{"id":13226,"date":"2026-04-26T02:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T09:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/adventures-in-av-im-a-home-theater-geek-and-im-stuck-with-this-simple-cable-problem\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T18:28:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T01:28:48","slug":"adventures-in-av-im-a-home-theater-geek-and-im-stuck-with-this-simple-cable-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/26\/adventures-in-av-im-a-home-theater-geek-and-im-stuck-with-this-simple-cable-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in AV: I&#8217;m a home theater geek, and I&#8217;m stuck with this simple cable problem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p id=\"elk-e63e4adf-afb2-4066-bdea-6f75a023eeb2\">Isn&#8217;t it frustrating when things just don&#8217;t work?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve experienced my fair share of software gremlins in the products I test on a daily basis, which makes my troubleshooting at home a little easier. The usual answer is to turn something off and turn it back on, but that solution doesn&#8217;t solve every problem.<\/p>\n<aside data-block-type=\"embed\" data-render-type=\"fte\" data-skip=\"dealsy\" data-widget-type=\"seasonal\" class=\"hawk-root\"\/>\n<p id=\"elk-e63e4adf-afb2-4066-bdea-6f75a023eeb2-2\" class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">The problem I had is related to playing Dolby Vision content on my Sony OLED TV with my Sky Stream box, which results in a strange visual artefact: white spots that flash randomly when streaming content in dynamic HDR format.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"article-continues-below block py-2 text-sm\">The article continues below <svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"inline-block w-2.5 h-2.5 ml-2\" fill=\"currentColor\" preserveaspectratio=\"xMidYMid meet\" viewbox=\"0 0 1000 1000\"><path d=\"M1000 100L500 900 0 100h1000z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/p>\n<aside data-component-name=\"Recirculation:ArticleRiver\" data-recirculation-type=\"inline\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"Trending Bar\" data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"clear-both pb-0 pt-2 mb-4\">\n        <span class=\"&#10;            flex&#10;            after:content-[''] after:flex-1 after:ml-4 after:my-[0.7rem] after:border-t after:border-solid after:border-t-[#ccc]&#10;            before:content-[''] before:flex-1 before:mr-4 before:my-[0.7rem] before:border-t before:border-solid before:border-t-[#ccc]&#10;            font-article-heading pb-0 !text-base uppercase sm:text-sm font-bold&#10;        \"><\/p>\n<p>            You might like it<br \/>\n        <\/span><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Most people, including my housemates, would happily ignore these, but not me. Instead, I started reading through the settings of my TV and Sky Box, and swapped between HDMI sockets to ignore the problem.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Nothing seemed to work, and if I used the HDMI pass-through socket on my sound bar, the picture would cut out completely.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">That&#8217;s when it dawned on me: is my HDMI cable wrong? Scrolling through the Sky forums, I found many users saying that the Stream puck comes with a high speed cable, and one post even said it&#8217;s a better idea to use the cable that comes in the box.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">However, since I am not a transgressor, I did not ignore this advice. One benefit of being surrounded by AV and home cinema gear 24\/7 is that I don&#8217;t run out of HDMI cable, and I quickly found a high-speed cable rated for 4K.<\/p>\n<div id=\"slice-container-newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-2PT82PHuh58fEZctbmYpL8\" class=\"slice-container newsletter-inbodyContent-slice newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-2PT82PHuh58fEZctbmYpL8 slice-container-newsletterForm\">\n<div data-hydrate=\"true\" class=\"newsletter-form__wrapper newsletter-form__wrapper--inbodyContent\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-form__container\">\n<section class=\"newsletter-form__top-bar\"\/>\n<section class=\"newsletter-form__main-section\">\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The latest hi-fi, home cinema and tech news, reviews, shopping advice and deals, delivered straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">I changed the cables, played the most recent episode, which is now very disappointing <em>Euphoria<\/em> on HBO Max in 4K Dolby Vision, and like magic, the problems were solved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">It sounds simple and obvious, but I think many of us, myself included, just think that the cables that come with our home theater products should do the job, but they don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">Now, I know that discussing digital cables is a controversial topic. Many of our readers have expressed disdain for the pricey &#8220;snake oil&#8221; HDMI cables that do all sorts of applications and can run hundreds (sometimes thousands) of pounds, and to be honest, I&#8217;d recommend steering clear of those too, unless <em>i<\/em> most of the home cinema lovers have the money to burn.<\/p>\n<aside data-component-name=\"Recirculation:ArticleRiver\" data-recirculation-type=\"inline\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"Trending Bar\" data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"clear-both pb-0 pt-2 mb-4\">\n        <span class=\"&#10;            flex&#10;            after:content-[''] after:flex-1 after:ml-4 after:my-[0.7rem] after:border-t after:border-solid after:border-t-[#ccc]&#10;            before:content-[''] before:flex-1 before:mr-4 before:my-[0.7rem] before:border-t before:border-solid before:border-t-[#ccc]&#10;            font-article-heading pb-0 !text-base uppercase sm:text-sm font-bold&#10;        \"><\/p>\n<p>            What you can read next<br \/>\n        <\/span><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">But your run-of-the-mill certified HDMI cable is the real deal, and one of those doesn&#8217;t have to cost all that money. I&#8217;ve seen many on Amazon for anywhere between \u00a35 and \u00a310, and they can be a quick, cheap and effective way to troubleshoot your home cinema setup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">And for troubleshooting purposes, it&#8217;s surprising how often a picture-related problem can be fixed by double-checking that you&#8217;re using the correct HDMI cable and socket.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">While there, some TVs require you to select the correct setting for your HDMI sockets; for example, my previous Philips OLED907 and current Sony A80L TVs required me to go into input settings and select &#8220;advanced format&#8221; to enable some HDMI 2.1 features, including VRR and 120Hz playback.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\" aria-hidden=\"true\">This is a simple fix that&#8217;s often overlooked, so if you&#8217;re experiencing image problems yourself, do yourself a favor and check your cables before you start poking around in the settings menus.<\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-20b46235-8b42-415a-a988-efff764550e6\"><strong>MORE:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Check out our selection of <\/strong><strong>excellent OLED TVs<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>As well as- <\/strong><strong>best streaming devices<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>And read our full <\/strong><strong>Sky Stream Update<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isn&#8217;t it frustrating when things just don&#8217;t work? I&#8217;ve experienced my fair share of software gremlins in the products I test on a daily basis, which makes my troubleshooting at home a little easier. The usual answer is to turn something off and turn it back on, but that solution doesn&#8217;t solve every problem. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-audio-sound"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13228,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13226\/revisions\/13228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}