-2011, 19:40
Hi All,

Sorry to kick start an old thread, but this one seems perfect.

I am interested in getting two of Mark’s G720 HDMI cables both being 4 meters in length. They will be used on a Blu Ray, and a DVD recorder, and both units are currently outputting 1080P via non descript 3 meter cables.

Do you think these will be suitable? I have a 2 meter G1080 between my Sky HD and TV, and it was a good improvement over the cheap but regarded That’s cable.

Regards,

Darren

Reid Malenfant
02-03-2011, 19:46
Hi Darren, yes the G720 is still great stuff imo. I use a 5M length of it between my Octava HDMI distribution amp & my projector. The G720 are dead cheap on MGs site & in reality unless you are going to go for stupid cable lengths (i run a G1080 from the Octava to my TV - all 8M of it :eek:) then you may as well use the G720.

Connectivity is exactly the same & the cable will support anything you can throw at it. Picture quality wise there is only a slight difference over shorter lengths i found, but then i had serious handshake problems between my Panasonic blu ray & TV which either of the MG cables cured :eyebrows:

Marco
02-03-2011, 19:48
Hi Darren,

What I'd advise you do is speak to Mark (Reid Malenfant) about this in the AV Studio (there is a section for AV cables there), as I believe he has recently bought the MG cables in question and raved about them! :)

Marco.

Marco
02-03-2011, 19:49
Ooops... I see that Mark's beaten me to it! :eyebrows:

Marco.

Reid Malenfant
02-03-2011, 19:49
Beat you to it boss :D

Darren Cotter
02-03-2011, 20:10
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies. I thought they would be OK looking through the thread, but just wanted to double check. Have ordered two 4m lengths.

Regards,

Darren