Will 480i (SD) look better over Component vs. Composite? Yes.

Short answer, YES.

Topic title edited.

If she already has Dish or DirecTV, then what is preventing her from getting HD? The only issue I see is the cost of the service upgrade and these days that's next to nothing.

In light of the fact you're right next to Mr. Hoffa, a Michigan native, it's the least I can do.

I an not aware of any technical reason that a SD 480i progasm should look any diffrerent when sent over a component interface then it does when sent over a SD 480i composite interface. In order to receive and display programs in HD from a DirecTV TV dish the DirectTV receiver and DirectTV service needs to be HD capable and then using conmponent cables instead of composite the new HDTV can display HD progams in HD. An HDMI cable would be better since then the sound quality would also be better betewen the receiver and the TV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_video

My advice would be to make sure she can receive the HD signals first before paying for the upgrade and the new TV.

I have never heard of a DTV or Dish network SD dish. A dish does not know what the resolution of the signals it is rececving are, only the recceiver connected to the dish determines that resoloutions that can be received.

Since most HD TV broadcast are in 1080i your sister may want to get a 1080p TV rather then have almost half of the detail in a 1080i signal discarded by downsscaling the signal for a 720p TV. Also all Blu-ray discs are recorded in 1080p so if she has any plans for getting a Blu_ray disk player in the future she should get a 1080p TV instead of a 720p model

Short story:

Composite Video

Pro: Single video cable. Can be used with an RF modulator

Con: Compromises with color and luminance artifacts and reduced luminance and color resolution


S Video

Pro: Can reduce or eliminate color and luminance artifacts. Uses a single DIN connector.

Con: Lower color resolution than component which can have more color smear, but not greater than composite. No RF connectivity.


Component Video

Pro: Can reduce or eliminate color and luminance artifacts. Keeps color signals separate to allow improved resolution.

Con: Three connections are required, so obviously no RF connectivity.


Less short story:

The problem with composite video is separating the chroma and the luminance signals. This can result in crosstalk between the two signals which creates artifacts, and can decrease resolution. Chroma leaking into the luminance can appear as a crawl effect going from bottom to top (NTSC). Luminance leaking into chroma appears as rainbow patterns or flicker on diagonal edges. The NTSC color separation technique has improved over the years. A simple frequency filter was first used (1D), then adaptive line combs became common (2D) and then adaptive frame combs became popular (3D). Each improvement allowed decreased artifacts and better resolution. However, keeping the two separate is still a better approach. In areas that use NTSC, two methods are commonly used for analog video: S Video and component. RGB is another option, but is not very common for consumer video connectivity.

The chroma signal is derived from two color difference signals quadrature modulated on a subcarrier. The resolution of the color signals are usually reduced. S Video uses the luminance and the chroma signal (Y & C), while the component uses the luminance and the two baseband color difference signals separately (Y, Pr, Pb). Both keep the luminance and chroma separate which eliminates the issues of luminance/chroma separation in composite. Component can offer improved chroma resolution over S Video which results in less horizontal chroma smear, but this advantage is more subtle than they both have over composite.

I think this mis-conception comes from the days HD channels were stuck on a less used satellite and you needed a new multi LNB dish. These were probably coined "HD dishes"

If the SD source is available in component, it will look much better than the same SD source on composite video. See the explanation TVOD posted.

There have been a number of DBS dishes that were not capable of receiving the sats that carried HD. See the explanation Glimmie posted.

I have modified my post to state that I am referring only to the DirecTV or Dish network dishs.

To get HD from D* or E*, you need a 5 LNB dish and an HD capable receiver. And of course... a subscription.
Yes, the type of dish (satellite) antenna does determine what can be received.

And, "DTV" is typically used to denote OTA, not DirecTV (D*).

As I understand it all direct-to-home satellite services are now digital, and use component digital video (either MPEG2 or H264) compression.

The broadcast received by the satellite receiver is thus in the component domain as received.

Keeping it component to the display will avoid a composite encode and decode process which will certainly not enhance picture quality and will probably reduce it (though by how much will vary)

Of course the SD source may have originated composite and been decoded to component for broadcast - but that doesn't mean it won't be reduced in quality by encoding back to composite.

None of the DBS providers have SD receivers with component video out. If it has component video, it's HD.

Composite video out is always 480i.

DTV = Digital TV, as in over-the-air.

D* = DirecTV

So was I.