Better quality picture ?

My HD cable box does not have an HDMI outlet.

It has a DVI outlet and component.

Which would give me a better picture?

DVI ------------- HDMI

or

Component-------- Component

Or is it just a matter of preference ?

Thanks

"Postal68" wrote in message
...
My HD cable box does not have an HDMI outlet.

It has a DVI outlet and component.

Which would give me a better picture?

DVI ------------- HDMI

or

Component-------- Component

I tried both on my satellite - D-ILA setup. For a while I had both connected
at the same time so I could toggle back and forth and compare them. Quite
frankly it was hard to tell the difference although if I had to choose it
would have been DVI.

dave gower wrote:

I tried both on my satellite - D-ILA setup. For a while I had both
connected at the same time so I could toggle back and forth and
compare them. Quite frankly it was hard to tell the difference
although if I had to choose it would have been DVI.

I also conducted the same experiment with my Hitachi 51S500 (RPCRT) and
reached the same conclusion. I chose DVI to simplify the cabling.

--

Dave (Since 1962)

-=Perfect Picture. Perfect Sound
Live every moment in High Definition=-

On Apr 20, 8:17 am, "Postal68" wrote:
My HD cable box does not have an HDMI outlet.

It has a DVI outlet and component.

Which would give me a better picture?

DVI ------------- HDMI

or

Component-------- Component

Or is it just a matter of preference ?

Thanks


The DVI is basically the same as the HDMI, but w/o the audio. I would
go with the DVI port, but you will need an audio source.

Keith
http://www.eHDMI.com

"Postal68" wrote in message ...
My HD cable box does not have an HDMI outlet.

It has a DVI outlet and component.

Which would give me a better picture?

DVI ------------- HDMI

or

Component-------- Component

Or is it just a matter of preference ?

Thanks



i had both (hdmi and component) hooked up to my dish sat box. i had a heck of a time deciding which was better- until i was a-b-ing back and forth really trying to make a decision during a baseball game. when they zoomed in on the pitcher as he was winding up, i paused the picture, and i could see the definitive difference. with the hdmi cable the pitchers cap was a gray/black, no texture. with the component you could see the texture of the fabric on the cap perfectly. it was a night and day difference. the next day the $110 hdmi cable went back to the store where i bought it...

--
....mike
reply to fannboyatpacbelldotnet

In article ,
"Postal68" wrote:

My HD cable box does not have an HDMI outlet.

It has a DVI outlet and component.

Which would give me a better picture?

DVI ------------- HDMI

or

Component-------- Component

Or is it just a matter of preference ?

I can't tell the difference, I don't think. There's lots of permutations
you can waste time with here, like:

does HDMI @ 720p look better than component @ 1080i ?

and so on.

My component signal ( @ 1080i) seems more "stable" (out of my Starchoice
box) and deals with the no-def channels a bit better than DVI-to-HDMI,
so that's what I'm using. Starchoice offers something called a "native
resolution" setting which has some unpredictable results sometimes ...
--
W. Oates

"mikey" wrote in message
et...
i had both (hdmi and component) hooked up to my dish sat box. i had a heck
of a time deciding which was better- until i was a-b-ing back and forth
really trying to make a decision during a baseball game. when they zoomed in
on the pitcher as he was winding up, i paused the picture, and i could see
the definitive difference. with the hdmi cable the pitchers cap was a
gray/black, no texture. with the component you could see the texture of the
fabric on the cap perfectly. it was a night and day difference. the next day
the $110 hdmi cable went back to the store where i bought it...

--
....mike
reply to fannboyatpacbelldotnet

Did you calibrate to the same levels on both inputs before making the
comparisons? One of the biggest mistakes when comparing different inputs is
the assumption that calibration is the same. In fact, the biggest
difference is often level differences.

The fact that you spent $110 on an HDMI cable at all indicates that you may
not have done much research. You can get the same performance for a small
fraction of that price.

There is often little or no advantage to HDMI inputs, and it is possible
that component may be preferred. The component inputs obviously have been
D/A converted, which may introduce some softening of detail or artifacts.
Level differences or signal enhancements that might be present on analog
inputs can mask detail or give a different look that might make one think
that there is more detail than in the HDMI signal, but it is unlikely that
it is the case. It might look better, and you may prefer that look, but the
possibility that there is detail present in the component that is not in the
HDMI is remote.

Leonard

"mikey" wrote in message
et...
"i had both (hdmi and component) hooked up to my dish sat box. i had a heck
of a time deciding which was better- until i was a-b-ing back and forth
really trying to make a decision during a baseball game. when they zoomed in
on the pitcher as he was winding up, i paused the picture, and i could see
the definitive difference. with the hdmi cable the pitchers cap was a
gray/black, no texture. with the component you could see the texture of the
fabric on the cap perfectly. it was a night and day difference. the next day
the $110 hdmi cable went back to the store where i bought it...

--
....mike

Judging a picture from pausing makes no sense. It's a crap shoot. When
pausing the picture and doing a single frame advance it's easy to see that a
lot of frames are not sharp or possibly incomplete. It's a bit like judging
PQ of an animation from a paper notebook by viewing a single page or part of
a page. I want to judge the picture as I view it, regardless of input.

My HDTV has 2 component and 1 DVI input so connected the HD media player to
it via 3' $15 component cables. See no reason to change to digital. May be
just too amazing a picture compared to analog to care. So I'm not
disagreeing with your choice just the method.

"Leonard Caillouet" wrote in message ...

"mikey" wrote in message
et...
i had both (hdmi and component) hooked up to my dish sat box. i had a heck
of a time deciding which was better- until i was a-b-ing back and forth
really trying to make a decision during a baseball game. when they zoomed in
on the pitcher as he was winding up, i paused the picture, and i could see
the definitive difference. with the hdmi cable the pitchers cap was a
gray/black, no texture. with the component you could see the texture of the
fabric on the cap perfectly. it was a night and day difference. the next day
the $110 hdmi cable went back to the store where i bought it...

--
...mike
reply to fannboyatpacbelldotnet

Did you calibrate to the same levels on both inputs before making the
comparisons? One of the biggest mistakes when comparing different inputs is
the assumption that calibration is the same. In fact, the biggest
difference is often level differences.

you got me on that. i've got no idea what there is to calibrate or how to calibrate it.

The fact that you spent $110 on an HDMI cable at all indicates that you may
not have done much research. You can get the same performance for a small
fraction of that price.

i knew enough to get the return policy before i bought and made sure i made a decision before i couldn't return it

There is often little or no advantage to HDMI inputs, and it is possible
that component may be preferred. The component inputs obviously have been
D/A converted, which may introduce some softening of detail or artifacts.
Level differences or signal enhancements that might be present on analog
inputs can mask detail or give a different look that might make one think
that there is more detail than in the HDMI signal, but it is unlikely that
it is the case. It might look better, and you may prefer that look, but the
possibility that there is detail present in the component that is not in the
HDMI is remote.

Leonard


--
....mike
reply to fannboyatpacbelldotnet

"mikey" wrote in message
et...


"Leonard Caillouet" wrote in message
...

"mikey" wrote in message
et...
i had both (hdmi and component) hooked up to my dish sat box. i had a heck
of a time deciding which was better- until i was a-b-ing back and forth
really trying to make a decision during a baseball game. when they zoomed
in
on the pitcher as he was winding up, i paused the picture, and i could see
the definitive difference. with the hdmi cable the pitchers cap was a
gray/black, no texture. with the component you could see the texture of
the
fabric on the cap perfectly. it was a night and day difference. the next
day
the $110 hdmi cable went back to the store where i bought it...

--
...mike
reply to fannboyatpacbelldotnet

Did you calibrate to the same levels on both inputs before making the
comparisons? One of the biggest mistakes when comparing different inputs
is
the assumption that calibration is the same. In fact, the biggest
difference is often level differences.

you got me on that. i've got no idea what there is to calibrate or how to
calibrate it.

The fact that you spent $110 on an HDMI cable at all indicates that you
may
not have done much research. You can get the same performance for a small
fraction of that price.

i knew enough to get the return policy before i bought and made sure i made
a decision before i couldn't return it

There is often little or no advantage to HDMI inputs, and it is possible
that component may be preferred. The component inputs obviously have been
D/A converted, which may introduce some softening of detail or artifacts.
Level differences or signal enhancements that might be present on analog
inputs can mask detail or give a different look that might make one think
that there is more detail than in the HDMI signal, but it is unlikely that
it is the case. It might look better, and you may prefer that look, but
the
possibility that there is detail present in the component that is not in
the
HDMI is remote.

Leonard


--
....mike
reply to fannboyatpacbelldotnet

For your HDMI cable check out monoprice.com I recently purchased a 15' HDMI
/DVI cable from them
and the price was less than $10.00 including shipping!! And I could not tell
the difference between the
6' HDMI/DVI cable that I paid nearly $70.00 for (and returned ). The
cheaper cable was as good a quality and I was able to move my HTPC much
further way (15') and for a lot less money.
They run sales on their cables all the time. But, even their regular prices
are much cheaper than the Monster cables and as far as I can tell, as good a
quality, as far as the end results on screen.
james