My component cables viewed better than HDMI cable, am i doing something wrong?

Question

Its hooked up thru the Cable box

Answer 1

What source are you coming from?  Are we talking DVD or cable or Sat box?

Answer 2

Your device is not outputting the full 720p or 1080i.  Usually there's a button to toggle between 480/720/1080 on the DVR or DVD player.

Component is ideal but the industry has artificially hamstrung it.  Commercial HD discs will automatically scale output back to 480 over component.  They're worried about copying, so they screwed the consumer because of their paranoia.

Answer 3

A couple of thoughts:

Each input on your TV may have different color/brightness/sharpness/contrast settings. Perhaps you adjusted the component inputs when you first hooked things up, and now you need to do the same for the HDMI inputs.

Sometimes HDMI detects other connections and down-grades the video as a copy protection measure.  This happened to me when I tried hooking up both HDMI and Component to my HD Cable box.  You may be only seeing 480 on the HDMI feed.  Try disconnecting the component cable, then hook up the HDMI to see if that improves the picture.

NOTE: Once calibrated/adjusted - you should seen almost zero difference in picture quality using either component or HDMI.

Answer 4

It is strange, but possible.  Still - check the outpout settings - make sure HDMI out is set to 720p or 1080i/p.