on 1080i HDTV does HDMI make a difference?

[bone crusher]

Just wondering if on a non-1080p tv, mine is 1080i does HDMI make any noticeable improvement on BD movies over component video? Thanks.

[Tyler2106]

It shouldn't but if you go HDMI you won't have to run extra cables for sound...

[Mou gaan dou]

Sound is the major difference.

[Zaphod]

Audio is the only significant difference you notice. I have tried both component and HDMI on my 1080i and have only noticed a small difference as far as the PQ goes.

[catterwall]

only one way to find out... its gonna vary depending on your TV. I would recommend hooking both of them up at the same time and just switch back and forth. see what looks better to you. The HDMI is definitely better as far as cable management goes

[Kirsty_Mc]

For 1080i no real difference. The only difference would be if you played a title which is encoded to downgrade the quality over analogue connections. This is in the specs somewhere, but I don't know if it has ever been implemented. HDMI would be unaffected as it is HDCP compliant.

There was a lot of talk about this on BD, HD-DVD and broadcasts when HDMI first came out and a lot of early adopters were p1$$ed off after having bought an expensive HD panel without HDMI.

Has anyone ever come across a title which downgrades analogue???

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by bone crusher

Just wondering if on a non-1080p tv, mine is 1080i does HDMI make any noticeable improvement on BD movies over component video? Thanks.

I assume you are talking about a CRT-based display?

There isn't an easy answer. It depends on how the data is handled. The data soon goes into the analog domain for display, and there are limits to the video amp bandwidth on most consumer CRT sets.

Some, I've been told, merely converted the HDMI to YPrPb and pushed that into the circuitry that took the direct YPrPb (an HDMI front-end). YPbPr is then converted to digital and then overlays, PiP applied.

So, the DAC you think HDMI is skipping in the player becomes a DAC in the set, so no really gain unless your run is subsceptible to losses if it were YPbPr.

You would gain something if the HDMI went directly into a frame buffer of the set for further processing. Then you're skipping a DAC and ADC.

Gary