Let me preface this with the standard warning when dealing with AV interconnects: what one person thinks is great, another will think stinks. Also, I've had a couple brandies this evening, which means I'm a bit more loquacious than normal.

Now that we have that out of the way, I have a Dish Network 942 (which is obsolete at this point; if you subscribe now, you'll end up with a VIP622 if you want a DVR; I'm not absolutely certain of the non-DVR version numbers, but I think they're either 211 or 411), and my HD monitor is a Samsung HLN567W. The 942 has both component and HDMI outputs, but my TV only eats DVI inputs, which is not a problem as far as video is concerned since the signal for video sent over HDMI is exactly the same as for DVI; an HDMI to DVI cable is all that's needed.

I did quite a bit of A/B comparisons of the picture quality of component versus HDMI-to-DVI on my set using the 942. My opinion was that the color saturation of component was a touch better over component, but the picture seemed a bit fuzzier as well, and both blacks and whites appeared more compressed (meaning that in extremely bright or extrememly dark scenes, there was less apparent detail). This was based on the default calibration levels for that particular component input and the DVI input on my set. After properly calibrating both the component and DVI inputs, I felt that both color saturation and the overall picture quality over HDMI/DVI far exceeded the quality over component. Generally speaking, I think that if a digital HD monitor is used (i.e. DLP, LCD, or plasma) then the best image quality will be experienced when using a digital transport such as HDMI/DVI if properly calibrated. It's been my experience that manufacturers set the default calibration for component inputs to pop primary colors more than other inputs, because vivid primary colors draw attention in a showroom and most video sources present in showrooms are over component; but for prolonged viewing, such settings are quite fatiguing, and don't necessarilty represent the best visual quality possible for the set in question. So, I use the HDMI output of the 942 for video, and the toslink output for audio, and things work great.

Hopefully that both made sense and was somewhat intelligible.