@gokuan003 A properly functioning cheap HDMI cable will give the same image as an expensive one. They are differentiated by warranty, build quality and ( in some cases) shielding.

If you do not mind switching cables when/if you encounter a problem, you are much better off buying a handful of inexpensive ones than one expensive one. But if you need to reduce the risk of defects orit getting damaged easily, you might want to buy a more expensive one.

Note, that this is true for most fully digital cables, though SPDIF coaxial cables are an exception (since they are re-badged RCA coaxial cables built to tighter tolerances).

So yeah, feel free to buy the cheap ones and spend the money on things that make a bigger difference to you workflow, unless you are in a high risk environment where you want to pay for a bit more peace of mind.

at the risk of being a wet blanket, I would buy a quality one (hopefully reasonably priced) over many cheap ones because I prefer not to add to the throw away society syndrome. I can't say I never go to the dollar store in a pinch, but even then I look for the stuff that feels solid. When you factor in the time you spend hunting down your box full of cables, or going to the store to find a new one, it can sometimes be cheaper getting the goods right off the bat anyway. Just remember big names and big prices don't always mean quality. Reviews are nice to read even for cable's and cable companies.

The wet blanket has left the building.

@Driftwood - Regarding - "@Itsguy Look at the rock on the right between the two in 24p! Much more detail. Besides that do some grading."

Sorry to say, that's just wet from rain, it starting raining exactly as I changed from one body to the other unfortunately. I've mostly tried to look at areas which didn't get wet - but in this case the top of the stone on the right did. I will do some grading as you advise.

Result! I am delighted to report what you already knew - while the stock codec does a good job within the limits of ungraded footage as used by the average consumer, grading reveals much more latitude in the hacked footage, in particular more detail lurking in the shadows - see the dark area to the left of the plant.

This reminds me of grading film in telecine suites in the good old days, when you could find lots of information hidden in the shadows and choose whether to reveal it, something that was lost in the early video cameras with their horrible linear gammas and ungradable shadows and highlights.

I hope you can appreciate my emphasis on a sceptical scientific approach - it's great to see beautiful hacked films but boring side by side tests are needed or it can get pretty subjective. Donated (again), and thanks and congratulations to @driftwood and all.

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@skaiman Nice test, thanks! Is it just my eyes or is there a lot of noise in those shots?

@Vitaliy_Kiselev, @driftwood,

3rd donation has been made. Thank you, guys.

Here are a few more shots from Akihabara using VY Canis Majoris Night with a 14-42 kit lens. These are ungraded, and shot on standard at 0 0 0 0, at 1080 24p with a film speed of 100 and ISO 1250. The more grainy close up was shot using EX TELE. Off subject, but how do we shoot in 30p? More videos to come in a day or two or three or...

@mee why would u use shutterspeed of 100 when you're filming at night?

@No_Surrender, OK, that's what I thought, but wasn't sure. Is HBR optimized for current hacks, or is it best to use 24p for 1080?

@peternap i don't know, maybe the compression from my vimeo upload version or ISO bug. Do you see lots of noise in the graded shots as well? (i have a really crappy monitor at the moment) and i didn't really paid attention to it. No denoising and sharpening applied... although i think denoising would be quite unnecessary at 160...

@skaiman mee....I was just asking. It's hard or me to tell noise from grain from texture with this patch. I'm on a laptop. I shot a bridge the other day with Day and swore what I was seeing was just the texture in the concrete.....until I ran Neat Video.

@peternap, I am not on the best monitor in the world either, but Skaiman's ungraded stuff looks very clean to me. A couple of my last three night shots definitely have some noise on the other hand.