There’s a lot that goes into getting the best possible quality out of your viewing experience. Your TV, your 4K Blu-ray player, your audio equipment, and yes, your cable, are all very important. It’s extremely easy to overlook your HDMI cable, especially if you’ve been using the same cables for years. A good rule of thumb is to use the cable that comes bundled with your device, but you don’t always get one included with the purchase. I buy a lot of my electronics used to save cash, and that often means I have to supply my own HDMI cable.

The good news is that it’s not hard to track down the correct HDMI cable for a 4K Blu-ray player. What might surprise you is that you don’t need the latest and greatest cable to get the most out of your player — and I’m not talking about HDMI 2.2 cables. It doesn’t take a lot to get your 4K Blu-ray player running in tip-top shape.

You don’t need the newest cables for the best performance

But there’s nothing wrong with using them

HDMI cables are all over the place, and the newest format available is HDMI 2.2. That offers 96 Gbps speeds, something that’s totally overkill for a Blu-ray player. In fact, it’s overkill for pretty much anything available today. What’s stranger is that HDMI 2.1 cuts that speed in half to 48 Gbps, and there’s still only a handful of things that need the cable for optimal performance. Basically, only game consoles need that cable to take advantage of variable refresh rate (VRR) and 120 FPS gaming. Aside from that, HDMI 2.0 is perfectly fine.

This applies to your 4K Blu-ray player as well, so if you have an HDMI 2.0 cable, there’s no need to use anything else. The HDMI 2.0 cable is more than enough for your 4K Blu-ray player, and you won’t notice a difference whether you’re using one of those, a 2.1, or a 2.2 cable. Now, what’s cool about the HDMI format is that you can easily buy the latest cable available and use it across all of your devices. That same 2.2 cable will work all the way down to devices that supported the early beginnings of the format, such as your PS3. However, using something older, like a 1.4 cable, will give you some trouble. It’ll work, but those cables don’t support HDR.

No, it won’t magically give your PS3 VRR support or anything of the sort, but it’ll be compatible. HDMI cables are already difficult to tell apart as it is, so having functionality like this is a blessing and a curse. A good rule of thumb is that if your cable has Ultra High-Speed printed somewhere on it, you’re good to go. If you have an older cable, it’s very easy to go out and get a new one for cheap. Thankfully, HDMI cables have stayed rather cheap while the price of everything else has felt like it has skyrocketed in price. You don’t need to rush out and upgrade your older cables by any means, but the option is there for when you want to.

HDMI 2.0 will work out just fine for the foreseeable future

No new players are on the horizon

It feels like more people are getting into 4K Blu-ray discs, and that’s great news. If you want the best quality available, it means you have to get a dedicated player because it’s the only way to get access to HDR formats such as Dolby Vision. I have a Sony UBP-X700 player myself, and I’ve had it for several years. It’s a model where I have to manually toggle on Dolby Vision, so it does get a little annoying, but since it’s cheaper than the Panasonic players, I put up with it. It’s also nearly a decade old, so it feels like it’s time for a refresh.

Strangely, companies don’t seem all that interested in coming out with new 4K Blu-ray players. Part of that might come down to the fact that there’s no need to, especially if the others can play discs just fine. With no actual reason to make the move to HDMI 2.2 or even 2.1, the juice might not be worth the squeeze.

I really can’t think of a reason for there to be a hardware overhaul. If companies could figure out a way to solve the triple-layer disc issue, then I’d be a happy camper. I’m not sure if that comes down to hardware or software, or if it’s even widespread enough to address. It happens to me, and you’ll find a lot of chatter online about people having problems, but it could be a form of confirmation bias. There might be thousands of people comfortably watching their discs, not even realizing this problem affects a lot of people. Whatever the case is, I don’t see a world where we’ll need something more than an HDMI 2.0 cable with our 4K Blu-ray players any time soon.