How to get the best HDTV picture?-First time HDTV buyer.?
Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at
9:18 am
I purchased an hdtv lcd today and I currently have it hooked up with the 3 wire cable (red,yellow,white) and the quality is less than what I would expect. In order to get the best performance do I need to purchase an HD cable of some kind? Will that make a difference or is the quality pretty much the same?
Tagged with: best performance • hd cable • HDTV • wire cable
Filed under: HDTV
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Yellow (video) w/ Red/White (audio) = Composite RCA = Standard Definition only (SD). SD on an HDTV will never look great. It can look okay, but it won’t look great (it will look soft). This is just one of the reality new HDTV buyers have to get used to. Its why new HDTV buyers will quickly jump to getting HD options for themselves.
Green, Blue, Red (video) w/ Red/White (audio) = Component RCA = Standard Definition OR High Definition depending on the device you’re going out from (so might be an option, but not always)
Small black rectangle, usually labelled HDMI = Digital Video/Audio = High Definition AND Standard Definition (the ultimate connection type as its 1 cable that does HD, SD and both Video and Audio). If you have the gear to use this, its the way to go and will give you the best quality for your TV.
In order to feed your HDTV an HD signal you need an HD set top box from a cable or satellite provider, an HD capable antenna system (if you’re rocking over-the-air), and/or a BluRay player. With one of those, and when using either Component or HDMI, you can then get HD content sent to your HDTV.
And yes it will make a big difference in quality. SD is 720×480. HD is 1280×720 (720p) or 1920×1080 (1080i/p). That is a big discrepancy in resolution. Your HDTV will always play back all video in its native resolution (an HD resolution). So it will up scale the SD to HD (force the pixels to be stretched to fill out the HD resolution). That will soften the image. If you can feed your HDTV and HD signal, there’s no stretching, so the pixels look crisp and sharp.
If you find yourself having to buy cables, Amazon.com, monoprice.com, bluejeanscable.com, newegg.com, and/or tigerdirect.com are your friends. Especially with HDMI cables. There are lots of VERY expensive HDMI cables out there. The expensive ones are a complete ripoff. Lots of consumer studies have shown the cheap ones to perform 100% the same as the expensive ones. So use those above sites to get some cheap HDMI cables, if you do need to purchase them.
You’re connecting a standard-definition source to your high-def TV and getting a standard-def picture. That’s obviously normal. For real HD via cable or satellite, you need…………….
1. An HDTV, which you have.
2. An HD (not just digital, but HD) satellite or cable box.
3. An HDMI cable (preferred) or a set of 5 component cables to connect the box to your TV.
4. A subscription to the HD channel package (HD, not just digital) from the cable or satellite company.
5. You need to be watching a program that’s actually being broadcast in HD, not SD.
If any of the above are missing, you won’t get an HD picture from cable or satellite.
If you have a very good over-the-air antenna, all you need is that plus #1 and #5 above.