Whether you're looking to hook up your DVD, Blu-Ray player or streaming device to your shiny new TV or are an avid gamer who wants to expand your view from the computer to the big screen, an HDMI cable is the solution required. We've selected an assortment of options based on length, durability, and price, all of which offer fast data transfer speeds and high resolution capabilities.

In today's digital age, the ability to send high-definition video and audio signals through a single cable isn't just a technical innovation, but also a necessary tool for consolidating clutter with an ever-expanding home entertainment system. The HDMI cable is a tech guru's best friend when it comes to tricking out their TV and home speaker setup.

HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface and it is the first uncompressed, all-digital interface designed to carry both audio and video signals simultaneously using the same cable. HDMI is backwards compatible with the Digital Video Interface, which was originally designed to maximize the quality of older flat panel liquid crystal display monitors and modern video graphics cards. HDMI is considered the standard cable for use with most modern high-definition televisions, Blu-ray players, digital video recorders, new computers, and video cards. Both HDMI cables and ports are easy to use, and they plug into hardware in much the same way USB cables do. The HDMI cable offers plug-and-play operation, meaning that it delivers the highest quality signal with minimal effort during the setup process.

The HDMI cable leverages transition minimized differential signaling to move information from one place to another. Think of TMDS as the cable's way of encoding traveling signals in order to protect them from degradation as they make their way to a home theater device (e.g. your DVD player and television). This technology delivers the highest video and audio quality possible to the connected devices. To protect information from data piracy while in transit, the cable uses the high-bandwidth digital copy protection authentication protocol. This protocol allows both a source device (e.g. your DVD player) and a receiving device (e.g. your television) to communicate with one another through use of authentication keys.

Each home-theater device has both identification and encryption data stored inside it on its extended display identification data chip. A source device encodes its own information with a unique authentication key, which the receiving device then decodes using the same information. In this sense, the source device validates the authentication key for the receiving device, allowing the cable's audio and video signals to be displayed on your TV. This process is referred to as a handshake between the source and receiving devices and it takes place almost instantaneously inside the HDMI cable itself. If an unauthorized device tries to intercept the data, the source device will cease data transmission. During this process, the source device is also continually checking to make sure that the authentication key hasn't changed.

Several iterations of the HDMI interface have been released since its inception back in 2002, starting with HDMI 1.0 all the way to version 2.0, each with their own advances over their predecessors. That said, they all use the same underlying cable and connector with slight variations in shape and size. The most cutting-edge features now include optional 3D and Ethernet support.

Similar to the DVI format, HDMI cables use a series of connector pins to allow data signals to pass through twisted pairs of copper cabling. Several types of HDMI connectors are now available depending on the device and circumstances, the most recent being the micro-HDMI cable (type D) released with version 1.4 of the interface.