2. home-theater
  3. 1091136705

Home theater cabling question

Hello all,
I have been working on setting up a dedicated HT system and I am looking for help in the area of cable configuration. I have searched the discussion boards for the best way to connect all of my HT gear and have not had any luck answering my question. This is what I am working with at the time: Digital cable box (piece of sh$t if you ask me Comcast) with composite outs which are connected to a Replay DVR through the composite in. S-video and optical out from Replay DVR into S-video and optical in on AVR. DVD player S-video and optical outs into S-video and optical in on AVR. For analog CD composite outs to composite in on AVR. AVR to TV using monitor S-video and composite (Red/White) outs to TV.

Although the sound and picture is very nice I am always looking for better. On the Replay and DVDP I have the option of using component out going to component in on AVR. Is this worth it since I will have to downgrade the signal to S-video out to my monitor?

In the very near future (2 months) I will going to plasma so my options on the monitor will change.

Any suggestions on cable configurations and input on the component cable question would be greatly appreciated. I am very happy with the Zu Cables I am using so advice on brand of cable is not needed.
Thanks again
mmajor2112dc1c

Showing 1 response by aroc

aroc
760 posts
 
customht, couldn't the cable tv signal still be composite at the source? like with some laserdisc players (whose analog picture is still stored as composite information, regardless if there is an svideo output) if the comb filter in the display device is better than the one in the cable box, you'd still be better off feeding a composite signal to the plasma then letting the comb filter in the cable box do it. The plasma (unless it's a costco cheapie) would likely have a better comb filter than any cable box, no?

But I see he is using a DVR to output, but same idea, no?

Ditto with the DVR. If it has excellent filters or trancoders, then upchanging to svid or component would be worthwhile, else I'd like the plasma do it. Do we know if the DVR stores video information is composite or or is the luma and chroma separate like with a DVD player? If so, you might be downsampling by using composite or svid out. If it composite you'd be filtering and transcoding which may not may not be a good idea.

Just another armchair quaterback here (with enough knowledge {barely} to be dangerous!).
More to discover