Is component as good as HDMI?

[Ojustaboo]

As per title.

Have run out of HDMI ports on my TV and as the quad has component output, will this be as good as HDMI (currently running quad via HDMI in 1080p)

thanks

[timofee]

Yes, quality just the same.

[:-)]

HDMi is twisted pair type signal cable so the specification allows the signal to distort by +/-10%

RGB Component can do 1080P HD & will only distort 1% so in that way you could say it is better

HOWEVER that relies on you using a fully shielded Coaxial RGB cable NOT a couple of Phono/RCA audio leads that are lying around - yes they will fit and could work but most audio Phono/RCA leads are just unshielded speaker wire NOT the shielded Coaxial type HD RGB signals need

Alternatively get some phono plugs and solder your own RGB cable with satellite cable

[Ojustaboo]

Many thanks, will get myself some good quality shielded cable

[Willmoore]

Or an HDMI switcher.

[adm]

HDMi is twisted pair type signal cable so the specification allows the signal to distort by +/-10%

RGB Component can do 1080P HD & will only distort 1% so in that way you could say it is better

HDMI is a digital transfer so in general it either works or it doesn't, irrespective of the "signal distortion" . A poor quality HDMI can be incapable of transferring 1080p data but the picture doesn't degrade by 5%, 15% or 50%. It is likely to 100% successful or total failure. NOTE: with HDMI cables quality doesn't necessarily relate to price. Good quality HDMI cable can be purchased cheaply.

Component is analogue so the box will have performed a digital to analogue conversion and the TV an analogue to digital conversion. Both conversions will have degraded the signal.

I'm not sure where the 10% and 1% figures come from but it's like comparing apples with oranges and coming up with an answer of five.

The quality of the picture may have more to do with how the TV handles the different inputs and if the TV has separate controls for each of the inputs. Picture quality on a TV is often improved by turning off all the gimmicky image processing features and adjusting brightness, contrast and colour saturation controls away from the default settings

[electrocop]

most audio Phono/RCA leads are just unshielded speaker wire NOT the shielded Coaxial type HD RGB signals need

Incorrect!!! Almost all phono / RCA cables are intended for audio or video signals and will be shielded to some extent - however the more expensive, the better the screening is likely to be....
I don't think i have seen a phono lead made up with speaker wire (intended to actually connect loudspeakers to a stereo) since the mid '70s......

[Ojustaboo]

Many thanks all. I got a fairly decent chunky shielded cable, cost £9.75

Profigold 1m High Performance Component Video Interconnect Cable with 24K Hard Gold Connectors

turned up today, have just tested it and it's a perfect picture, very happy.

[:-)]

Good to know!

My Component HD (RGB) cables are lost somewhere in the house but they were "Thor" brand (reassuringly chunky) and they had an intriguing quirk - they had signal direction arrows stamped into the metal connector shields and surprisingly enough if you installed them pointing in the right signal direction the picture did significantly improve - curious I tested them with a multi-meter and discovered that the shield connection only conducted in the direction of the stamped in arrow so Thor probably deliberately left the shield disconnected at one end to stop ground loop feedback between different equipment (maybe even a diode?) or to stop the different ground potentials of different interconnected pieces of equipment clashing with different levels of Ground potential or true zero volts (if a reference true zero volts even exists with home consumer electronics - almost nothing is mains earthed).

People have confused signal variance with picture variance - I said the signal (go look at IEEE engineering specs) not the picture varies less on quality heavy individual coax or satellite cable (cable -not flex- so don't go repeatedly bending it or it will snap & go intermittent) meaning not the awful figure 8 twin/shotgun satellite cable with air spacer and silver aluminium foil shield made popular by Sky installers.

Lets not get into the whole separate issue of signal variance re repeatability - twisted pair will ultimately lose to quality coax - again signal not picture. But twisted pair HDMi is perfect if you are implementing (unwanted) copy protection on the home consumer.

Broadcast TV Cameras use Serial Digital Interface (SDi) over Triax type Coaxial cable to connect up the cameras around international football matches etc. to provide all that spiffing HDMi home viewing quality especially using coax because you are running very long lengths of cable around a football pitch etc. those cables have to get from the camera to the edit suite then back out to satellite uplink etc. so absolute minimum signal distortion is vitally important (and the separate issue of low signal loss factor) despite running the obviously fully digital SDi signal format Coaxial is still the go-to cable for quality over long distance - it also runs ultra HD signals very happily as well

The only real new improvement over Triax is fibre optic to get serial picture data back from the cameras which is being used at a few international sporting events nowadays because it is totally immune to electromagnetic interference (EMI/RFI - mobile phones Wi-Fi etc.) being a pulse of laser light down a fibre optic cable - both those formats do not have any form of copy protection or signal encryption again because it is not an issue in a non consumer setting and also it will lessen the ultimate maximum data bandwidth available for signal transmission.