Rephrasing my question about the HDMI cable.

[questioning_old]

I figured it would be easier to start the question over again while being more specific, now that I have familiarzed myself with my new HDTV and have gotten more comfortable with the new terminology.  Overall, I'm very glad to have found this forum and to have already met some other customers who have been very helpful.

I think it's very clear that what this Best Buy sales associate was trying to push was this monstrous unnecessary gadget...another cable "box" connection that isn't necessary with the Verizon STB.  He was nutty if you ask me.  I don't think he knew what he was talking about.

So now that we have ruled that out....I'm going to break down my questions a little bit further:

My new HDTV is a Samsung UN26D4003 (26") LED TV and I love it.  I have decided not to buy an HDMI cable for the time being because the picture quality is great, especially since I changed the settings in accordance with recommendations that I found on a Samsung website.

But in case I change my mind later on and decide to try the HDMI cable...

According to the owner's manual, an HDMI connection is recommended for the best quality.

Is that statement true?  My parents got one for their TV and my mom says it doesn't make much difference at all in their case.

If I buy it later on, I would definitely get it a lot cheaper from Radio Shack.  That's a very good store for accessories.  I only rely on Best Buy for purchasing major appliances.

Now for what is confusing me:

In the back of my TV, there are two separate outlets for HDMI.  There is one just for an HDMI alone.  I'm suspecting that one HDMI cable would be sufficient to see if I like it.  Meanwhile, there is another for a DVI-HDMI cable?  It says in the owner's manual that this may be required for a DVD player or HD Cable Box?  I guess that would be needed if I wanted to record something on DVD?  What does DVI mean?  My DVD player works just fine without any cable connection so I guess this DVI-HDMI cable is unnecessary?

Please keep your answers simple (with a clear explanation and with as little extra terminology as possible) so I can follow what you are saying.  I think I'm starting to get this now.

Thanks!

[SouthPhilly1]

I use HDMI cable for the TV and HDMI cable for the Blu Ray DVD player which is the DVI.  I have a 46 inch Samsung and the picture and sound quality is measurably improved.  I would never go back to the red/white/yellow auxiliary cables. Since HDMI is both audio/video, there is less clutter with the connections.

[tns]

DVi was an earlier standard and different form of socket.  Their were lots of flavors and today you rarely see it for TV's although you may still find it for PC's and PC monitors.    It didn't support sound so you had to use seperate cables for that.  HDMI essentially replaced it as a standard for tv's,  Unless your TV is older (early 2000's) and has DVI instead of HDMI you don't want it.  Some samsung's have it designed to allow for a PC connection.  DVI also had several flavors including analog and digital.  A typical DVI- hdmi cable has a dvi-d plug on one end and a HDMI at the other.

Its hard to say how much difference you would see on a 26" set, but there is definitely an advantage to using a HDMi on new sets. 

If you were using a red, white, yellow composite cable for a composite connection, that is one of the worse possible connections and cannot support HD.  Some people used old composite cables instead of the COMPONENT cable with its red green blue connectors.  If a decent cable, that supplied a ok "component" HD picture.  For componet you also need a seperate set of audio cables or optical cable.

Note that a decent hdmi cable is often much cheaper than a decent component + audio cable. 

[questioning_old]

tns wrote:

"DVi was an earlier standard and different form of socket.  Their were lots of flavors and today you rarely see it for TV's although you may still find it for PC's and PC monitors.    It didn't support sound so you had to use seperate cables for that.  HDMI essentially replaced it as a standard for tv's,  Unless your TV is older (early 2000's) and has DVI instead of HDMI you don't want it.  Some samsung's have it designed to allow for a PC connection.  DVI also had several flavors including analog and digital.  A typical DVI- hdmi cable has a dvi-d plug on one end and a HDMI at the other.

Its hard to say how much difference you would see on a 26" set, but there is definitely an advantage to using a HDMi on new sets."

OK, that part is clear.  Thank you.

"If you were using a red, white, yellow composite cable for a composite connection, that is one of the worse possible connections and cannot support HD.  Some people used old composite cables instead of the COMPONENT cable with its red green blue connectors.  If a decent cable, that supplied a ok "component" HD picture.  For componet you also need a seperate set of audio cables or optical cable."

Now I'm confused.  What do you mean by "composite connection"?  The cable for my DVD player is red, white, and yellow and my DVD player works fine.  Or are you referring to a whole different kind of cable that's meant for older TVs?  I'm guessing this is something I wouldn't need.

[tns]

Composite is the lowest quality connection.  If you connecting  a yellow cable to a yellow connector (video) on your dvd/stb and TV and red and white  (audio) to red and white(audio) on your TV, then you are using composite.  The Yellow cable uses composite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composite_video .

Next up in quality is S-Video (SVHS) forthe video signal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video .

For analog SD and HD, various Component cables were popular.  These days most often seen are the YPbPr with 3 rca type connectors of red, green and blue.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video  Since any quality rca cable could carry it some people just used old composite cables making sure that each end went to the same color (say red cable to red, yellow cable to green, and white cable to blue).  Of course a better grade of cable is suggested for the best picture, and since you also need some audio cable as well, this can make good component+audio cable more expensive than say good HDMI cable.

DVI first became popular with monitors and carried Video only.  For modern Tv's we are most often talking about DVI-D which is compatible (after switching the wires in the different connectors) with HDMI's basic Video standard.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

HDMI carries digital Audio and Video and is pretty much the standard for modern HDTV connectors  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI

[questioning_old]

So let's narrow this down to what my choices are:

The HDMI cable alone would just be for the HDTV.

The HDMI/DVI cable would be for my DVD player.  Right now my DVD player, according to what you're saying, is using the composite cable with the yellow, red, and white connectors.  I didn't realize that was the lowest quality because I've been able to watch my DVD movies just fine with no decline in the quality of the picture.  So basically, the HDMI/DVI cable would replace the composite cable.  OK. 

So if I change my mind about any of this, then maybe I should try both the HDM and HDMI/DVI cables, like you are suggesting.  I have had nothing else to compare my existing setup with but I might like the HDMI cables better. 

Thanks so much for breaking all of that down so that it's now much easier for me to understand.

[questioning_old · Accepted solution]

Now the problem is really resolved!  I just bought an HDMI cable for only 25 bucks from Radio Shack and it definitely makes the HD picture quality on the TV even better.  I love it!  It makes everything brighter and now that I have that in addition to my newly calibrated settings, the picture actually looks very much like what I saw in the store.  Well, it's close enough anyway.  🙂

I checked out the back of my DVD player.  My DVD player is a 6 year old Panasonic which isn't equipped for the HDMI-DVI cable.  It's only equipped for the 3 prong (yellow, red, and white) composite cable but the DVD player works very well and I don't need to record anything so I'm definitely leaving that lone.

Thanks for your help!

[Razorbeam]

Some Trivia.  I hooked up Component Video cables (set of three RCA cables: Red, Blue Green just for video - not including the two audio RCA cables)) to my Samsung 58"  and compared the picture quality with the HDMI connection and there was no difference at all.  Obviously, using the single yellow RCA video cable will not result in the same quality.  Are you sure your DVD player doesn't have Component Video outputs (R,G,B) to hook up to your TV?  Component video has been around for many years (older than your DVD player).       

[questioning_old]

I think we are getting our signals crossed a little bit.  I have the HDMI cable for my TV and it definitely makes my TV picture much brighter.  I like it very much.  This is just the HDMI that I now have, not the HDMI-DVI that you're referring to.

I need to take one thing at a time and some things take me a little longer to learn. 

Like I said, I can't connect an HDMI-DVI to my DVD player but after reading your post, I looked in the back of my DVD player and yes, it indeed has the component video outputs (read, green, and blue) to hook up to my TV.  I never paid attention to that.  Honestly, I've had the same composite cable that came with the DVD player and I've been watching my DVDs with the exact same set up.  But like you suggested, I think  I'll give the component cable a try and see if that makes a difference in my DVD picture quality.  That's easy enough to purchase from Radio Shack.  I have never used it before, nor did I ever hear of it until I started posting here, but it sounds like it's worth a shot.  This really has been a lot of new information for me to decipher but I'm finally getting it now.

I've never had anything else to compare the picture on my DVD player to but I might like it better with the component cable.  It's just like the way I was satisfied with the TV picture quality without the HDMI cable until I tried the HDMI cable and found that it's an improvement.

Thank you for mentioning this because I usually stick with the old way of doing things for as long as possible.  lol

[SeaRascal]

Hi,

I just saw this post and I assume you're now OK because there have been some very good responses and you seem to have your connections together.  Just to note: After looking at the user guide for your Samsung, either HDMI input in the back of the TV can be used for connecting to other HDMI devices, e.g., a set top box and a DVD.  The HTMI/DVI connection is also a available to be connected to the older devices that used DVI and a special adaptor cable is needed.  However, this same port can be used for a HDMI to HDMI connection.  Hope I didn't confuse the issue.

Now a question for you.   In your first post you stated: My new HDTV is a Samsung UN26D4003 (26") LED TV and I love it. I have decided not to buy an HDMI cable for the time being because the picture quality is great, especially since I changed the settings in accordance with recommendations that I found on a Samsung website.

Can you please tell me where you found the information to find this web site (manual or from searching the web)?  If you still know the web site can you reply with this site.  The reason I ask is that I have a boat and a similar Samsung TV but only have a coaxial cable connection and sometimes the picture is not the greatest.  If there is a Samsung site to help improve this I'd love to find it.

Thanks