If you've ever bought any gadget, whether it is a TV, a laptop, a camera, a tablet or a phone, in the past five years, you have met HDMI. Sometimes it is the regular HDMI, mini HDMI cable, or even a micro HDMI cable. As the name suggests, all three are different, the regular one being standard in most use cases. But then what do we need the other two for and how are they different?

The main difference in any cable standard is its usage. Since HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface, you can use the cable for audio-video data transfer.

The mini HDMI cable comes into play when you want to connect a gadget to perhaps a computer or a TV. The port is generally on devices that have less space to spare. For example, a DSLR camera, video cameras, and standard size tablets. All of these devices are compact to make it as portable as possible.

On the other hand, the micro HDMI cable is for when there is an even smaller space than mini HDMI. The few examples of these are smartphones and smaller tablets.

Let's take a detailed look at the different use cases of these two cables:

1. Photo Booth

Photo booths are a popular party feature nowadays. While most people don't print photos nowadays, vintage photo booths did print photos. You can have a similar concept but with a digital camera and digital printing setup. You can have a camera set up on a tripod, and connect it to a laptop via the mini HDMI cable for quick edits. Add a printer to the laptop and you have your photo booth read!

Add a funky backdrop, arrange some props for people to use and modify the camera settings for the situation. You can have a person taking the photos and another who can make basic alignment edits and print. If you wish, you can offer different types of prints as well, like the one that comes out of an instant camera, one with four pictures like a filmstrip, one simple average frame sized print, etc.

Instant prints can be a hit because you'll be giving tactile souvenirs that people can put on their fridges and have framed rather than a 24-hour long story on a social media account.

2. Movie Night

Powerful projectors are tiny now. They have so many features that they can even replace your TV. But if you just need one for cozy movie nights while camping, you don't need a high end one. Simply, get a lightweight one with decent inbuilt speakers that you can connect to your phone via a micro HDMI cable. And voila! There's a movie theatre in the middle of nowhere!

Add some cheese popcorn, make some smores, fill up your hot chocolate mugs, and settle next to the fire for the best movie experience possible. Because of this, you don't need to watch movies on your phone alone. You can share the movie with your fellow campers!

These are some of the unique advantages of HDMI cables. One can liven up a party with a fun photo booth, and another can take the big screen to a campsite!

Article Source: https://www.sooperarticles.com/shopping-articles/electronics-articles/different-use-cases-mini-micro-hdmi-cables-1746852.html

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The battle between HDMI and DisplayPort is not new. But if you really understand them both, you will know that each serves its own purpose. In this blog, we will talk about how to get the best display results with the use of these two cables.

A wide range of devices come with HDMI port, from TVs to laptops and projectors. DisplayPort, on the other hand, has a much more niche usage (or acceptance or requirement). It is great for a gaming setup and external monitor usage in a workstation setup. It works great with most graphics cards and has a daisy chain mechanism, so you can hook up more than one monitor to a single CPU with just one DisplayPort on it.

Let us explore the nuances of the different setups that work with the HDMI cable and DisplayPort cable:

Entertainment Setup:

Since all TVs have an HDMI port on it, it is the easiest and the best option for this setup. Generally, a TV has around two or three HDMI ports. With the increase in streaming devices, this is great if you want more than one option. You can use one port for a channel setup box, the second for a streaming device and yet a third one for connecting a soundbar.

HDMI Arc output gives you the option to route audio out to a soundbar. This is, of course, very convenient as you can extend your music system beyond simple TV speakers. You are free to switch up to whatever speakers you want to use, including the latest ones that have digital assistants built-in.

This gives you the flexibility of switching out the streaming device if you ever want to plug in your laptop to the TV, leaving the soundbar and the channel setup box as a permanent setup.

Another different entertainment setup is when you want to use a projector. All standard projectors have HDMI compatibility. So, you can attach your source device and a soundbar to it.

HDMI’s ubiquity provides an assurance that you can buy a device with this standard and expect it to work with the rest of your setup over the coming years. Device manufacturers will not want to instantly disconnect you from their brand, so no matter how much “courage” they have, the HDMI port is not likely to disappear from everywhere suddenly. This is why the cable is cheap to buy.

Such a setup would not require a particularly long HDMI cable. An average of 3 to 5 feet should be just enough, though SF cable does have a variety of options to suit your needs.

Gaming Or Video Editing Setup:

We can easily club these two setups in terms of the devices used. Whether you are gaming or editing videos, the most important thing is the monitor. You need something with a high refresh rate, ideally 90Hz or more. But the monitor’s refresh rate is not enough to get the best results. You need to connect the computing source to it, with a DisplayPort cable that can drive such a high refresh rate.

DisplayPort has this neat function of being able to daisy chain monitors. You can connect one monitor to a CPU and add the rest to it. This makes for a neat setup even when your CPU does not have more than one DisplayPort. This is of great value for video editing because you need to be judicious with the ports.

An efficient setup tends to have three monitors: one for a full display, and two for the edit timeline. Additionally, this setup needs to have advanced no latency audio output, through speakers or headphones. If required, a sound mixer is also a part of this editing suite.

If gaming is your priority, a two or three monitor daisy chain connection via the DisplayPort cable is essential. You can add a joystick, controllers, and headphones or speakers. Just like video editing, gaming also requires zero-latency data transfer and you can do it using DisplayPort.

With both, the HDMI cable and the DisplayPort cable, it is important to note what version you are buying. The ports and the cables have to be of the same version. If your cable is older but your device is new, then you will not get the best results.

For optimal display experience, you must check their compatibility. The newer your port and cable, the more future proof it is.

SF Cable offers all kinds of cables under the sun, in varying lengths. Contact us today to start building your dream entertainment and working setup!

The debate is not between HDMI and DisplayPort because their version and your requirement are what really matters for the perfect display. Learn what all these cables can do. 

If you buy a new TV or soundbar, you might have come across the new label about “ARC” while setting up the HDMI adapters. That indicates one of the best features which saves your money, reduces cable web and makes your set up more simplified.

Ever since the HDMI 1.4 was introduced in the market, ARC is available on TVs, soundbars, and other gadgets. It is a protocol which offers two-way communication between devices over a single HDMI connection. This port lets you use HDMI as both an input and an audio output.

It came in 2009 and became a common standard. Majorly you would find it with all types of TVs, soundbars, and receivers. All the devices which support HDMI 1.4 would support ARC.

• First and foremost, you will be able to connect your audio system with a single HDMI cable. For that, connect your soundbar to the TV with the ARC-capable port. After that, you can use it for every device that connects with TV. It includes Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other devices. Plus, it does all of these through the TV itself. You do not require a separate audio receiver.
• You can run the connections mentioned above through the soundbar itself. It allows you to shift the multiple HDMI connections from the TV to the soundbar without any additional setup. In some cases when your TV is wall mounted and you can’t access all of the HDMI ports or simply want a clean look which includes fewer cables, the arc capable ports are perfect. It requires lesser cable installations.
• ARC system also comes handy when you connect the TV with a soundbar or speaker system. You can also use the ARC connection to deliver audio from the TV to your speakers. Without the HDMI Arc, you will need to go into the TV settings to activate the “Receivers” or “External Speakers”. But with the ARC, it automatically sends the TV’s audio to whatever external device is connected with it.
• With ARC supported system you can deliver sound to your soundbar without any other connector with a dedicated audio cable.
• With HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) like Blu-ray players or satellite boxes, you can use ARC to reduce both the number of cables used and the number of controls needed for your system.

To set up ARC completely with the system, you can follow the steps given in the guidelines below. Depending on the model and manufacturer, it might take some time to activate it.

Determine the ARC port on your system. Most TV manufacturers offer ARC output over HDMI port instead of all three or four port on the set. Mostly they try to indicate it with labels. If HDMI adapters ports don’t have proper labeling, check the TV manual. It will help you navigate to the HDMI ARC that you can use.

Activate the ARC output on the TV to start leveraging it. You can find this feature in the settings menu under audio. In many TVs, this feature auto-detect devices with ARC capacity. While in others you need to turn on the feature manually.

One thing to keep in mind while plugging in your stuff is that ARC-enabled port should be there with your external audio device.

Even our brand-new iPhone model would have some drawbacks. Just like that, the simplicity of ARC and audio over HDMI is viable, but it has some disadvantages as well. The main aim behind designing this stuff was to replace S/PDIF digital audio outputs. Thus, it supports each and every audio format that wouldn’t normally pass through S/PDIF. For instance, Dolby Digital, DTS and PCM audio. It can handle TV’s regular two-channel audio and 5.1 surround sound without any troubles.

Even though it replaces the S/PDIF standard, it can’t send HD or high-bit-rate audio with high standards like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. It can be little overwhelming as the downstream audio over HDMI can carry the signal without any obstacles. This is ARC related disadvantage only which is one of the major limitations of the ARC specifications.

Some TVs actually downgrade the audio output over ARC by converting everything to two-channel sound even if it originates as 5.1 audio. Depending on your TV model you might wind up with the lower sound quality even after using ARC. In this case, if you want, you can connect an extra audio cable or two which may cause more trouble for you but will be worth it.

In the present scenario, many TVs dumb down and compress audio signals before passing them down to HDMI cables while others do support more channels. Dolby Atmos albeit uses a compressed codec like Dolby digital plus instead of Dolby True HD. Now that requires much bandwidth. But with ARC, you can send the original, full-resolution audio signal via HDMI cables. Which produces the best sound without any compromises.

This Article is Originally Posted here; https://www.sfcable.com/blog/hdmi-arc-what-why-you-care