Video Asylum

Posted by Audiophile15 (A) on December 05, 2002 at 12:03:20

Hi guys.

I recently purchased a brand new Philips 42" plasma screen to go with my existing home theater system. The plasma came with an "e-box" - essentially a glorified external tuner - that connects between the plasma and your receiver/processor. It seemms that there are a couple of options to route the video signal to the plasma, and I would really appreciate some advise so that I can get the maximum picture quality from the plasma.

For starters, all of my video devices (S-VHS, DVD player) are connected to my processor via S-Video (I cannot go component because the processor is older and does not have component ins/outs). I therefore have to go out from the processor to the e-box via S-video as well.

Now here comes my question. The e-box has four video outs that go to the plasma: Composite, S-Video, VGA and Component. Ruling out Component for the above reason, and composite because it sucks, that leaves me with two options: S-video or VGA. The e-box came with a rather cheap looking cable to connect the e-box to the plasma. Will I receive better picture quality going from the e-box to the plasma using this cheap VGA connector, or by using a reference quality S-Video cable (I would use Tara Labs' RSC S-Video cable)? Is VGA an inherantly superior connection to S-Video, or is the reverse true? If VGA is in fact better, does any know of any high end audiophile or videophile cable company that makes a better VGA cable than the one supplied with the plasma?

Thanks so much.

Rob