In the review I posted yesterday of the LG OLED C1 Series TV, I pointed out that when I originally connected it to my Apple TV 4K (2nd generation), I sometimes encountered an error message that my HDMI cable did not support HDCP, even though it should have had that support. Here are some additional details on that problem and how I solved it by purchasing a Belkin Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable.
HDMI cables have been around since 2002, but the technology has changed over the years. Thus, two HDMI cables that look the same may support different features. You can read about the evolution on Wikipedia, but the current standard is HDMI 2.1, released in 2017. It supports both 4K and 8K resolution, and it supports a high 120 Hz screen refresh rate. It also supports eARC, which I described in yesterday’s post. HDMI 2.1 cables can also support Ultra High Speed of 18 Gigabit per second to 48 Gigabit per second.
When I purchased my new LG television, I knew that the older HDMI cables that I had been using would not fully support 4K, so I needed something new. I read good things about Monoprice brand cables, and they seemed to have all of the features that I wanted: HDMI 2.1 and 48Gbps. So I purchased a 5-pack on Amazon.
For most of my content — including everything that I streamed from Apple TV+ — the Monoprice cables worked great. But when I tried to watch movies that were in the highest-quality version of 4K on some other services, I ran into problems. For example, The Matrix movies are available on HBO Max, and a few months ago, HBO started to offer versions in 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. But when I tried to play those movies using the Apple TV 4K hooked up to my LG C1, I could hear the audio but got only a black screen. And then, after a while, I would get an error message telling me that my HDMI cable did not support HDCP – a form of digital copy protection that is supposed to block you from creating a pirate copy of a movie that you download in 4K. That made no sense to me because the Monoprice cables were supposed to support everything that I needed. If I watched the same movie using the HBO Max app on the LG’s own webOS — in other words, bypassing the Monoprice HDMI cord connecting my Apple TV to the LG television — the movie played great.
I encountered the same problem with other Ultra HD movies on HBO Max, Hulu, and Netflix when using my Apple TV, but those movies played fine when I used the apps on the LG television itself.
After doing some additional research, I found folks online saying that the cord that Apple sells at Apple Stores to go along with the Apple TV 4K is the Belkin Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable. At $39.99 on Amazon, it is about four times as expensive as the Monoprice HDMI cord. But folks who posted comments on Amazon said that this cord solved issues that people had been having with the Apple TV, so I figured I would give it a try.
And sure enough, this Belkin HDMI cable works great. As soon as I replaced the Monoprice HDMI cord between my Apple TV 4K and my LG C1 television with this Belkin HDMI cord, everything worked perfectly. I’m still using the Monoprice cords for my other connections, including the eARC connection from the LG C1 television to my receiver.
I don’t know why the Belkin cord works when the Monoprice cable does not, but I guess I’m just happy that I found a solution. If you are in the market to purchase an HDMI cord to use with your Apple TV — and especially if your existing HDMI cable is resulting in HDCP errors — I recommend that you purchase this Belkin cable and see if it solves your problems, as it did for me.
Click to get the Belkin Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable from Amazon ($39.99).