[aialex]

Last night I made the discovery that, contrary to what the people in stores tell you, 1080p seems to work just fine over standard component video cables.


This leads me to the following questions.

Why do I need HDMI or care about HDMI (other than for cable consolidation)

What do I lose by using component over 1080p (will recievers refuse to switch or convert it to hdmi or something?)


I'd be happy to hear anyones insight to this.

 

[iwanrs]

From what source or equipment is the 1080p, may I ask? Some equipment not even streams 1080i through components output!

 

[Woof Woof]

I think 1080p over component is technologically possible,


Just that movie publishers want to intentionally cripple analog (aka non copy protected) video connections.

 

[vince32837]

yes...........component video can handle 1080P....Hollywood fears if you have access to a 1080P output that you control, people will stop going to the movies..........


If they force a encrypted digital hand-shake (HDMI) between devices, blu-ray burners, and other recording devices will never be allowed to have that HDMI connector...............

 

[aialex]

I am getting 1080p over component through the little cable that comes with the xbox360

 

[jpomp]



Quote:
Originally Posted by aialex /forum/post/0


I am getting 1080p over component through the little cable that comes with the xbox360

Is it possible that you are getting/transmitting it, but only in an analogue sense. I read a blurb on Audioholics (System Setup & Configuration) that "Component video provides the best possible analogue video signal and is the only format capable of transmitting HDTV resolutions."


Now that makes me think, and I don't claim to be a super-duper a/v guru here (just trying to interperet the wording), it's the digital signal but passing anologuely? Does that make sense? If that's the case, depending how anal you are, you'd want HDMI or DVI...

 

[jumpy27]

Component is analog. HDMI is digital. Either one will look great on an HDTV, but one or the other may look a little bit better. It all depends upon your system--HD source and your type of HDTV. If you have a micro display (all digital) then HDMI should look better as you have digital only going into to a digital display. With component your digital HDTV has to convert it to digital to display the picture. If your HDTV has a good analog to digital converter then it will be very close to the HDMI connection in picture quality. HDMI can have problems with handshaking issues, but component does not. Cable companies like to use component cables because HDMI can cause more problems than the possibe small gain in picture quality is worth.

 

[vince32837]

I agree w/ jumpy27......


I have older Pioneer CRT Rear-projection HDTV...I have the Brighthouse networks HD-CATV box feeding 1080i component to TV....On Discovery channel, the other night they had an alligator special on, it looked like the alligators were in my room. Beautiful picture!!!!

 

[fletch999]

Unfortunately, you are NOT getting 1080p from an XBox 360. It only outputs 1080i. Component video has always supported 1080i.

 

[aialex]

Hmm. My projector knows the difference between 1080i and 1080p.. its told me its getting a 1080p signal.. If you are right fletch999, what sort of trickery is occuring to make my projector believe it is getting a 1080p signal?


Also, why would the xbox 360 offer a choice of 1080i or 1080p on the component video cable. (knowing that the choices offered change when you change cables)

 

[Woof Woof]



Quote:
Originally Posted by fletch999 /forum/post/0


Unfortunately, you are NOT getting 1080p from an XBox 360. It only outputs 1080i. Component video has always supported 1080i.

Actually with the Oct(?) firmware upgrade over Live, you should have 1080p over component for games (upscaled from 720p for the most part by the X360's internal scalar), but I read that it could handle native 1080p in future games too. But to conform to Hollywood's restrictions, MS will switch to 1080i for HD DVD playback, even if 1080p is enabled.


If you use VGA connection though (which is just transcoded component and also analog), you do get 1080p for HD DVD as well as in games. It's just a workaround MS found to get 1080p analog.

 

[aialex]

Actually I havent been able to get the vga cable to output 1080p, only component.


"Hollywood" restricts hddvd playback over component video? Do you have a link to that information? Thats exactly what I'm looking to know

 

[CMRA]



Quote:
Originally Posted by aialex /forum/post/0


Last night I made the discovery that, contrary to what the people in stores tell you, 1080p seems to work just fine over standard component video cables.


This leads me to the following questions.

Why do I need HDMI or care about HDMI (other than for cable consolidation)

What do I lose by using component over 1080p (will recievers refuse to switch or convert it to hdmi or something?)


I'd be happy to hear anyones insight to this.

1080p and higher has been doable via HTPCs for years. Many CRT monitors and PJs have supported that res and higher for years. In fact, I owned a crt monitor that supported 1440 lines of resolution. (You can still download full 1080p video clips for a look see)

Some LCD monitors such as my Dell 2405 support 1200 lines, via VGA, DVI, and component.

The hard part is finding source devices outputing 1080p (China offers a few) due to HDPC compliance issues.

 

[aialex]

Alright, so if I was to summarize this correctly, 1080p works fine on component, however there are legal issues that might make it hard to find equipment that will output 1080p, so to be safe, I should use HDMI between my reciever and projector and have my reciever switch it?


Most HDMI recievers will convert a 1080p component signal to a 1080p HDMI signal without issue, correct?

 

[Sankar]

I had been sending 720p via component and switched to 720p via hdmi and noticed a marked improvement which I brought up in this thread . I too had wondered why it should've mattered till tvted postulated that it may have to do with the fact that over component the color space being delivered was probably 4:2:0 and over hdmi it was 4:4:4.

What I also seemed to understand from his post was that the PJ ultimately would need 4:4:4 (none of the details in this makes sense to me, so don't shoot me if I'm being naive!), so if the PJ's conversion circuitry was inferior to the one that created the hdmi (an iScan in my case), it would be reasonable to expect that hdmi would look a lot better than component.

I'd assume that this reasoning would also hold with 1080p.