REACTION426

Some people really don’t like it when the person next to them on the train is hacking up a lung the entire way home. If you’re Kimberly, you really hate it when Amelia’s down for a nap and the kookaburra’s start cackling like crazy right outside her window (and then Amelia’s up for the rest of the day).

If you’re like me, you can’t stand it when people have big high definition television screens connected to their DVD players and digital/HD tuners via ultra thin, el cheap-o analog RCA cables (you know the kind, Yellow for video, Red and White as the stereo pair - the absolute worst is when they only have mono/White connected...but I won’t go there today).

A good friend of mine had a fairly new 65” HD plasma screen, which I felt just wasn’t cutting it as far as picture quality when he was showing it off to me. A bit of investigation and I find the exact scenario laid out above. He had his up-converting, progressive scan capable DVD player AND his HD Comcast cable box connected to two analog RCA ports round the back. Get this tho...he was paying for premium HD cable, and didn’t even know that he had HD channels!!!

A quick trip to Walmart and some HDMI cables later and he was in business. I left the Yellow RCA cable connected and did a little demonstration with his HD comcast box. Tuned into the standard def Fox channel with American Idle (Idol) on via the RCA cable. 4:3 aspect ratio, 480i picture. Not too bad. Jumped up to the HD channel via the digital HDMI connection (it was hidden in the 900s - maybe he didn’t have the patience to go through all the thousand channels he was paying for?) and it completely blew him away. 16:9 and 1080i. You see the audience cheering in the wings (you don’t see that on the SD broadcast because of the 4:3 framing), and on close ups you could see the veins in the contestant’s eyes, and the make-up lines on the host’s face. Flipping back and forth had him sold.

Now this has been a very long winded morality tale, and the moral of the story is: utilize the screen you paid big bucks for with the proper connection! Esp if you paid more than a thousand dollars, a $20 cable from Walmart is nothing (obviously more expensive cables would be best, but at least you have the proper connection that can drive the resolution your new telly is drooling for).

Remember, Yellow/RCA is worst, S-Video is a tad bit better, Component (RGB coloured) RCA is probably the best yer gonna get as far as analog (enables progressive scan), then comes DVI-D, which is great for digital, but I reckon HDMI is best (carries high def picture and digital surround audio down one nice cable).