Mark Johnson over at Audioholics had a problem - his wife. You see, Mark and his wife bought a new home and Mark got his wife to concede to his wish for a home theater in their living room. Just one catch - no wires could be visible. Now I have to say, if my wife made this request of me I’d be in a lot of trouble. But Mark was game, and found himself a nice HDMI cable at Blue Jeans Cables. It cost him $115 for a 7 meter cable. I guess I shouldn’t point out that at MonoPrice.com you can get a 25′ HDMI cable (slightly longer than 7 meters) with gold plated connectors for $27.95. Hmmm. I just visited the Blue Jeans Cables website, and see a 25′ HDMI cable for $51.75. Why did he pay $115? Hmmm…

Anyway, Mark gets it all set up only to get fouled by the fact that his DirecTV box’s HDMI connection cannot be passed through an HDMI repeater (an his Yamaha receiver acts as one) on the way to the destination. This is a problem with many tuners. So he has to either get a separate HDMI switcher (not the same as a repeater) or connect the DirecTV directly to his display. Which is really annoying. This is something that consumers should really complain about. We want our stuff to work! Not being able to be routed through a receiver is terrible.

Audioholics - A Practical HDMI Cable Solution & Installation

P.S. No, I still haven’t received my DVI-HDMI cable in the mail. I’ll tell you about my experiences once it gets here.