What video cable is best to connect my Cogeco HD digital decoder (box) to my
HD-Ready 51-inch Toshiba Rear-projection set, which has component, S-video
and HDMI inputs? The Cogeco box does not have an HDMI output terminal, only
DVI, SPDIF, Component, S-Video, RCA, and Toslink.
Mike
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Hello Mike,
Component video cables will deliver full HD bandwidth and picture quality to
your HD-ready Toshiba rear-pro TV. If you wish, you could get a DVI-to-HDMI
adaptor (check out monoprice.com for inexpensive video adaptors and cables)
and try the
Cogeco's DVI output. The latter carries the signal in digital form rather
than analog but it does not necessarily deliver a better picture than
component video, which is analog. In fact, sometimes the DVI picture doesn't
look as good as the
component video image.
Component video uses three separate cables with RCA male jacks on each end,
sometimes bundled together and color-coded red, green and blue. 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 (these days, most HD shows are).
The other video connectors, S-video or RCA composite, are all quite inferior
to
component video.
Kind regards,
Alan
