So I bought a new DVD player yesterday and I'm getting conflicting opinions on how to hood it up. An article I read on the web and a (geek) friend of mine both said S-video is the way to go but now I'm getting conflicting recommendations.
A little info that might help: I don't have top of the line stuff. I bought this player cause I had an 18 year old sony 5 disk CD changer that finly went bonkers on me this last weekend so I figured I'd move the current DVD to annother room and consolidate with a 5 disk CD/DVD/MP3/WMA/CIA/FBI... etc. etc. My TV is kind of new. About 8 months old and does support both methods. It's nothing fancy though. Not a plasma... not even a flat screen. So if that fact means it doesn't really matter what I use please let me know that too.
Everything I've read say's s-video is the way to go though I don't know the technical reasons for it. I've had the same DVD hooked up with both cable and s-video and to be honest, I didn't notice the difference.
Having said that, I have all of my DVD players hooked connected with s-video.
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Shawn - HP 4150, Sandisk 1G SD Card, Dell Latitude X1
I'd go with S-Video out of simplicity, I don't think most people would notice any difference, especially if it's not an extremely high quality HDTV. You can check out this site or this thread at AudioReview.com. Basically though, compnent is a better connection (capable of more bandwidth) but without the extremely high resolution of HDTV, you aren't going to notice any difference, which means S-video would probably be a better choice just because it's less cables to deal with.
I agree with Falstaff, it depends on your TV. If you have a big screen with component inputs (especially if it supports HD) go with component. Otherwise s-video is more than sufficient. Also, in almost all cases you can go with the cheapest cables you can find - you won't notice the difference.
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Component video does provide the best quality output. However both S-video and component video are significantly above what the standard RCA jack provides.
To be honest, I'd have to agree you'd probably not notice any difference. I certainly didn't.
If you the cable(s), try component video. Otherwise, go S-video which is just the one plug. Don't let the picture quality decide because it's almost an arbitary point, go for whatever's more convenient.
S-video will handle only up to a 480p signal (480 lines resolution, progressive scan). Component will deal with all available video resolutions - up to 1080; necessary for Hi-Def. That said, DVDs are 480 so s-video is fine.
The other issue to consider is that s-video cables are generally less expensive than component.
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An article I read on the web and a (geek) friend of mine both said S-video is the way to go but now I'm getting conflicting recommendations.
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That is advice you would be better without. If you have a big TV that has component-in, then by all means, use that! S-video is pretty useless on larger screens Especially if you want to plug a computer into it!
Thanks all. Like I said, my TV is nothing special so I went with S-vid for simplicity's sake. Plus it seems from everything I've read that the difference between S-vid and component is slight but they are both WAY better then a single RCA so that's fine for me.
I have heard that Svideo is only slightly better than a single RCA myself. Svideo is just RCA + an extra black and white channel from what I can gather by splicing an svideo cable into an RCA jack. Regardless, if you aren't running a computer into it it is more then good enough
DVD hook up question (Component vs. S-video)
Especially if you want to plug a computer into it!
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