Video Asylum

Posted by sam9 on June 25, 2002 at 10:02:14

In Reply to: Component Video better than Video S ? posted by jose on June 14, 2002 at 13:55:03:

Generally, the rank from best to worst is:
Component is better than S-video which is better than composite.

Also component (or a similar connection, whose name escapes me) is a requirement if you get and HDTV set up.

In practice, you may or may not notice much difference depending on what the your other equipment (monitor/TV, dvd player, cable/sat box etc) is doing with the the different signals. If each is being handled optimally, you should notice the each step up has a discernable but not overwhelming improvement. Although unlikely, it is possible for internal circuitry of a unit to be so poor that component is worse than composit.

A more likely scenario, one I've experienced when I changed AVR, is that that the oldest interface (composite) gets very short shrift (cost consideration ?) and gets worse as you upgrade equipment. The manufacturer probably thinks that a buy of an AVR with component would never use composite so the cicuitry is allowed to become very poor (really awful in my case).