# Component vs HDMI Results



## richbogrow (Nov 13, 2006)

There has been some discussion on this forum as to which is better with the 622, HDMI or component connections. I have done some experimenting and the results are:

First, I calibrated my TV for both HDMI and component connections. The settings for contrast, etc., are different based on the connection.

I then performed an unscientific study, observing the picture quality under both connections and various settings for HD on the 622.

HD channels: For HD content, I see no difference in picture quality between component and HDMI. The HD picture seems slightly better with the 622 set to 1080i as opposed to 720p.

SD channels: This is where the big difference can be seen. For SD content, the component input is noticeably better than the HDMI input. The SD picture seems slightly better with the 622 set to 720p as opposed to 1080i.

Also to note, is that the sound is a little crisper using the HDMI connection ( I do not have a surround sound system yet and use the TV speakers).

So what connection is best depends on how you watch your TV. If you watch mainly HD, the HDMI connection set to 1080i is the best. If you watch a mixture of HD and SD, the component connection set to 720p is the best. Of course you can always have both connections hooked up, as I do, and switch as necessary.

This is just my opinion based on what I have found with my particular TV, a 42 inch Samsung plasma. Other TVs/setups may yield different results.


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## FIBBIDY (Dec 5, 2006)

I'm planning on running HDMI for HD and SVideo for SD and then switch between the two. Is that standard practice?


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## richbogrow (Nov 13, 2006)

FIBBIDY said:


> I'm planning on running HDMI for HD and SVideo for SD and then switch between the two. Is that standard practice?


I thought about doing that as well, but thought it would be too complicated to switch all the time (kids, wife using the tv too). I don't see much of a difference between s-video and component.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

HDMI vs. component has been discussed a number of times. I would suggest doing a search here and in the HD areas. 

My take.. 

Your mileage will vary... Some will see a big improvement others will see none. Same goes with svideo vs HDMI or component for SD. There is no consensus on either of these two considerations and the best advice is give them all a try and see what ones work for your particular configuration and setup.. 

This is definitely one area where there is no right or wrong answer. The only thing one can do is give it a try on there set up.


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## wje (Mar 8, 2006)

As Ron said, YMMV. It depends primarily upon which has the better scaler, A/D's, etc, the DVR or the TV. For scaling, f D* would implement native passthru, we could do the choosing. The general rule is, the most expensive component does the best conversion. Not always true, but not often wrong!


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## mchaney (Aug 17, 2006)

I got about the same results as Rich on my own unscientific study. The only thing I'd add is that I did see a very slight hint of more shadow detail when I used HDMI. The difference was so small as to not be noticeable unless you froze an HD frame and switched back and forth.

Mike


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## GATER (Mar 17, 2006)

I noticed a brighter/crisper picture, which i like, using Hdmi.


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## wje (Mar 8, 2006)

One other thing to keep in mind is that HD uses a different colorspace from SD. When you're comparing HDMI vs component, be sure your TV automatically sets the proper color space (most do), or both inputs are set for HD, assuming your TV allows that. The difference isn't major, but it can account for some of the 'brighter' sort of differences.


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## kikkenit2 (Oct 26, 2006)

WTF. I just bought a new audio receiver. I hooked the 622 up using HDMI and nothing. I switched to component video and toslink audio. Everything is fine. Called Dish and they said HDMI has been disabled for awhile. How are you getting it and i'm not? Thanks


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## sthor (Oct 1, 2006)

kikkenit2 said:


> WTF. I just bought a new audio receiver. I hooked the 622 up using HDMI and nothing. I switched to component video and toslink audio. Everything is fine. Called Dish and they said HDMI has been disabled for awhile. How are you getting it and i'm not? Thanks


HDMI is not turned off here in Florida. I am connected to my plasma panel by HDMI and my sound system by DD 5.1 optical cable. Working perfectly.


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## Hall (Mar 4, 2004)

richbogrow said:


> HD channels: For HD content, I see no difference in picture quality between component and HDMI. The HD picture seems slightly better with the 622 set to 1080i as opposed to 720p.
> 
> If you watch mainly HD, the HDMI connection set to 1080i is the best.


 If you "see no difference in picture quality" between the two different connections, how is using HDMI better ??


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## richbogrow (Nov 13, 2006)

Hall said:


> If you "see no difference in picture quality" between the two different connections, how is using HDMI better ??


From my point of view, it is not better. Cabling is simpler because of only one connection. If the 622 had DD 5.1 through HDMI it would be better, but the 622 only passes 2 channel stereo.


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

richbogrow said:


> From my point of view, it is not better. Cabling is simpler because of only one connection. If the 622 had DD 5.1 through HDMI it would be better, but the 622 only passes 2 channel stereo.


WHAT?!!?!? I didn't see anything in the manual stating this. Only passing 2 channels via HDMI would be like buying a 12 cylinder Ferrari engine and disabling 8 cyclinders. Why on earth would they do this?

Here is an excerpt from www.hdmi.org:
Q. Does HDMI support Dolby 5.1 audio and high-resolution audio formats?

Yes. From the start, HDMI was defined to carry 8-channels, of 192kHz, 24-bit uncompressed audio, which exceeds all current consumer media formats. In addition, HDMI can carry any flavor of compressed audio format such as Dolby or DTS. (Such compressed formats are the only multi-channel or high-resolution audio formats that can be carried across the older S/PDIF or AES/EBU interfaces.) Additionally, most existing HDMI sources can output any compressed stream, and the newer sources can output uncompressed 6-channel, 96kHz audio from a DVD-Audio disk. There are A/V receivers on the market that can accept and process the 6- or 8-channel audio from HDMI.

Edit: Interestingly enough, the manual does state that you need to use the optical out for dolby digital 5.1, however, the only section that talks about the HDMI connector (they refer to it as HDTV digital A/V), says :
"The HDTV Digital Audio/Video connection provides high-quality audio and video to your HDTV or HD Monitor in one cable."

Knowing what HDMI is, I would rightfully interpret "high-quality audio" to mean at least dolby digital 5.1. If I hadn't stumbled across this thread, I would have hooked everything up (I'm still waiting for my receiver and speakers), and would have banged my head against the wall trying to figure out why the surround sound wasn't working.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Well my understanding is that we might see 5.1 support in a future release, but for now only 2.0 gets passed. Why? Dish would have to say why, but my guess is that it was placed lower on the priority list than other features and figured most people doing HDMI would be doing a HDMI to TV connection. And people that want DD into their receiver can use the optical connection as a work around. 

Just a thought..


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

Ron Barry said:


> Well my understanding is that we might see 5.1 support in a future release, but for now only 2.0 gets passed. Why? Dish would have to say why, but my guess is that it was placed lower on the priority list than other features and figured most people doing HDMI would be doing a HDMI to TV connection. And people that want DD into their receiver can use the optical connection as a work around.
> 
> Just a thought..


To carry the uncompressed signals mentioned in one of the other posts, the 622 would have to do DD 5.1 conversion. This is not going to happen.

The 622 might be able to carry the compressed dd 5.1 signal over the HDMI.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Really.. Are you saying the HDMI audio signals can't carry DD 5.1 uncompressed? I by no means versed in Dolby Digital inners and was just indicating that a earlier post indicated that it was a feature that was planned in the future. Of course, planned features my or may not appear and should be taking with a grain of salt.


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> <snip>...most people doing HDMI would be doing a HDMI to TV connection. Just a thought..


I guess that makes sense.

I was planning on hooking all my gear up via HDMI to my receiver and having one line out to the TV. Adding one extra toslink isn't the end of the world but as I had mentioned, if I didn't stumble upon this thread, I would never have known 5.1 wasn't passed over the HDMI cable. I would have figured it out eventually, but it would have been after much aggravation.

The manual should explicitly state that only 2 channels are transmitted over the HDMI connection.

Just out of curiosity, how did you guys all find out that 5.1 was not passed over HDMI (trial and error?). Not that I don't believe you, but I'd be curious to see a link to dish or something where they exlicitly say this.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Killzone,

If you do a search in the support forum you will see a number of discussions regarding this and I agree the manual should be clearer in this area as it should be in a number of other areas. 

And how was this discovered. Others have walked the step you are about to walk.. I happen not to be one of them but have read a number of threads on this topic. 

Sounds like I need to add this topic to the Tips and Useful information Sticky. I will try and do it today....


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

Ron Barry said:


> Really.. Are you saying the HDMI audio signals can't carry DD 5.1 uncompressed? I by no means versed in Dolby Digital inners and was just indicating that a earlier post indicated that it was a feature that was planned in the future. Of course, planned features my or may not appear and should be taking with a grain of salt.


Usually (on DVD and over satellite) DD 5.1 is compressed. If they output compressed 5.1 over the HDMI it would be doing what we need it to do - which is pass on the compressed 5.1 audio to the receiver for decoding.

Some componants (like HD-DVD does for HD-audio) will do the audio decoding and pass on the decoded audio along HDMI or other outputs. This obviously requires a decoder. I believe tnsprin was just saying that we shouldn't expect the 622 to decode the audio - which I don't. If they pass the compressed 5.1 audio along HDMI (which they can easilly do via software), it will do what we need.

I believe even Dolby Pro Logic IIx is compressed. DTS uses less compression than Dolby.

I believe the audio on blue-ray and HD-DVD is not compressed.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Ok.. I updated the useful info and tips sticky to include a thread that discusses this issue.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=64185


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## jhall (Oct 16, 2002)

hmm I am a little confused.
For the sd channels, 300, 318, etc, there is an aditional pid (type 0x81) that contains the ac3 signal (from pes type 0xbd) but there is also the musicam stream that legacy receivers can use. Does the 622 forward this musicam stream (2 channel) down the HDMI path for the slave to decode?
Now I do not have a way to see stream info for the 8psk channels, but when hd used to be qpsk a few years ago, there was only the ac3 pid, not the musicam pid, so something was decoding that for sure, whether it was transparently passed to the slave or decoded by the 6000? or what.
The 622 seems to be decoding something because all channels have sound when you use component outs. I don't mean to be dense, and the volume differences I am seeing on channels that should have 5.1, makes me wonder what exactly is sent to the tv.
Does anybody make a device that would insert optical onto HDMI and remove any audio sent from the master, obviating the need for an optical to be run from the 622 to the audio receiver?
I am in the process of considering to update to surround and am confused as to how the cable routing works. Do modern receivers do video routing as well as audio routing? I understand this is drifting off topic, so responses to this question are welcome via private message to avoid topic drift.
Thanks.


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

jhall said:


> hmm I am a little confused.
> I am in the process of considering to update to surround and am confused as to how the cable routing works. Do modern receivers do video routing as well as audio routing? I understand this is drifting off topic, so responses to this question are welcome via private message to avoid topic drift.
> Thanks.


Any decent receiver will do video routing. Most will take at least 2 HDMI inputs, the higher end ones will take at least 3. Some of the Yamaha's will even do video upscaling and routing of component, composite and svideo and output it to HDMI.

As things currently stand, if you want DD 5.1 from the vip622 you will need to use the optical out. According to another thread on HDMI and DD5.1 they will be adding it sometime next year.


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## Virus (Sep 22, 2005)

I have found HD over HDMI looks better. Images are slightly crisper. SD definately looks better over component. This of course is with my setup. Then again, my HDMI port completely died today Another 622 is on the way.


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## M5Guy (Jun 24, 2006)

On my Panasonic plasma's (I have a 37" & a 42") & my Samsung DLP, the HDMI & component are the same quality on HD content at 1080i. Both are poorer quality at 720p. Obviously, the scalers in my displays are superior to the 622.

BUT, on the SD channels, S-video connection provides a much better picture than HDMI OR component. Another function of a superior scaler in the Panny displays. If the 622 had native pass thru, the S-video may not be superior any longer.

I have all three connections & switch the display input by remote as content dictates. A bit of a pain, but I'm used to it.


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## TechnoCat (Sep 4, 2005)

M5Guy said:


> On my Panasonic plasma's (I have a 37" & a 42") & my Samsung DLP, the HDMI & component are the same quality on HD content at 1080i. Both are poorer quality at 720p. Obviously, the scalers in my displays are superior to the 622.


Nope, your display's scalar is actually worse except for one specific input configuration. Your Panasonic plasma manuals state that the Panasonic prefers 1080i input even for 720p programming.

The Panasonic plasmas are fantastic values, just about the best looking at the lowest price. But only with 1080i input.


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## Bobby Bearcat (Jan 8, 2003)

I just purchased the Panasonic 58" Plasma (TH-58PX600U) and the picture via HDMI is superb.

I'm glad I bought a Plasma instead of a DLP Projection unit.


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## gintzj (Jan 4, 2007)

the hdmi on the vip 211 in salt on a wound.

the port ties within two or 3 weeks

just some information

dish does not support the HDMI unit on there units.


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