dvi or hdmi - which is best? (1 Viewer)

[IvorG]

Can someone tell me which is the better way to hook up a HD plasma tv to an HD ready DVD player? ie Oppo 971 to Panasonic th-42px60u.

Thanks much.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

You didn't mention if you have a receiver or not.

The simplist connection for just a player and a TV would be HDMI, because that carries the video and the audio, so you would be all set with just one cable.

The DVI cable only carries the video. If you just have the player and TV, you'd have to run a pair of audio cables from the player to the TV, along with the DVI cable.

If you have a receiver, the next question is - is it HDMI compatible? If it isn't, then you'd have to run audio cables from your player to your receiver anyway.

Glenn

 

[Dan Rudolph]

To clarify: HDMI and DVI will get you exactly the same video. The difference is that HDMI has an audio signal as well.

 

[IvorG]

Thanks...Sorry for not specifing the receiver. I am getting a Marantz 5600. So I will check to see if it is HDMI compliant. Either way it sounds like a DVI cable and audio cables will do the same thing. The HDMI cable would be cleaner though.Do I have it?

Thanks for the help.

OPPO will send me a DVI or HDMI cable with my player...hence the question.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Yep, you've got it!

It depends on you, but if the receiver that you 'favor' doesn't have HDMI, you might want to consider waiting until they have a model that does. This may not be until the HDMI 1.3 spec is finalized, but that could be real soon!

Glenn

 

[Dave H]

HDMI is capable of transfering 10 bit colors (or even 12 bit). DVI can only transfer 8 bits.

 

[Michael TLV]

Greetings

I think its actually DVI 10 ... HDMI 12 ...

Can one tell the difference ... likely not. But HDMI has a lot of other uses where as DVI is a remnant from the computer world.

Regards

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Wikipedia lists DVI as having 24 bits/pixel. I can't imagine that it would be designed with 10-bit. That's only about a thousand colors and would look kind of crappy. Or are you talking about per component? DVi does 8 bits per component, HDMI does 12, but as far as I know, studies have all pointed to humans being unable to distinguish the difference. Higher color depths are only important for internal processing and data manipulation.

 

[JohnS]

but also, if you're wanting to hook up a upconversion DVD player to your 1080p TV, don't yiou have to have a HDMI hooked up, in order to select 720p/1080i

Cause when you have the standard RGB cables, you can only get a choice of 420P

 

[MarkHastings]

But the HDMI cable will transfer the audio digitally, whereas (using the red and white audio cables) is analog.

Not that it matter to most, but if you are running an HD cable box's audio to the TV, you will notice a significant audio drop when using the red and white audio connectors. When using the audio over the HDMI cable, since it's all digital, the audio will sound a lot better through your TV speakers (especially the big sets that have more than 2 speakers in them).

The same thing goes with DVD players. I notice the audio sounds better when using the HDMI cable (when conencting directly into the TV) over the analog cables.

 

[JeremyErwin]

The oppo 971 has a DVI output. If you have a set with hdmi, Oppo will send you a conversion cable. This cable is not magical. It will not enable the following:

YUV color spaces.
12 bits per sample color
8 channel LPCM & MLP

All it will do is rearrange the DVI output's pins into something that's physically compatible with an HDMI input.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

AS mentioned, no. DVI is a subset of HDMI. HDMI enables YCbCr output support per spec and at higher bit-depths for some components. DVI is spec'd RGB 8-bit.

Some DVI equipment implements non-spec capability beyond this, but is rare.

 

[Dave Mack]

So, in a nutshell... Better potential PQ with HDMI?

 

[ChrisWiggles]

No, it just provides more options. In some cases this can be beneficial. In most consumer cases that may not be taken advantage of.

 

[orestes]

Neither one since my Toshiba TW40x81 only has component, and I don't plan to upgrade TV just because of HDMI or DVI. I don't even like the flaky connectors of HDMI. Why can the HDMI connector be more like computer video VGA connector with screws to hold it in place? I guess the manufactures want you to keep buying these cable every six month or so when the HDMI connectors get worn out and one no longer has a good connection in the back of your TV. The same logic applies to the actual HDMI input on the back of your TV unit which is also very flaky an prompt not to keep good connections in the long run.

Regards,
orestes