Chord C-View HDMI HDMI does not degrade gracefully. An analogue cable that is not quite good enough sounds slightly dull; an HDMI cable that is not quite good enough gives you white sparkles, a picture that drops to black every few minutes, an audio format that silently refuses to appear, or a handshake between source and screen that never completes at all. It is a pass-or-fail connection, and as bandwidth has climbed the margin between passing and failing has narrowed considerably. The Chord Company redesigned the C-View from the ground up to sit on the right side of that line. It now runs at 48GBps, which is the full current HDMI data rate, and supports 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz, Dynamic HDR, HDCP2.3, eARC, 3D and all HDMI audio formats. Chord describe it as a complete overhaul of the original design rather than a revision, and the specification list is the least interesting part of it. What was changed to reach that list is the part worth reading about. The plug is where the money went The HDMI connector is nineteen conductors squeezed into a shell originally designed to be cheap enough to give away with a television, and it is where most HDMI cables fail. Chord's redesign concentrates there. The plug gains improved shielding from an aluminium outer skin, the conductors are routed more carefully inside the shell, and a PE filler damps the assembly mechanically. Conductor and insulation were both revised at the same time, and the shielding along the cable itself was reworked to cope with the higher data rate. None of this is glamorous, and Chord do not pretend it is. It is the difference between a cable that establishes a link and holds it, and one that works until the day you buy a 4K/120Hz games console. What a good HDMI cable can and cannot do It cannot make a picture better than the source. Within the specification, the pixels are the pixels. What it can do is carry the highest-bandwidth format your equipment actually supports without falling back to a lower one, hold that link when the cable is bent round the back of a wall-mounted screen, and keep the radio-frequency noise flying about a rack of AV equipment from being conducted straight into the ground plane of an amplifier that is also handling analogue audio. That last point is why HDMI cabling belongs in a conversation about sound and not only about pictures. Technical Specifications Bandwidth 48GBps Resolution 8K at 60Hz or 4K at 120Hz Dynamic range Dynamic HDR Copy protection HDCP2.3 Audio return eARC Also supports 3D and all HDMI audio formats Plug Improved shielding via an aluminium outer skin; revised internal conductor routing; mechanical damping from a PE filler Lengths 0.75m, 1m, 1.5m, 2m, 3m Who Is It For? Anyone connecting a current games console, 4K disc player or streaming box to a modern television or AV receiver, and anyone whose existing setup shows the symptoms — intermittent black frames, a receiver that loses eARC, a display that refuses to offer its highest refresh rate. It is also the obvious cable for a system being specified now that will have to cope with sources bought in five years' time. If your equipment tops out at 4K/60Hz and you have no plans to change it, a cheaper cable will do the same job and we will say so. And note the length limit: the C-View is made up to 3m, so a run from a rack to a projector at the back of a room is not what it is for — Chord's active optical HDMI cables exist for that, and the physics rather than the marketing is the reason. Where a subwoofer or loudspeaker run needs sorting in the same system, the Chord C-Sub Analogue Subwoofer Cable and the Chord C-screen X Speaker Cable come from the same range. For a heavier-built HDMI at a higher price, see the Chord Clearway HDMI, and the whole catalogue is on our Chord Company collection page. Buying from Martins Hi-Fi HDMI problems are miserable to diagnose remotely, because the symptom is almost never where the fault is — a failing handshake looks like a broken source, a dead ARC looks like a television setting. If you are troubleshooting rather than upgrading, bring us the details of every box in the chain and the order they are connected in, and we will work through it with you. When you get in touch, you'll be speaking with Dave, Chris and Tim at [email protected], call 01603 627010, or WhatsApp on 07554 687137. You can read more about how we work on our Why Martins page. We are at 85–91 Ber Street, Norwich, NR1 3EY.
