This $150 HDMI Cable Boosts Image Quality.. WHAT??
This $150 HDMI Cable Boosts Image Quality.. WHAT??
2017-09-28
I gotta be honest guys I don't really
know what to say here
it's like I don't even know which way is
up anymore I mean I looked in the right
direction but I think you get what I
mean
okay so Marseille claims that it's
special em cables can improve image
quality for both games and video content
but surely it's snake oil I mean the
claims on the box couldn't possibly be
true
could they well we've done literally
hours of video capture so you can see
for yourself
Corsairs Boyd pro gaming headsets
feature microfiber mesh fabric and
memory foam ear cups as well as custom
tuned 50 millimeter neodymium drivers
check them out at the link below from
the get go the m cable stands out as a
little different from the other hdmi x'
on one end and hdmi connector labeled
source okay I'm with you so far
then on the other end an HDMI connector
and a USB connector well what it turns
out is that this is to power the digital
signal processor that marseilles claims
to have designed from the ground up for
video processing and then built into the
cable I mean to say that my BS detector
got true good would be a gross
understatement we all I mean literally
everyone in the office thought that this
thing would be great fodder for our
useless tech over a hundred series I
mean look at the obviously faked results
in the marketing materials I mean if if
if those are real you are getting some
magic grade upscaling on the cinema one
and for the gaming edition you're
getting anti aliasing without any
performance loss spoiler alert it is not
as good as the Box might indicate but
don't turn that dial folks this one gets
real interesting before we get to
testing though a set-up guide n cables
upscaling only works if the output
matches the content resolution so for a
480p game or movie you have to actually
set your TV or monitor to that
resolution rather than just stretching
it to your native one in software second
the m cable cinema's 1080p to 4k
upscaling relies on detecting a 1080p 24
FPS signal this is their film mode
recognition feature starting with the
gaming Edition hmm at native resolution
they're processing
isn't doing the Windows desktop any
favors that's a drawback now let's fire
up some games what the frak
this is rise of the Tomb Raider at 720p
you're seeing this right it looks like
anti-aliasing is on well okay let's just
grab a regular HDMI cable and whit's
seriously and this is not isolated to
Tomb Raider we're looking at
significantly smoother diagonal lines
across the board and look at these
cables at the beginning of the Deus Ex
mankind divided benchmark at 1080p the
improvement is noticeable as well if a
little smaller so it looks like it's not
just upscaling but actually providing
AAA and pretty decent anti-aliasing at
that I mean compared to running 8x MSAA
on your video card in Deus Ex we're not
quite there but we're doing way better
than FX AAA and stacking 8x NSAA with
the end cable gives us even better
results as for running two M cables in
series though most people probably
wouldn't like the over sharp effect but
csgo players take note of these
shimmering model outlines let's go back
to one cable then but let's throw some
older games like quake 2 or unreal at it
whoa at 480p the difference is night and
day it basically looks like 720p and at
720p it's not as dramatic but the
improvement is there so at this point we
were thinking well ok the lower the
resolution the better then right well
while an M cable would go great with a
Playstation 3 or a Playstation 2 even on
an HDMI converter unfortunately you can
only go back so far Super Mario World
really didn't look its best with the M
cables current scaling algorithm anyway
and we think one with a scan
line generator or pixel art scaling like
hqx ----builtin would make it much more
ideal for retro gaming assuming that
Marcy's claims with respect to input leg
hold true and actually more good news if
there's any leg our 240 FPS camera can't
detect it so that's another win for M
cables marketing so other than the still
clearly faked screenshot comparisons on
the Box the gaming Edition somehow
passes the snake-oil test but what about
the cinema version at 480p upscaled to
1080p anime really sees a major bump in
visual fidelity
although color banding can get
exacerbated somewhat pay particular
attention to the lines of inori's face
and the cracks in the ground Big Buck
Bunny sees significant smoothing of its
blockiness especially around the edges
of objects which is what we'd expect
from this filter by now and as for a
480p YouTube rip from Brandon's red
weapon review take one look at the
difference in this scene with max in the
forest and tell me that that doesn't
look significantly better when shown
these results the Universal response at
the office was and I quote what the fuck
that's 480p are you sure you didn't mix
it up yeah we're sure as for 720p
sharpened edges still give the edge haha
to the M cable in anime while Big Buck
Bunny sees details that were fuzzy in
480p subscale that now looked relatively
sharp and meanwhile our red capture
still looks pretty good at 720p on its
own but depth and sharpness of smaller
details both get a big boost
check out the reflection on Max's eyes
and her hair in this shot at 1080p on
like the gaming edition the sharpening
effect just isn't as necessary or
pronounced but what it does do is remove
blocking artifacts and improve
the dynamic range of compressed content
since 1080p content typically has fewer
artifacts on YouTube than lower
resolutions we're seeing a more
pronounced effect which is great news
for internet streaming when upscaling to
4k our 1080 footage looks noticeably
sharper compared to a normal HDMI cables
1080p output and here we can see clearer
improvements on small details like Max's
hair though compared to true 4k output
there is visible fringing on the edge of
her face so it's not as good as clean 4k
but definitely better than 1080p now a
prime helpfully pointed out that these
are all things that he could do with
Premiere and Photoshop but until he can
do it 224 to 60 scenes per second
without a noticeable delay I'll continue
being impressed by the EM cable
leading us to the conclusion then these
things actually work but would I
recommend them for a hundred and fifty
US dollars with a couple of improvements
it actually becomes a no-brainer I'd
like to see a scaler toggle on the
gaming edition so that doesn't mess with
my text on the desktop and I'd like to
see flashable firmware with specialty
filters for certain applications like
retro gaming but there are definitely
folks out there that I'd recommend it
for today like anime fans with large low
resolution collections console gamers as
long as you don't go to retro and anyone
who does a lot of web content streaming
keeping in mind of course the display
resolution caveat so I can't believe I'm
saying this but great job Murr say it
doesn't go down like this often but you
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