- In the construction of my new home, the home theater pre-wiring was cut short in the media closet by presumably a disgruntled worker. As a result, all of my HT wiring needed to be SPLICED in order to connect to my components. Much of the pre-wiring was done in poured concrete walls and I've been told that there is no way to feed new wire in place of the old.
- MY QUESTION is whether or not the spliced component feeds to my 62-inch Mits DLP can cause a significant loss in picture quality??????
- I'm asking because in fact the new set-up showed a significantly softer HD picture, in my mind totally unacceptable. When the installer by-passed the new HT amp and hooked up the cable box directly to my tv, but via the spiced wires, the PQ remained unsatisfactory.
- Something has happened because I found the softer picture for all of my sharpest HD cable programs (such as CBS series, NBC's Office, the TNT NBA playoffs, House, etc.)
- ANy help would be greatly appreciated!!! thanks!

It depends what and how the splices were done. Splices on input coax lines shouldn't make much of a diff as long as the signal level is high enough for the components connected to it. Splicing of a component output cable might make a diff but it depends on the overall length and how the splice was done. The splice on an HDMI/DVI/VGA cable shouldn't make much of a diff since that's a digital signal and it either gets there or not.

The way to test for PQ change is to bypass all equipment (including the STB) and get an HD source directly - either via OTA and an ATSC tuner or direct cable connection and a QAM tuner.

splices on coax, both the in feed to the TV and any component cables (both are 75 ohm coax) should be made with the proper in-line coax connector to maintain the 75 ohm impedance of the lines. Splices to speaker lines should be soldered and wraped with good electrical tape. Splices to HDMI/DVI cables can be problematic, if only because of the usually small diameter inner wires in the cable. Splices to VGA cables should be avoided due to the analog nature of their signals, but could be done by pain-stakingly adding new male/female ends on the cables to make the splice.

You should probably do a reference comparison with a DVD player and Digital Video Essentials. Use the same component cables you are having a problem with connected to the DVD player. Then, connect the DVD player direct to the Mits (very short known good component cables). Although not HD, it should be able to spot anything noticeably out of whack.