Does the picture quality go down if using component cables instead of HDMI?

Question

In reference to an HD DVD player on an LCD TV, is it worth going out and getting an HDMI cable for my HD DVD if I already have component cables?

Answer 1

not if your component cables are HD. both will go up to 1080.

Answer 2

Component cables transfer an analog signal. But they do it very well. You can not see the difference with the naked eye. HDMI transfer a digital signal. One feature of digital signal is that copy right protection can be written into the code. So film studios are pushing the HDMI interface to all of the major electonic manufactors.

Answer 3

HDMI is the preferable way of transferring HD, and it is digital. To answer your question, in some applications, YES. In others, NO. If you are transferring 1080p signals, many TVs will not display 1080p over an analog source (which is component). This happened to me when I connected component to my TV, it only showed 1080p when the cable "told" the TV it was sending 1008p, so on analog, even though the source was 1080p, the TV didn't know it, so it didn't show it. For most other applications, however, you should be okay.

Answer 4

You cannot get a 1080p picture from component cables.....only HDMI.

Answer 5

I'm afraid Wesley is totally wrong.

As long as the component cables are rated for HD signals (or 90 Mhz or more) they can transfer 1080p video signals (which max out at 35 Mhz).

If you buy 'component' cables made for standard def signals - they will appear to work. But you might have a bit of loss of focus and ringing/ghosting of the image.

HDMI is preferred and tends to be cheaper ($38 for a 12 ft from BlueJeans). But there are some handshaking issues and you have to re-calibrate your TV for the image.  Also - If you have a HD-DVD player (or any player), the player will up-convert standard def DVD's only through the HDMI output, not the component output.