RTFATitle : "Most important 18 patents" and the potential FRAND encumberance relates to those.

Some of those patents are encumbered by FRAND : Fair, Reasonnable and Non Discrimatory.
Such patents are essentiel to a global normalisation in which participant have to disclose their related patents and licence them in a fair, reasonnable and non discriminatory way. You can use them to get royalties but you'll have a hard time using them to block someone.

Remember, in Nokia vs Apple, Apple settlement rather quickly. In Apple vs Motorola, the litigation is still pending. So it seems that Apple considers those patents are rather weak.

At last, remember, Google bought Motorola also because it threatened OTHER ANDROID licensees !!!

It originally said : "you forgot the <sarcasm> tag" but /. considered it a true XML tag and stripped it.
I didn't use HTML entities.

I should have used the preview button.

You forgot the tag.

In theory, there are no difference.
In reality, almost no one plays for 2 years : most players stays only a few weeks or months and switch to a new game.

So, it is much more easy to find 2 players playing for 1 year than 1 player playing for 2.

And its price has been established on the statistical cost of usage. Ask Sony for perpetual right to resale your game without feature loss, and they'll be happy to give you a sell you a more expensive version.

You need 19 of them since HDMI is using 19 connectors. And 20 for HDMI Ethernet Channel.

Indeed HighSpeed is certified for 1080p (while most short Standard cable might work) and is required for 3D but it is NOT required for Ethernet since this is a independent feature. You can have Standard cable with or without Ethernet and HighSpeed cable with or without Ethernet.

Actually, this is Standard and not Normal. Sorry :)

There is no such thing as a "better cable". You have certified cable (made from better quality component for longer runs) and you have non certified or deceptive products.
Once a cable has passed the certification, ALL CABLES are the same regarding image quality.

Cause you buy a certified product.

HDMI certification does not care about the raw quality of the components required to build a cable. It just validates that the cable works.
So yes a longer cable requires better components. But as an end-product, it stays a Standard HDMI Cable or a HighSpeed HDMI cable.

IT'S A SCAM !!

By cable, I mean a finished product with soldered connectors at both ends.

Straight from HDMI.org (emphasis added) :

So, I bought a finish product that has been tested for reliability.

Now, you might buy raw cable that might be enough to build short cable or a long cable build from this BUT the end result does not bear the Standard HDMI Cable certification. And if it does and still fails to properly display your image : GET A REFUND for this deceptive product.

Whatever the length of your cable, either it works and display a perfect picture and earns its HDMI certification or it does not work properly and its NOT a valid HDMI product. And you get a refund for this deceptive product.

I don't care that with a longer cable, it requires higher quality cable parts. I want a Normal Speed HDMI cable or a HighSpeed HDMI cable.

I buy a certified product, not raw components to solder myself.

For those who didn't realized what this is because this is unbelievable.
This cable is used to connect a Denon DVD player to a Denon AV Receiver to transmit digital audio.

This is a 1.5m RJ45 Ethernet Cat5 cable.
For half a grand.

And from the owner manuel

Until 1.4, all cables were the sames but had different qualities. This quality was not "certified" until 1.3.

In 1.3, they defined cable Categories :
- Category 1 (renamed Normal in 1.4) was certified for 1080i
- Category 2 (renamed HighSpeed in 1.4) was certified for higher resolutions and frequencies (like 3D)

Category 1 is certified for displaying 1080i but would generally work for 1080p 2D content.
Category 2 is required for 3D. In 2D, it is required for insane resolutions or frequencies no consumer video source or display support.

1.4 added Ethernet over HDMI using a connector pin that was previously reserved hence not soldered (pin 14). This is called HDMI Ethernet Channel and HDMI ask to label it HDMI HEC. So far, I haven't found a single HDMI HEC TV.

It looks like HDMI really wants to avoid consumer confusion to slow its adoption and with 1.4 cable specification and guidelines, it seems they REALLT wanted to cut the BS on cable "quality".