cable types for hdtv?

[mousemurder]

forgive me; i thought i already posted this but i did a search and i cant find it.

i am thinking of buying a new tv (probably SAMSUNG HL-T6176S 61" DLP 1080p)

i am wondering what are good interconnects for it. i am concerned that the incoming video signal from the cable company's co-ax will degrade exponentially over the distance from the local office (does this make this question moot ?)

i think that vga (rgb) > hdmi/ dvi > component > s-video > composite.

if my tv/ cable box/ dvd player all have a vga connector/ i'll connect everything with vga cables for maximum picture quality.
is this accurate ?

[Guest]

You're forgetting about our forum rules, specifically rule 12. I have fixed your post.

:readrule:

[Guest]

VGA is analog. A digital connection (HDMI/DVI) is preferable, because a cable cannot degrade a digital signal.

[mousemurder]

thanks for your explanation and your opinion. i notice that hdmi is more popular but as an electrical engineer i am not convinced that digital is in all cases inherently gooder than analog.

digital is usually a bitwise approximation of an anolog signal.
theoretically the more bits you have to resolve to an original sinusoid wave the better the approximation.
as the resolution goes towards infinity the digital sawthooth wave form turns into the analog wave. (thank you riemann)

digital = discrete
analog = continuous

but from what i read hdmi is so good it probably is indistinguishable from vga.

almost like an mp3 recorded at 256 kbps cbr is almost the same quality as an original iso9660 audio-cd pcm wave with probably 1/3 the size.
______________________

i guess i am missing that the original source is digital and with proper spacing between repeaters the source should be good. also if the original source is digital, adc'ing wont help anything.
VGA is analog. A digital connection (HDMI/DVI) is preferable, because a cable cannot degrade a digital signal.
after a few hundred meters a decision device may have trouble interpreting a 1 as a 0 if the line code isnt cleanly above a set threshold (with a duty cycle of 50 %).

my current setup is co-ax in to cable box , co-ax out to sdtv.
why would cabling be important if the co-ax medium is capable of carrying a hi-def signal.

maybe i'm jumping into hd too late.

[Guest]

The connection from a cable box to a TV is not a few hundred meters, which tells me you're more interested in quibbling than the practicalities of the matter. Strange coming from an engineer.

If your coax is carrying a digital signal, which is almost a given for HD, then you can keep it digital all the way to the innards of the TV by using a digital connection from the cable box to the TV.

[mousemurder]

The connection from a cable box to a TV is not a few hundred meters, which tells me you're more interested in quibbling than the practicalities of the matter. Strange coming from an engineer.

If your coax is carrying a digital signal, which is almost a given for HD, then you can keep it digital all the way to the innards of the TV by using a digital connection from the cable box to the TV.

thx, sorry didnt mean to annoy you.

[rebkell]

I would definitely recommend buying hdmi(or about any audio/video type cables for that matter) cables online, they are priced outrageously in every store I've been in.

[Guest]

(sic- i should've said from the cable company to my cable box) I didn't say that so I've deleted it from your quote of me.

Your post was about what cable to use to connect to your TV. I don't understand why you are now talking about the connection from the cable company to your cable box. You can't control that.

[mousemurder]

thanks for the comments, i'll experiment when i buy my tv because i'm just naturally curious. if i find anything interesting i'll re-repost but you are probably already aware of the differences anyways.