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Are all HDMI cables really NOT created equal?


chiplee
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Pretty much says it all in the title and description.

 

should I buy the $.99 HDMI cables or the $99 HDMI cables?

 

My player and TV support full 1080P resolution. Am I not getting the best out of it if I use cheap cables?

 

oh and is the optical cable worth having?

 

Thought of another one.

 

Does it matter if I run my audio from my TV's out to my surround mixer's in, or should I run my PS3's outs straight to my surround mixer's in? My Surround mixer has HDMI input and output.

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I look at it as a performance build with pep boys 7mm plug wires. Do you think your getting the most out of it? yes it will work and probably if you wernt a car guy (or an audiophile) you wouldnt even notice but you just know it could be better. If your componants are quality you will see a difference. I paid far to much for my Samsung so a lil more on good cables is piece of mind to me. Edited by AndyW
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it has been my experience (worked 2 years installing HD for DirecTV) that the difference in the monster cable can not be noticed by the naked eye. The optimal cable im guessing your talking about is the sound cable, is worth it.

 

Thats just my two cents though.

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If you're going HDMI, then you have no need for the optical cable... because HDMI integrates the video signal and sound signal into one cable.

 

If it were me, I'd go middle of the road for price. The more you pay, the better shielded they are going to be, and this matters if you are running long cables. Doesn't matter so much if they are right next to each other, ex: 6ft or less.

 

Your mixer is a reciever I'm guessing... you should see if it passes full 1080p from the PS3 to your TV first, if so that's the way to do it. PS3 -->HDMI--> Reciver -->HDMI--> TV. This way, you have the option of playing your PS3 games/movies with your surround system OR your tv speakers.

 

You can connect your TV audio output to your reciever as well if you want to watch TV stations listening through your surround speakers. If your TV's audio output is optical and your reciver has an optical in, that would be the "best option"; however, standard RCA's will work just as well.

 

-Robert

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If you're going HDMI, then you have no need for the optical cable... because HDMI integrates the video signal and sound signal into one cable.

 

If it were me, I'd go middle of the road for price. The more you pay, the better shielded they are going to be, and this matters if you are running long cables. Doesn't matter so much if they are right next to each other, ex: 6ft or less.

 

Your mixer is a reciever I'm guessing... you should see if it passes full 1080p from the PS3 to your TV first, if so that's the way to do it. PS3 -->HDMI--> Reciver -->HDMI--> TV. This way, you have the option of playing your PS3 games/movies with your surround system OR your tv speakers.

 

You can connect your TV audio output to your reciever as well if you want to watch TV stations listening through your surround speakers. If your TV's audio output is optical and your reciver has an optical in, that would be the "best option"; however, standard RCA's will work just as well.

 

-Robert

 

Ok, thanks. I was under the impression that the optical output wouldn't be there on a PS3 if it didn't need it with HDMI, but I was forgetting the RCA and the component output options. I guess it's there for them.

 

I'll read up and see if the receiver passes full 1080p. It's a DVD player and it upconverts standard DVDs to 1080i, so I would guess it does pass 1080p when it has a 1080p source.

 

That raises another question. Anyone know if the PS3 is also upconverting standard DVDs to 1080i or better?

 

Right now my configuration is PS3 --> TV via HDMI then TV audio --> Receiver via RCA and optical (yes the TV has optical out, but does not have HDMI out). So it sounds like I could make an improvement if changed to PS3 --> Receiver via HDMI and then Receiver --> TV via HDMI, since I have the ins and outs for that.

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HDMI is 100% digital, it won't matter. It's like your CD, doesn't matter what the quality of the disk is, it's still just 1's and 0's. As long at the reciver sees the at 1's and 0's, it won't matter if there is attenuation or bad harmonics (like in cheap cable), Even with those signal path flwas they sitll are read as 1's and 0's.

 

Kinda like digital TV vs old analog TV. Digital is either there in full or not at all, where analog you see every flaw.

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HDMI is 100% digital, it won't matter. It's like your CD, doesn't matter what the quality of the disk is, it's still just 1's and 0's. As long at the reciver sees the at 1's and 0's, it won't matter if there is attenuation or bad harmonics (like in cheap cable), Even with those signal path flwas they sitll are read as 1's and 0's.

 

Kinda like digital TV vs old analog TV. Digital is either there in full or not at all, where analog you see every flaw.

 

that's what I figured too but the monster cables site is pretty persuasive. I'm finding stuff all over the web that says don't get the monster cables. Even if their "series 1000" cables are the business, you can get similar cables here for like $18 http://www.techsourcepro.com/sections/items/?cat=140

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Cables from monoprice.com are plenty good enough. Monster Cables is all about marketing. The stuff they sell isn't bad... but it's way overpriced. A decent shielded cable will cost about a 1/4 of Monster's price.

 

I avoid "GQ" brand myself... that really is cheap stuff.

 

mike c.

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it's jus 1's and 0's and there's no point to spending 100 on a cable because you don't increase the quality of digital signal. either its gonna go through or it's not. it's either/or.

 

the bit will get their or it won't get their. it's not like a low quality bit will get there, because that's just not how digital works.

 

"A decent shielded cable will cost about a 1/4 of Monster's price. "

 

that too!

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It makes it sound like all of the bits might not get there and you'll get a slightly less crisp image than you could.

And pigs might fly too.

 

Marketing... put a scary sounding warning in there... with the "might" clause so they have a legal basis to stand on. Same as the diet products that say "you could loose up to 120 pounds." They leave out the far more likely "you won't loose a thing using this product."

 

There are only a few key items in ANY cable:

1: the connectors are sized properly to the standard - i.e. will they "fit" into whatever you're plugging them into? Just like cheap air hose connectors (like some Harbor Freight ones) that look okay but don't quite connect to stuff properly.

 

2: Frequency capacity of the wire. Every electronic circuit and wire has some range of frequencies that it will respond to; go outside that range and it begins to distort the signal or starts getting less and less output. (It's called "bandwidth") The HDMI 1.3 specification lists the max frequency digital signal the cable should be able to pass with no more than xx% loss & distortion. NO CABLE is going to perfectly pass a digital signal - just a physical fact. Digital ON - OFF pulses have an INFINITE frequency content. Even a signal that pulses ON and OFF one time per second (one hertz) still has super-high frequency content. A square wave signal (digital on-off) when it actually switches from OFF to ON (or ON to OFF) is making a very rapid change (in theory in zero time - i.e. infinite frequency but of course that can't quite happen) and "very rapid change" is another way of saying "really high frequency." Marketing types can put a cable on an oscilloscope (a TV-screen like display that shows a voltage vs. time plot; if you've ever watched your voice on a green or blue line thing while talking into a microphone you were looking at an oscilloscope) and show "see, the corners are rounded off. That's a sign of a cheap cable." That's a sign of high-frequency loss. EVERY CABLE will show this to some extent - even the overpriced Monster cables. How much though? The HDMI 1.3 spec says what is and is not acceptable; as long as a cable meets the spec it will pass enough of the on/off content that the digital electronics connected to the cable will be able to talk properly.

 

3: shielding - don't want high frequency on/off pulses in the wire to radiate (transmit) and screw up other electronic stuff nearby (think electric hair dryer motors trashing your TV/radio - you don't want your HDMI signal spewing out like that hair dryer) and you don't want the wire itself acting as an antenna picking up nearby electromagnetic noise. (don't want to pick up the hair dryer noise either).

 

For the math/science types out there: A process called "Fourier Analysis" can be used to analyze the frequency content of any signal. A sine wave is the only "pure" oscillatory signal - it has exactly ONE frequency. Any other shaped wave - even if the wave itself has one frequency - is really a sine wave at the main frequency plus one or more "harmonics" which are sine waves at twice the main frequency, 3 times the main frequency, etc. If you combine (add) a sine wave at one frequency with some random combination of sine waves at harmonic frequencies, you can generate all sorts of waveforms. Square waves are a sine wave plus EVERY POSSIBLE odd harmonic. If the square wave was at 10 hz (hz = hertz = cycles per second) it's Fourier Analysis says it is really:

square wave = 10 hz sine + 30 hz sine + 50 hz sine + 70 hz sine + 90 hz sine + 110 hz sine + etc. Eventually you'll be up to "+1,000,000,000,1 hz sine" and beyond, in theory. All the way up to "+ inifinity hz sine" No cable can do those frequencies. So your digital square wave gets "softened" and the on/off transistions take more than "zero time" to occur and the corners of the wave are rounded a bit. Big deal. Happens inside your PC, happens in your HighDef TV, happens in the cables. The cool thing about digital (compared to analog) is that any rounding gets "corrected" anyway: when the rounded signal goes to the digital circuit, the circuit still turns ON or OFF properly because the majority of the ON/OFF signal is still present. In digital, that's all that matters. In analog, the shape and magnitude of the signal IS the signal we want (your TV picture or sound) so anything that alters the shape/size of the signal screws it up. Nothing can "correct it" after it's gone. That's why quality cables make a difference in analog video, high-end stereo systems, etc. That round-off represents LOST high frequency info: on video it would mean pictures would loose fine detail; in audio you'd loose some of the stuff your tweeter speakers try to reproduce. Digital though doesn't use those corners. So loosing them won't cause any loss in video/audio quality.

 

This link Sample Fourier Analysis shows a few common waves and how they're built with sine waves and harmonics. The square wave one shows:

main frequency in the orange curve.

Adding that with the next one in the series: main + 3 times main (3 times main = 3rd harmonic) in the yellow curve. Notice the gross shape is already kinda square.

Add the 5th harmonic takes you from yellow to green.

Add the 7th harmonic takes you from green to blue.

Notice as harmonics are added the shape gets more and more "square." And also note the steepness (slopes) of the ON or OFF transisitions gets closer and closer to vertical (closer to zero time). So the rapid on/off of a square wave is dominated by the high frequency harmonics.

 

That blue curve is fairly representative of what digital electronic signals look like over long cables. Sucky cables get more like the yellow, or even the orange, curve.

Of course, the fat black curve is the ideal/theoretical square wave.

 

mike c.

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And pigs might fly too.

 

Marketing... put a scary sounding warning in there... with the "might" clause so they have a legal basis to stand on. Same as the diet products that say "you could loose up to 120 pounds." They leave out the far more likely "you won't loose a thing using this product."

 

There are only a few key items in ANY cable:

1: the connectors are sized properly to the standard - i.e. will they "fit" into whatever you're plugging them into? Just like cheap air hose connectors (like some Harbor Freight ones) that look okay but don't quite connect to stuff properly.

 

2: Frequency capacity of the wire. Every electronic circuit and wire has some range of frequencies that it will respond to; go outside that range and it begins to distort the signal or starts getting less and less output. (It's called "bandwidth") The HDMI 1.3 specification lists the max frequency digital signal the cable should be able to pass with no more than xx% loss & distortion. NO CABLE is going to perfectly pass a digital signal - just a physical fact. Digital ON - OFF pulses have an INFINITE frequency content. Even a signal that pulses ON and OFF one time per second (one hertz) still has super-high frequency content. A square wave signal (digital on-off) when it actually switches from OFF to ON (or ON to OFF) is making a very rapid change (in theory in zero time - i.e. infinite frequency but of course that can't quite happen) and "very rapid change" is another way of saying "really high frequency." Marketing types can put a cable on an oscilloscope (a TV-screen like display that shows a voltage vs. time plot; if you've ever watched your voice on a green or blue line thing while talking into a microphone you were looking at an oscilloscope) and show "see, the corners are rounded off. That's a sign of a cheap cable." That's a sign of high-frequency loss. EVERY CABLE will show this to some extent - even the overpriced Monster cables. How much though? The HDMI 1.3 spec says what is and is not acceptable; as long as a cable meets the spec it will pass enough of the on/off content that the digital electronics connected to the cable will be able to talk properly.

 

3: shielding - don't want high frequency on/off pulses in the wire to radiate (transmit) and screw up other electronic stuff nearby (think electric hair dryer motors trashing your TV/radio - you don't want your HDMI signal spewing out like that hair dryer) and you don't want the wire itself acting as an antenna picking up nearby electromagnetic noise. (don't want to pick up the hair dryer noise either).

 

For the math/science types out there: A process called "Fourier Analysis" can be used to analyze the frequency content of any signal. A sine wave is the only "pure" oscillatory signal - it has exactly ONE frequency. Any other shaped wave - even if the wave itself has one frequency - is really a sine wave at the main frequency plus one or more "harmonics" which are sine waves at twice the main frequency, 3 times the main frequency, etc. If you combine (add) a sine wave at one frequency with some random combination of sine waves at harmonic frequencies, you can generate all sorts of waveforms. Square waves are a sine wave plus EVERY POSSIBLE odd harmonic. If the square wave was at 10 hz (hz = hertz = cycles per second) it's Fourier Analysis says it is really:

square wave = 10 hz sine + 30 hz sine + 50 hz sine + 70 hz sine + 90 hz sine + 110 hz sine + etc. Eventually you'll be up to "+1,000,000,000,1 hz sine" and beyond, in theory. All the way up to "+ inifinity hz sine" No cable can do those frequencies. So your digital square wave gets "softened" and the on/off transistions take more than "zero time" to occur and the corners of the wave are rounded a bit. Big deal. Happens inside your PC, happens in your HighDef TV, happens in the cables. The cool thing about digital (compared to analog) is that any rounding gets "corrected" anyway: when the rounded signal goes to the digital circuit, the circuit still turns ON or OFF properly because the majority of the ON/OFF signal is still present. In digital, that's all that matters. In analog, the shape and magnitude of the signal IS the signal we want (your TV picture or sound) so anything that alters the shape/size of the signal screws it up. Nothing can "correct it" after it's gone. That's why quality cables make a difference in analog video, high-end stereo systems, etc. That round-off represents LOST high frequency info: on video it would mean pictures would loose fine detail; in audio you'd loose some of the stuff your tweeter speakers try to reproduce. Digital though doesn't use those corners. So loosing them won't cause any loss in video/audio quality.

 

This link Sample Fourier Analysis shows a few common waves and how they're built with sine waves and harmonics. The square wave one shows:

main frequency in the orange curve.

Adding that with the next one in the series: main + 3 times main (3 times main = 3rd harmonic) in the yellow curve. Notice the gross shape is already kinda square.

Add the 5th harmonic takes you from yellow to green.

Add the 7th harmonic takes you from green to blue.

Notice as harmonics are added the shape gets more and more "square." And also note the steepness (slopes) of the ON or OFF transisitions gets closer and closer to vertical (closer to zero time). So the rapid on/off of a square wave is dominated by the high frequency harmonics.

 

That blue curve is fairly representative of what digital electronic signals look like over long cables. Sucky cables get more like the yellow, or even the orange, curve.

Of course, the fat black curve is the ideal/theoretical square wave.

 

mike c.

 

I read every word, three times. I still don't quite see how the 4th harmonic can distinguish purple from ham. If ham is 10hz then it's 10hz. that's all there is to it, and, furthermore, if purple smells like ham, then purple is also 10hz. There's no disputing this.

 

So, given the choice between expensive ham and purple jeans. You use mayonnaise. Questions?

 

 

 

 

That's about what your language sounds like to me mike. I'm glad I picked the job I did. I'd never have to brains to sort that stuff out.

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Chip, take a weekend day and drive into Orange County. I'll draw several sine waves at odd harmonics, then we can "add them up" and you'll see how that multi-colored plot works. It's actually fairly easy to do in Excel. PM me your email address (don't post it online unless you want more spam) and I'll send back a fairly comment-heavy spreadsheet that I'll throw together in the next day or two making a square wave from a bunch of sine waves.

 

The Fourier Analysis of a square wave is basically:

square wave at 10 hz = sine @10hz + sine @30hz + sine @50hz + sine @70hz + sine @90hz + etc.

Only one "ham" is 10 hz, the other ingredients are different frequency sine waves. Draw a 10 hz wave on paper, and a 30 hz wave, and then add them together. That's how the yellow curve was made. Harmonics are not 10 hz... they are some multiple of 10 hz. For a square wave, they are odd multiples only.

 

Bring those busted hard drives too.

 

mike c.

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About the only principal in monster cables warnings that could be plausable (but is unlikely to be a factor) is kinda related to what Mikc C described, the transition from 0-1 or 1-0. This is called the slew rate, a term you can probalby relate to, it exists in many physical forms. The slew rate of a digital signal is mostly dependant on the transmitter and reciver, not the conductor in between though. It takes time for the electrons to change state, but this slew rate of a copper conductor is not a factor untill you get into the upper Giga HZ range, closer to the Tera HZ range. HDMI is probably opperating in the low to mid Mega HZ range. The only thing holding back the speed of fiberoptical data tarnsmission currently is the slew rate of the laser/diode and the photo tarnsistor. It takes time for those molecules to chance state from energized to non-energized, the media in between is not the limiting factor. the same factors are found in most copper baised communications.

 

there is also nominal velosity of propogation dealy (NVOP), it's about 70% in a copper twisted pair. IE, the speed of the electron is 70% the speed of light as it travels though copper (mass slows it down). 70% the speed of light is still pretty darn fast ;) NVOP doens't become a factor untill you are well over 100 meters, and in a network environment where communication must be 2 way and in-sync. Since the slew rate and NVOP are baised solely on the properties of the copper in the conductor (and to a smaller extent the isnulation), as long as the wire is made of copper, it won't matter what brand it is, copper is still copper. You can't do much to alter the slew rate or NVOP of a conductor, and that which you can do involves physical changes in the copper/insulation relationships (using a totaly differnet kind of cable assemlby).

 

I install netwrok cabling for a living, and I have to certfy it on occasion for bandwidth capacity. I have a $7000 network certification analizer that I use on the cabling, and I have seen the effects of different component quality and instalation techniques. The limits of a given specification (cat 6 for example) have different peramiters that must be met. The components used to make up these networks are all built with a little head room. I can say form experiance that the $11 panduit brand jack will have only 5% mroe head room than the $1.75 jack I get from China. When the total headroom is ~15-20%, it really doens't matter. I've seen some of those cheap jacks actualy outperform the expensive ones. I can say from experiance that the $100 box of cat-6 will perform within 95% of the quality of the $300 box, and both will be well within the required spec. Cat-5 is rated to a maximum of 100 Mhz and has a distance limit of 100 meters including partch cords. I've seen it run 100% on a 140 meter long cable at full 100 Mhz speed.

 

 

In the case of a 100-baseT network connection, you can actualy run it outside of it's spec and still get 100% data transfer quality because there is head room on the other side of the equasion as well. When the link is degraded (physical damage or instalation flaw) you will still get the data, but it will "drop bits", meaning some of the 1's and 0's were not getting through. Networks use a check-sum to find these droped bits, it will use a method of adding the bits and determining the product of those bits, it send that product value at the end of a packet (a "check sum"). If the reciver adds the bits up and get the same "check sum"product, it's 100% good data. If just one bit is lost, the product will not add up and the reciver will request that last packet to be re-sent in full. THis will slow the netwrok down as it's doing a lot of duplicate work.

 

I really doubt HDMI uses a checksum as data integrity is not that important, if it gets a bad packet, the only thing that will happen is perhaps a blip on the image, not a corrupt file. It's only one way communicatin anyway (except for perhaps some clocking/sysn signals) so HDMI probalby doens't even use packets, it's likely just streaming data. If you lost a bit, you might get one yellow pixel when it was supposd to be red. at 10' feet away, you wont' see that ;)

 

A HDMI cable is composed of twisted pairs, just like network cabling. Thus I'd expect it's properties to behave very similarly. Baisd on this notion, it's very unlikely that a small varraine in quality will result in -any- signal degredation, and even if it did, you'll likley never see it. the worst thing you can do to these twisted pair channels is make them too long as cross-talk, ingress of induced noise, attenuation, capacitance, and inductance get worse with lenght (and not always linearly). If I were to run a 100' long HDMI link, I might concider cable quality, but not at 6-12'.

 

A good experimant to do, buy both and see for your self. You can take back the expensive one if the cheap one works the same.

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i run hdmi from my ps3 to my sony sxrd and get 1080p from a standard dvd, so yes the ps3 upconverts. i would sell a 6' hdmi cable for $49 bucks and the cost was usually under $10. it's just like most everythng else, the hype of the big name is what you are payng for.
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i run hdmi from my ps3 to my sony sxrd and get 1080p from a standard dvd, so yes the ps3 upconverts. i would sell a 6' hdmi cable for $49 bucks and the cost was usually under $10. it's just like most everythng else, the hype of the big name is what you are payng for.

 

I have the same TV and I also get the 1080p blurb a the top of the screen when I play standard DVDs on my PS3, but I was thinking that was little more than the status of the system's capability on that input, vice the resolution you were actually seeing. The same TV says my HD DVDs are 1080i because they're playing through the compenent video input on the SXRD. The HD DVDs over component are obviously much better than the standard DVDs over HDMI.

Edited by chiplee
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This is obviously too confusing for you to grasp, Chip. Please just send the PS3 to me and I will make sure it is taken care of properly. And don't you dare threaten to part it out first. Edited by averse
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I just got a 50" plasma... was looking at the cables, and saw the insane prices. I was about to go middle of the road at 29.99... Then I saw these cables in a bin for 7.99, gold plated, HDMI 1.3 compatible...

 

Got it and it works great, full resolution and even allows the special features of connecting my Samsung TV to my Samsung reciever.

 

Forgot to grab an optical cable, but I saw one for $25 and laughed.

 

-Robert

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I really dont have a scientific anwser but...

 

I have both 100 dollar HDMI cables and the cheaper ones (20 bux) and i can interchange them on a 50 inch LCD1080P/blueray/PS3 and upscaling DVD player and my "human eye cant tell the difference.

 

 

The dog squints every 2.348mS though... is that a problem?

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I have the same TV and I also get the 1080p blurb a the top of the screen when I play standard DVDs on my PS3, but I was thinking that was little more than the status of the system's capability on that input, vice the resolution you were actually seeing. The same TV says my HD DVDs are 1080i because they're playing through the compenent video input on the SXRD. The HD DVDs over component are obviously much better than the standard DVDs over HDMI.

a newer movie on a standard dvd via hdmi >ps3 looks better than an older movie, say full metal jacket, on blue ray dvd, that's good enough for me. besides if the pic is that clear and the sound is coming through yamaha/klipsch dolby digital it's better than ANY theater i have been in. the popcorn doesn't cost as much as an mpi set up and it's impossible the hear anyone talk or cell phones ringing :rolleyes:

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a newer movie on a standard dvd via hdmi >ps3 looks better than an older movie, say full metal jacket, on blue ray dvd, that's good enough for me. besides if the pic is that clear and the sound is coming through yamaha/klipsch dolby digital it's better than ANY theater i have been in. the popcorn doesn't cost as much as an mpi set up and it's impossible the hear anyone talk or cell phones ringing :rolleyes:

 

and it has a pause button, and anything your girl decides to do to you or for you won't get you banned from the theater.

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