Help with cables for a new TV

If you are with comcast and are going to upgrade to HDTV, you will get component and optical cables with the the HD cable box.


DVI-I cable (carries both analog and digital signals) can only be used with DVI-I connectors. Generally a TV and a PC graphics card that has DVI will have DVI-I connectors. The DVI-I cable (male to male) has male pins for both the analog and digital signals.


DVI-D cable (carries only digital signals) can be used with either DVI-I or DVI-D connectors. The analog pins do not exist on the connector. Typically you find DVI-D connectors on the back of cable boxes.


DVI-A cable (carries only analog signals) can only be used with DVI-I or DVI-A connectors. The digital pins do not exist on the connector.


If you are connecting a PC to a TV, you should be able to purchase any of the above cables and they should work. However, make sure you TV supports both analog and digital before purchasing the cable. According to the specification for the LC2600N, the connector is DVI-I so any of the above cables should work. Make sure you set the TV menu for the DVI connector to accept the type of signal that you are using (something like PC digital or PC analog for 4:3 screen displays and AV digital or AV analog for 16:9 screen display). Your TV may not have all 4 options but combine all resolutions into analog or digital.


Another possible cable is the VGA to DVI-A cable. Use this cable if your PC graphics card does not have a DVI connector. Again make sure the TV supports analog.


Generally you should be able to find very reasonably priced DVI cables and 3 wire component cables on the Internet. I've purchased all different types and lenghts of these economical cables and have never seen any difference between those and the high end cables.

If you're looking to connect VGA through the DVI-I port using an adapter (provided with some video cards) it won't work! There's not enough room on the back of the set for the adapter and VGA plug. You'll have to use a adapter cable instead. Since the sets DVI-I provides flexibility with other DVI formats, make sure you get the correct cable that connects to the device you want to use with the LC2600N. DVI also comes singe and dual link, you probably only need the single link, check your device documentation.


My set came with PC-Analog enabled so you'll have to change it in the menus for most situations. I also set the resolution manually to 1280x768. My video card only has 1280x720 but it works great, no problem with overscan.


Some more information, the ATSC tuner does have a fair amount of overscan. The other thing I've noticed is the ATSC tuner has slightly less sensitivity then my FusionHDTV3-Gold PC tuner card.


Have heard some mention monoprice, a forum sponsor, has good reasonable cables.