Question on Home Entertainment systems
 

So Santa was good this year and brought us our first new television in 10 years and wow is the picture ever fantastic. We got the Bravia WL 40" series (1080p, 120hz) so now i'm trying to figure out the best way to hook everything up.

The only peripherals we have is a Nintendo Wii, a 2 year old DVD player with S-video and the fancy component input and a satellite TV box with S-video/coaxial/or basic red white yellow component input. The TV has only one s-video port so I was hoping to put the dvd player on the fancy component input and the cable box to S-Video but I went out looking for the component input cords and they were like $50. Not really wanting to pay $50 for cables when odds are I will buy a blu-ray in the next year so I have maybe a goofy question, could I use the basic component cable (red yellow white) to connect the 3 ports in the higher end component (Y,PR,PB) or is it a completely different cable???

Also, a quick question on Blu-Ray, I looked at a few on boxing day sales and noticed that while you can pick up a Blu-Ray player for anywhere from $199, I saw HDMI cables for $150??? I thought, are you kidding me... they expect you to pay as much for the cable as the machine itself? I also noticed different rated HDMI 750, 850, 1000, etc. Is there a real difference?

And for those of you who already have Blu-Ray, do you feel it was worth the jump yet or should a guy wait a while?

Thanks

Try Home Depot, you should be able to get component video cables for less than $50. The red, white and yellow will not work as the yellow is video and the red and white are audio. Component uses three different video signals and you still need to connect audio somehow on top of that. As for HDMI/DVI cables don't buy the $150 monster cables, you get the exact same quality with a much cheaper cable that you could pick up online or somewhere like memory express for probably around 15 bucks.

For question number one...No you can't they are totally different cables.

For the blue ray with the hdmi i have one rocket something for my satellite that we paid like 100.00 for and then we got a blu ray for xmas and just bought a 30.00 one from best buy and i see no difference..:)

You can get resonable priced s video cables from Walmart. I have them on my daughters t.v and she still has pretty darn good picture.

Just my thoughts on it though:)

You can use the r/w/y cables for component video, maybe not 100% ideal but will work. Cheap place for good cables is Princess Auto. What's also works is just get a roll of RG59 and RCA plugs (there's solder and twist type) and make your own.

HDMI 6' cables are less than $30 at places like Costco, Memory Express etc.

I've just got a cheap Sharp Blu-ray player and works well with my new Plasma. What's also nice is the regular DVDs player better as well.

IME a good quality HDMI cable is well worth the money...although I don't have a ton of experience. ;)

I had originally bought a cheap $40 one from Home Depot (I think) and really was not impressed. I ended up getting a "high end" one from Best Buy (you don't want to know how much :redface: ) and I notice a huge difference. I don't think I needed to spend so much but I would recommend doing your research (as you are) and getting a good HDMI cable at least.

U can go to costco and the cables are way cheaper.

Ok...maybe I am wrong then :mrgreen:

I did notice a huge difference though between the cheaper one and the expensive one. Maybe it depends on the TV?

why would you spend so much on a new tv then cheap out on the component thats going to get the signal to the TV.. While you may not notice the biggest difference from a med priced cable to the super expensive ones.... you need to buy good cables..... makes me laugh when you hear people spending 3000 on a tv at best buy etc.. and then you here them say give me the cheapest cables...... spend the money.... and you are a reefer... we know you like to spend money

It does. If you have a really nice TV that is doing 1080p at 120hz then it makes sense to get a decent cable. These are serious high end units though.

For most people running 1080p at 60hz you won't see much difference in cables 2m or shorter.

Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDw2ZSDzlMw

Check ebay as well..some good deals on high quality stuff..dont skimp on quality....you will enjoy the system much better that way

Marketplace $12 to $200+ cable the same (comparison around minute 7).

If I was running a projector and had a really long run back to the player might consider a higher end cable.

Paying $150 for an HDMI cable is a total waste of money! I am willing to bet money that if I put two identical setups side by side that no one would be able to tell the difference in PQ between a $30 cable and a $150 cable. Monster has done an amazing job of promoting their overpriced cables and the sales droids at the box stores make nice commissions pushing it.

If you don't mind waiting a few days, Monoprice has the best prices for A/V cables, hands down!

I would also say don't get the cheapest cables out there, there is a difference. I would stay away from Monster Cables also, not that they are bad cables, you will never go wrong owning them. They are just far to over priced. You can equal to or better performance out of less expensive cables.

It's amazing what wiring can cost you.

A good place to buy cables is
Monoprice or BlueJeans cables, they are both located out of the US, they might not be as good a deal these days with the way the dollar is.

I agree. If it is a longer run it may make a slight difference, but on a 10-15 foot run it is not necessary to throw good money away on cables.

Thank you very much for the link. That really does say it all.

As far as the comment made about spending large on a tv and a reef so just pay what they want for "good" cables... I don't earn huge money so like most people, I budget. I don't mind spending money on high quality things when I can or should, but I save wherever I can. Quite often you get the same quality at a fraction of the price if you just do a little research. This TV is the only one in the house younger then 10 or 11 years so you can say we've been saving for a while. For me, a blu-ray player is affordable only if I don't spend hundreds of dollars on cables. Fortunately, now I know I don't need to!

As an aside, I've got the DVD hooked up with S-Video and watching the BBC planet earth series as I type this and WOW, what a difference moving up 10 years in picture technology makes. I think I'll leave the connections as is for now until we fork out for a blu-ray player!

Thanks!!

I have Planet Earth on Blu-ray, and it is spectacular on my 50"!

My TV is also 1080p and 120hz and I did notice a huge difference when using a better cable. I know people are saying (someone even bet) that you will not see the difference but in my case it was like night and day. I actually used the cheap one for like 5 months and a friend was over watching a DVD and thought my TV was 720p. He was the one who said the cable was probably the problem and it was. Best Buy probably sold me an overpriced cable (monster) but I am happy and besides the packaging was also nice :D

Xs cargo believe it or not has cheap (price) HDMI cables. Memory express and computer rack are good for these cables as well. Stay away from s video if you can. Its hard to compare different brands because its a digital signal you cant really tell. Your paying for the name and usually better connectors on expensive cables, but how often do you disconnect and reconnect your blu ray or dvd? Never! Go for the cheapest its digital. My 2 cents.

Plane and simple DONT BUY CHEAP CABLES now that is not saying you have to spend 150 on a 6 foot cable but 20 buck cables from super store or crappy tire just dont cut it. A good example is my sub cable i was running a middle of the road monster cable to it sounded OK but it was realy missing the Mid bass as it is a PSB sub sonic 7 with a 15 inch driver I went out a spent some money on a Good Monster cable made for a sub and man what a differance np more lack of mid base I had to turn down the volume on the sub. I probably have a $1000 in cable hanging behind my system. I use my wife as a test subject when I do any upgrades as she isn't swayed by the price of the cable As I dont dare tell her ;) So she dosent think it sounds better just because it cost more.

If you spend any time on any A/V sites or forums you will find this is a big on going topic and it will be going on for a long time

I have a friend with 1200 dollar interconnects for speakers from Musical Fidelity :)

Because your signal is 120hz you are moving twice as much data down the cable. Little imperfections that don't show up at 60hz are huge at 120hz. Most people don't have TVs that do 120hz

120Hz refers to the refresh rate of the monitor.

Truebeard, I bought my HDMI cable from monocable as you did. I have a bravia xbr and find the quality of the signal excellent

<rant>There is so much snake oil and superstition and subjective testimonial around cables, it is just ridiculous. I once read an audio review where the writer enthused about the difference that gold contacts on his DIGITAL connections made the sound "aura" more distinct. Do you know there are people selling power cables for hundreds with the promise it will make your audio sound better? That's right, after running over utility transmission lines, then through the cheap power lines in your house, you can pay hundreds for the last 3 feet. And somehow, through magical thinking, it will make your system perform better.

The pseudo-science vocabulary the hucksters use would be laughable, if it weren't draining so much money from people's pockets.

Buy decent-quality (but not necessarily expensive) cables. The cheapest junk can corrode or have weak contacts. Solder breaks can be annoyingly common in the really cheaply made cables. Monoprice sells very nicely made cables at VERY fair prices. I recommend them highly. Buying Monster cables is almost morally wrong. They are ordinary-quality at semi-premium pricing. They look OK, and aside from reports of overly-tight RCA connectors, they probably work fine... but the hype and price is horrid.

Most of you with 1080p televisions don't have a 1080p source; for most sources, you are upconverting at the set -- and if you aren't nose-to-screen, you probably can't see the difference between 1080p and 720p anyway (apologies in advance to the eagle-eyed and expensively modern in the crowd).
</rant>

Ok sence I subscribed to consumer reviews I will post one of there recomendations

"Retailers may push high-priced accessories such as premium video cables for a TV. As a rule, choose regular alternatives. Those fancy versions can cost twice or more as much as standard items but aren’t likely to give you much performance benefit. "

personaly if you can put togeather a tv cable with crimp ends you can build you own ultra high quality componant cables for cheep. but enough RJ6 cable to do your 3 runs, and buy 6 cable to RCA adapters. cut your cable crimp the ends and put the adapters on. the ends are usaly 2 or 3 bucks each, cable in bulk is about 10 bucks for 30 feet and the crimper is 25 bucks if you don't know anyone with one and the cable ends are a buck each usaly.

using R/W/Y works but leave a bit to be desired, as I had to use that on the ship untill I made the new runs.

there isn't a differance between ultra expensive and normal cables aside from shielding which will only come into play if you have interferance from something which is normaly a thing of the past with new output laws on electronics, but the ultra cheep ones are that ultra cheep and you may not get as good of a picture.

One this is if your TV only has a "S" video input you are waisting your time with Blue ray, as I believe S Video has a max of 480i which is less than a regular DVD (which is 480p) I got a blue ray for christmas (the sony one) and it is wild but I can only use the 1080i as I only have componant inputs and you need HDMI to get the 1080p it still is a better picture than my old dvd player was.

Now I have to replace my 50" TV with a new one with HDMI and my reciver with one that has HDMI througputs instead of componant, but that will have to wait till this summer when I retire and get my severance pay:mrgreen:

Steve

OK yes there is alot of snake oil out there but you get what you pay for and cheap cables are just that cheap just like a cheap car you cant expect a hyundia to preform like a Porsche but you might not need a Porsche just a Mazda. The cheap cables dont have any shielding and this can cause noise problems when you have a mass of cables hanging behind your A/V rack it is almost impossible to keep all your interconnects clear of your power wires and all your speaker cables clear of your interconnects and so on. The most impotant part of the cable is the connection you want a tight fit and you want to keep it clean I know a lot of A/V nuts who clean all there connections once a year or more. I know it sounds crazy but a good example is my in-laws thought there TV was shot so they went out and bought a new one My brother in-law took the old one down stairs set it up in his sons room cleaned the connections and put on new BETTER cables and it is like a new TV again.

One of the best things you can do for your A/V gear is a power conditioner. (I am about to use that swear word) MONSTER makes a few good ones for a price the average guy/girl can afford until recently these were a ultra high end only item costing thousands of dollars now you can get a Monster power conditioner for around $200 they are also a high end surge protector as well as a conditioner. I use to get a lot of noise on my big screen from the microwave in the kitchen once I got my Monster power conditioner it went away. I also found I had to recalibrate my TV (I use a calibation disk)

But I think what it boils down too if you are happy with the picture and sound from cheap cables then that is all that matters. If you go out and buy a Good cable and you think it sounds better then hey fantastic. It is kind of like the thinking that Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sound is in the ear

Just my 2 cents

Yes but to support this you need twice as much data. This is where signal attenuation comes in to play, a cable that can pass data at a lower transfer rate may fail at the higher frequency used when you refreshing twice as fast. IIRC the frequency on the cable is something like 330mhz.

Stircrazy, I throughput my video from my blueray via HDMI to the tv. The tv has the volume turned off. The audio goes from the bluray to the receiver.
Not as elegant as it could be, but the sound is adequate untill I buy a new receiver.

midgetwaiter - same data goes down the pipe from the player, the processing is done in the TV.

Hillecom (Stircrazy) - that's what I'm doing as my receiver doesn't have HDMI inputs. A HDMI interconnect between the Blu-ray player and TV to keep the video signal digital then the coax audio from the player the the receiver, with the TV volume off. Only thing I'm missing is the lossless audio.

Only if you provide a 120hz TV with a 60hz feed, that's where frame interpolation and all that mess comes in to play.

True 1080p at 120hz is 4.445 Gbps. That's a lot of data

I've dumbed it down A LOT here but...

True Hi Def (full resolution HDTV) gives a picture format of 1920 x 1080 at 24 frames per second.

That is the source we create (I work in the film & TV industry) that goes onto Blu Ray disks & also give to the broadcasters to transmit to your homes (for those of you that have HD satellite or cable).

You need a 1080p capable display to properly to render this in it's entirety. If you don't then your TV will be downsizing the signal to 1080i, 720p, 720i etc.

Doesn't matter if you're using a 120Hz or a 60Hz display, the data going through the cable is still 1920x1080 @ 24 frames per second.

The cables we use at work are built by our tech guys & are good basic shielded cables with very good quality connectors.

Our cable runs are huge & can have dozens of cables bundled together, running 20m away from the source.

There's no signal degradation issues.

Until we start pushing more data down the line (1080p@50 or 60 is in the works) & unless you have a long cable run, there's no need to spend big $$$'s on cables.

Just my personal experience.

.

I hate to disappoint all of you, but I install Pro-Audio/Visual system to make a living. I know for a fact that expensive HDMI cables are no different than $20.00 HDMI cables--data/speed wise. Quality of connectors will vary with price as well as the jacket and possibly fancy packaging; however, there are tests that PROVE that the data from both types of cable arrive at the SAME TIME from one source to the next. IT'S A DIGITAL SIGNAL--"you either get the feed or you don't"--quoted off this study on the internet: http://www.popularmechanics.com/tech...e/4235717.html
The blu-ray player I own is connected to a TV that is 1080p which supports this resolution. It is funny how many people have a blu-ray player but have a TV that does not support it, and they wonder why they don't see any difference. Just trying to help out here, we can go on and on about this, but there are FACTS that are undisputable.

At last somebody talking sense on this subject!

Thank you!

.

I allways shake my head when I go into Futureshop and see the Mosntercable innterconnects. $100+ for a 6ft cable. And People buy it thinking it improves your picture:question: Good connectors, yes, I definately belive in that. Gold, well, it's not the best conductor out there. Silver is the best conductor. BUT, silver oxidizes fast where as Gold doesn't. Thats why Gold is used on the connectors, no oxidization. I remember one type of innterconnect cable, for Audio, they used different sized strands, claiming larger strands for the low frequencies, and the finer strands conducted the higher frequencies. Total crock of BULL. Electricity acctually prefer's to run on the Outside of the strands. No matter what the frequency. It's called the skin effect. False advertising really ticks me off on things.

hey, I think I've been trying to make the point to save some bucks as well:biggrin:.

Sorry Mark!

You been talking sense too :)

.

IMO if you go with a shielded cable with gold plated connectors,you can not go wrong.Just think if you were the retailer,would you be happier selling a $20-$50 cable or a $100-$200 cable? It is all about profit margin.I have Costco and Monster cables and I can not tell a difference.

I'm not so sure that's always the case. In about 4-6 months I'm planning on a full meal deal upgrade. Sony LCD 1080p TV, HD, PVR, surround sound, perhaps Blu-Ray, yada yada. My current TV is about 14 years old. I'm going to have a lot of questions. A local independant dealer has been HIGHLY recommended to me. I expect straight up, no BS, advice and service.

And if he recommends the expensive cables???

Ha,

I'm starting to feel like I've created a "monster" with this thread! I did some digging on the net and one point that was made regarding the HDMI cables is that it's a digital signal meaning it's all ones and zero's so you either get a signal or you don't and that the shielding argument disappears because it takes a LOT of distortion to make a computer confuse a one with a zero.

For me though, that link mark provided where they compare the three cables with a computer really does settle the argument. Zero degradation on all 3 cables regardless of cost.