Video Asylum

Posted by David Aiken (A) on July 11, 2007 at 06:09:21

In Reply to: RE: HDMI or Component connection? posted by ishmael on July 10, 2007 at 10:55:20

I got my first components with HDMI in July last year, a Loewe LCD TV and a high definition settop box for off air TV stations here in Australia, and soon followed them up with an upgrade to a Denon 2910 DVD player. The TV only has 1 HDMI input and 1 component input and my NAD receiver didn't handle either so I did a bit of experimenting to find out whether I thought HDMI or component looked best so I could connect the DVD player to the TV in that way. I thought HDMI had a slight edge so that became the DVD connection. I subsequently upgraded the receiver to one with 2 HDMI inputs so I could get HDMI switching and now everything is connected by HDMI. I don't do any upscaling in the DVD player, settop box or receiver. All upscaling gets done by the TV since none of the other components can upscale to the TV's 1366 x 768 resolution.

My only reservation about HDMI is a slight hiccup with audio but not video between the settop box and both the receiver and TV. The TV does not recognise the audio component of the HDMI connection from the settop box at all, though it handles audio via HDMI fine from the DVD player. The receiver does recognise the audio component from the settop box but the audio signal drops out every now and then for a second or less every now and then at some times of the day with the receiver, usually during the evening news. I don't notice this problem at all at other times. It's a real but relatively minor annoyance.

I don't think the difference with video is big but I do think there is a small but subtle difference in favour of HDMI in my system. Part of that could easily be cable quality.

As an added advantage, the HDMI connections have certainly simplified the connections and I think that is a another plus in HDMI's favour.


David Aiken