Just a quick one on HDMI cables: if you want useful and well-argued views on them I wouldn’t normally direct you to the website of a cable vendor. But Blue Jeans Cable seems to be an exception. It says things like:
HDMI is a digital signal, and what that means is that when it works well, it works perfectly; we’ve written a lot elsewhere on this site (see our HDMI Information Center) about the problems with HDMI, but it remains the case that when a cheap cable will do the job perfectly–which is the case in many HDMI applications–there’s no compelling reason to spend more.
Just the kind of thing I’d say. Read more at its aforementioned HDMI Cable Information Center. And note its particularly lucid explanation for why HDMI cables cannot be labelled in certain ways.