[Roark_8]

I've been running my HTPC for awhile through VGA to VGA to my Sammy DLP. I was never able to get the HDMI out of my GeForce 8200 to play nice with my TV, so I stuck with VGA. I've read my TV has issues with overscan sticking in HDMI, so I've never pushed getting it working.


Assuming at some point I upgrade my Receiver to HDMI and run my sound out of the HTPC's HDMI to the receiver and keep the VGA input going to the TV, what am I missing by not using the HDMI to the TV? Do I lose picture quality? Is is worth the effort to get it going?

 

[sotti]

VGA being analog suffers some amount of signal loss in the cable. Then when it gets to the TV it has to be re-digitized where some amount of error is induced to the signal.


How much error? Is it visible? Does the signal loss cause ghosting?


Alot of people with digital displays like using the digital cable so they know the full signal is getting to the display, then they dont' have to wonder about the above questions. But if you've got a bunch of issues that pop up with HDMI that VGA solves then the little things that I mentioned above are less important than the big things "cant see the task bar, need to see the task bar".

 

[Roark_8]

Not much error, at least not enough to be annoying. Image sharpness on Vista Desktop seems to be the biggest issue, but I'm not sure how much that would be rectified by switching to HDMI.

 

[Fragster]

HDMI is worth over VGA. I have a 720p projector and I tested this for a whole day with my HTPC (780g mobo) as my PJ supports both VGA and HDMI.


HDMI (with overscan turned off on PJ) offers the sharpest clear text over VGA. Not only that, I noticed littler better contrast/black levels with HDMI.