i just bought an HD Receiver for D*...a Hughes HTL-HD. What type of cables should I use to hook up HD...component or DVI? There is a price difference in cables of about $70. Can you REALLY see the difference? What would you recommend?
Go to Ebay, you can get a DVI cable for about $25.00. I can't remember what the name of the vendor is but he is based in California. He makes and tests all his own cables.
Are you looking at Monster Cables ?? If so, yeah, you'll see a big price difference. I've read of sooooo many people saying with Monster Cable you're paying for one thing: Their name. http://www.cablestogo.com/ is actually a local company for me, but they're a nationwide mail-order company. They've got quite a few DVI cables to choose from here:
As for what to use, well, this is where a local supplier would be handy. Try both.... return the one that does the lesser job.... DVI does keep the signal in digital form whereas component is an analog signal. Then again, using component cables from my progressive-scan DVD player to my HD set produces a beautiful picture.
Why dont you buy both from a local store and try it out yourself and see which one you like? You shall then be able to decide which one to go with. Then you can always look for 'deals' on them on internet/retailers/eBay, etc. DVI is totaly digital and generally considered to be better and more accurate but a lot of people cannot make the difference if they upgraded from component to DVI. You would notice a 'big' difference if you went from s-video or composite to DVI/component.
Whether DVI will provide better PQ than component is mostly dependent on your TV. If you have a direct-view CRT or RP/CRT monitor, then you probably won't see any difference in PQ between the two types of input cables. If you have a LCD, plasma, or DLP, then you definitely should see a difference. If you have an RP/LCD, some do, some don't.