I don't think we can broadly describe what's "low-price" or "high-price" cables. Price is relative. But I do want to say that there are poor quality HDMI cables. I have my PS3 hooked up to a 1080pSamsung 40A650 TV. Connection-wise, the PS3 is hooked up to my Yamaha RX-863 amplifier, and output to my TV. The cheap cable is used for HDMI out. For the first few days, everything seems fine. But then I started noticing snow, flicker, and much later, total darkness. The odd thing is that sound is still output via the HDMI cable; I'm just not seeing any display.

Thinking it was a PS3 related problem, I looked online and found some interesting theories:

1. 1080p output on PS3, with the Samsung 40A650 is no go. Must be 720p or lower
2. 1080p/24 must be disabled on both TV and PS3
3. Amplifier must not do upscaling. Set only to passthrough
4. Bad HDMI connection on amplifier. Send for repair
5. Bad HDMI cable. Change cable.

After some (very long) experiment period, I can conclude that my problem is with the HDMI cable. I can confirm this is the case because I can't output anything using the cable anymore, on any of my TV or monitor, using either the PS3, XBox360 or upscaling DVD player. It seems that the cable has deteriorated after only a couple of days' use. Just for knowledge, the cable is a 2 meter, gold-plated HDMI cable by Promax.

To make a simple point, when a working cheap cable is compared against a working expensive cable, there's no noticeable difference. I guess that particular cable was simply faulty. Anyhow, I bought that cable for only RM38. Very cheap indeed. However, the replacement cable I bought is still working fine. Got it for only RM50.