Hello Alan;
What video cable is best to connect my Cogeco HD digital decoder (box) to my rear-projection HD-ready 51-inch Toshiba with component, s-video and HDMI inputs? The "box" does not have an HDMI output terminal, only DVI, SPDIF (Sony Philips Digital Interface), Component, S-Video, RCA, and Toslink.
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Hello Mike,
Component video cables will deliver full HD bandwidth (720p or 1080i; not 1080p) and picture quality to your HD-ready Toshiba. If you wish, you could get a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor (try monoprice.com for inexpensive video adaptors and cables) and experiment with the
Cogeco's DVI output. The latter carries the signal in digital form rather than in analog form but it does not necessarily deliver a better picture than component video, which is analog.
You may or may not see any difference in the component video picture vs.the DVI/HDMI. In fact, sometimes the DVI picture doesn't look as good as component video.
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| Axiom's Component Video Cable |
Component video uses three separate cables with RCA male jacks on each end, sometimes bundled together. You can get those from Axiom if you wish.
To get digital audio from your Cogeco HD box, you'll need to use the Toslink optical output (SPDIF) to your Toshiba's digital audio input. If you have an AV surround receiver, you can connect the Toslink digital audio cable to your AV receiver and it will decode any HD shows that are mixed in Dolby Digital 5.1.
The other connectors--S-video or RCA composite are all quite inferior to component video.
Kind regards,
Alan Lofft
