Cabling for various components in an entertainment system can be fairly complicated and very pricey. With analog cables the high cost makes sense. Pickup and loss along the length directly affect the signal, so very low resistance wires (heavy gauge copper) with high quality shielding that is separated by the center conductor by a fair distance and preferably driven are very important to signal quality. Good analog signal cables are expensive.
Digital is completely different. Signals are transmitted quickly but are either 1 or 0. No in betweens. Noise pickup is almost irrelevant. This is one of the major advantages to digital signal transmission. It also means that you do NOT need any special care in the cable. This means that digital cables should be much cheaper than analog. I picked up my HDMI cables for about $3 each (including shipping) online. Cheapest I could find at a store: $30 at Radio Shack. Most are over $50 with plenty of them being over $100!
There is zero reason for these cables to cost over $10...or for them to not be included with devices that use them. Zero. It's a rip off. Unfortunately for most (low-info) shoppers, this information is not exactly handed out at anyplace that sells these cables. They make too much money to let people in on the scam.
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