Czarina Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 Okey dokey, I know I should check out monoprice...but what exactly do I need? It's looking like we're getting the Samsung 46" 6 series LCD. All we'll be hooking up to it is cable box, our stereo and the Wii. One HDMI cable, right? These newfangled things make my head spin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theeohiostate Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 Does your stereo have HDMI output ? If so, you just need 1 HDMI to run from the TV to the stereo, if not you'll need to use component. Wii also has a component upgrade you can buy, it does make a difference over the packaged analog junk they give in the box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocknrobn26 Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 Okey dokey,I know I should check out monoprice...but what exactly do I need? It's looking like we're getting the Samsung 46" 6 series LCD. All we'll be hooking up to it is cable box, our stereo and the Wii. One HDMI cable, right? These newfangled things make my head spin. Â Depends, actually, each device needs a cable as the TV or Amp (A very sweet choice I may add ) will have different sources & outputs. Example: I have my Cable Box Hooked up to HDMI #1 I have my PS3 audio Hooked up to my SS then to HDMI #2 as my SS has no HDMI and I had to enable the External output or some such on the PS3. (this one took me awhile to figger out) My DVD & DVDR are hooked up via component thru the SS Amp and are on sources of the same type, as they are too old for HDMI and my Sammy has only 2 inputs anyway. (BTW...Sammy's allow you to customize the source names so they make sense to you.) Hope that helps. Kid Cid will have the definitive reply. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Irish Doggy Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 Okey dokey,I know I should check out monoprice...but what exactly do I need? It's looking like we're getting the Samsung 46" 6 series LCD. All we'll be hooking up to it is cable box, our stereo and the Wii. One HDMI cable, right? These newfangled things make my head spin. Â Do you have a DVD player? Does it have HDMI? Â Can your stereo accept HDMI in and out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czarina Posted December 7, 2008 Author Share Posted December 7, 2008 The stereo is ancient, so no HDMI there. Component cables...is that what I already have or is this a purchase as well? Â Does it really make a difference to get a different cable for the Wii? I guess if I'm making a purchase at monoprice, I may as well buy more than one item. Â At monoprice, what cable should I be getting? I assume there are different grades? Â BTW, today's price on the Samsung 46" 630 is $1399. If you buy through Fatwallet, you can get 2% back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 The stereo is ancient, so no HDMI there. Component cables...is that what I already have or is this a purchase as well? Does it really make a difference to get a different cable for the Wii? I guess if I'm making a purchase at monoprice, I may as well buy more than one item.  At monoprice, what cable should I be getting? I assume there are different grades?  BTW, today's price on the Samsung 46" 630 is $1399. If you buy through Fatwallet, you can get 2% back.  That's a good price on a great TV.  I still haven't pulled the trigger yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czarina Posted December 7, 2008 Author Share Posted December 7, 2008 They could drop more after Christmas, but I think it's a pretty good price. Â We decided to pay the premium to get the 120hz. The jump in price from the 60hz to 120hz tvs is significant though. Â The 630 has 3 HDMI ports where the 650 has 4. However, the 630 has a matte screen and the stupid Touch of Color thing is more subdued. Why the bloody hell do I want a red tinged frame on my tv? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 They could drop more after Christmas, but I think it's a pretty good price. We decided to pay the premium to get the 120hz. The jump in price from the 60hz to 120hz tvs is significant though.  This is why I've waited. After much research, I decided I didn't want to buy the $799 deal on a 60hz, when I could spend a little more and get the 120. We mainly watch sports and some movies, and I didn't want to see a lag time in high action stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robash Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 They could drop more after Christmas, but I think it's a pretty good price. We decided to pay the premium to get the 120hz. The jump in price from the 60hz to 120hz tvs is significant though.  The 630 has 3 HDMI ports where the 650 has 4. However, the 630 has a matte screen and the stupid Touch of Color thing is more subdued. Why the bloody hell do I want a red tinged frame on my tv?  Czar, i bought the 40" 630 and love it. My suggestion is by a BD player though if you rent movies. you should be able to pick them up for around $200. The PS3 is great since you can upgrade it as BD upgrades, but i got the samsung player months ago and it works great for me. Nice thing about the sammy BD player player with the sammy TV is the TV will auto detect the BD player when you turn it on and change to the correct input. It loads pretty fast as well...not super quick, but not as slow as i hear some players do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kid Cid Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 An integrated system primer  So you've gone and bought an new fangled TV and you want to get the most from it. Everyone is raving about the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound they have and you look at the collection of boxes and wires that came with them and throw your hands up in confusion. Where do I start? How do all these things go together? That plug doesn't look like it goes in there, should I throw it away?  Connecting your audio/video equipement can be a daunting task but it's really not as bad as it seems. Here are a few things that you need to know in order to get yourself started.  There are two types of information that needs to be sent from one place to another, audio (sound) and video (pictures). How you accomplish this depends primarily on two things 1) how old your equipment is and how much money you want to spend.  There is a hierarchy of quality associated with cables to connect the pieces of equipment together and there is a direct relationship between quality and price. Typically the better the quality, the higher the price. For audio interconnects, it really is pretty simple. HDMI>Digital>Analog. For video the hierarchy goes HDMI>Component>S-Video>Composite. I know, this hasn't cleared much up but basically what you need to know is that you want to use the highest quality cables that your equipment accepts and that your budget can afford. Also it's important to thinl that you want to use as few cables as possible. Let's look at the cables and what they can do.  Audio HDMI - The HDMI cable is a digital connection between two devices. This connection carries both audio and video signals over the same cable. It is the preferred connection simply because it provides a high quality digital connection for both audio and video over one cable. It is the most expensive type of cable but if you need only one then you may actually save money over other types of cables.  Digital - The Digital cables for audio come in two flavors, fiber optic or copper wire. Fiber optic connections use pules of light to carry the digital information from one end to the other while copper uses bursts of electricity. In either case, there is no intrinsic difference in the quality of the audio signal being sent. The only difference is the price with fiber optic cables being about 4 times the price as a copper digital cable. A fiber optic cable has special connectors while a copper one has a standard RCA type connection. An RCA connection has a pin in the center and then a circle of metal surrounding it about 1/8" away from the pin.  Analog - Analog cables for audio are the type thaat are typically shipped with a device. Usually they are two wires with RCA connectors on each end. Each wire carries the signal for one side of the stereo signal, left or right. Higher quality versions of these cables can be bought, some of them costing up into the thousands of dollars. In most cases the extreme versions of these cables aren't necessary, but an upgrade to the ones that came with the device should certainly be considered if Analog connections are used.  Video HDMI - See Audio  Component - Component video cables break the video signal into three separate parts, the balck and white information, the color information and a control signal to synch the two together. The three pieces of info are each carried on their own wire. These three wires will almost always be bundled together and will have RCA jacks on each end. Much like Analog audio, the price of these cables can be excessive and the highest end ones are almost never needed.  S-Video - The connector is very different from most other connectors as it is a 4 pin connector. While it is important to know that S-Video is a significant upgrade over Composite video, it does not carry a high def signal.  Composite - This is typically a single wire carrying the entire video signal. It is the lowest quality and should be avoided if at all possible. Typically these connectors are sent with equipment as a three wire bundle with all having RCA type connectors. The other two wires are for carrying the Analog audio signal.  Now what?  Let's take the following example. A person has a TV, a cable box, a stereo and a game console. The idea is that you have to get the appropriate signal from one device to the device that needs it. That means that the cable box and the game console will have to send a video signal to the TV. If the TV has multiple HDMI connections and the cable box and the game console has HDMI connections, then two HDMI cables can be used to get the audio and video signals to the TV. Then a Digital or Analog Audio connection from the TV can be used to send the audio portion of the signal to the stereo.  If the TV only has one HDMI connection, that should be used for either the cable box or the game console. Let's say that the cable box is connected using HDMI. The game console should then be connected using component video to the TV. The TV will still need to be connected to the stereo to send the audio signal there. However, the game console should have its audio signal sent directly to the stereo instead of through the TV either by a Digital or Analog connection depending on what input connections are availabel on the stereo.  One last thing. No matter how the devices are connected, one or more remotes will have to be programmed to set each device correctly to either send or receive audio or video signals on the appropriate input or output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiegie Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 Â I just took the time to read Kid Cid's entire post dispite the fact that my one and only television is more than 15 years old and I have no intention of buying a new tv anytime soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBalata Posted December 7, 2008 Share Posted December 7, 2008 (edited) Congrats on your new Sammy. I just bought the 46" 650 couple months ago and loving it. Â Can't help on the HDMI stuff. Charter boxes don't have the HDMI Edited December 7, 2008 by BillyBalata Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keggerz Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 The stereo is ancient, so no HDMI there. Component cables...is that what I already have or is this a purchase as well? Does it really make a difference to get a different cable for the Wii? I guess if I'm making a purchase at monoprice, I may as well buy more than one item. At monoprice, what cable should I be getting? I assume there are different grades?  BTW, today's price on the Samsung 46" 630 is $1399. If you buy through Fatwallet, you can get 2% back. If you are running it from the TV to the dvr or whatever then it doesnt matter...here is some additional info I posted in another thread:   http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstatio...hread.id=828972  Since this question gets asked like 15 times a day, and I usually end up responding to them, I'll make a general post... Sure would be nice to be stickied, but since that won't happen, at least highlight it and keep the URL so you yourself will have an easy time "replying" to the onslaught of questions...  I originally wrote this as a reply to a post, but thought it made more sense standing on it's own... So here goes...  "Question: Is there any difference between a cheap (i.e. $10 HDMI cable) and an expensive (i.e. $150 HDMI cable)???" I have an EE degree. I work as a broadcast engineer. I live and breath digital and analog signals every day. So yes, you could say I'm qualified to give the answer to this question...  That answer is, "No, an expensive HDMI cable will make NO difference in the quality of your picture OR sound"  I'll give you the more complex reason first, then an analogy... Hopefully one will make sense... :smileywink: If you don't want all the real technical stuff, just skip down to B for a real simple explaination...  A) Wires send electrical signals... Plain and simple. Anything sent over a wire is ultimately just a voltage/current applied to that cable. Let's say we're talking about an analog video signal that's 1 volt peak to peak... In other words, measuring from the LOWEST voltage to the HIGHEST voltage will give a result of 1 volt... With an analog signal you have "slices" of time that are "lines" of signal... It's too complex to go into here, but basically you have a "front porch" which is known as the "setup"... This is what helps your tv "lock onto" and sets the "black level" for the signal. After that you've got each line of the image (455 half cycles per line). Again I won't go into how chromanance (color information) and luminance (picture or brightness information) is combined, seperated, etc.. It's too complex for this discussion, but irregardless, just know that following that porch you've got all the lines of the picture (and some that don't show up on the picture... these carry closed captioning, test signals, etc...). All of these "lines" of information when you look at them on a scope look like this...  That waveform is all of that information in analog form... In other words, if you look at one VERY SMALL timeslice of that waveform, the EXACT position of the form (i.e. what voltage is present) represents what information is at that position...  Because of this, it's VERY EASY for other radiated signals to get "mixed in" with that information. When this happens, the more "noise" you get mixed into the signal, the more degraded the picture will be... You'll start to get snow, lines, weird colors, etc... Because "information" is getting into the waveform that doesn't belong there...  With digital however, (i.e. the signal sent over an HDMI cable), the information is encoded differently... At it's lowest level, it's nothing but a string of bits... In other words, each signal is either ON or OFF... It doesn't care if a particular timeslice is 4.323 volts or 4.927 volts... It's just ON... See on the right side here, the "square wave" pattern?  That's what a digital signal looks like... For each "slice" of the signal, the "bit" is either on (if the signal is high) or off (if it's low)...  Because of that, even if you mix some noise, or even a LOT of noise into the signal, the bit will STILL be on or off... It doesn't matter...   Now, for a slightly easier to understand analogy...  Think of it this way... Let's say you have a ladder with 200 steps on it... An "analog" signal represent information by WHICH step the person is on at a certain time. As you move further and further away (get "noise or interference in the signal), it's very easy to start making mistakes... For example, if the person is on the 101st step, you might say he's on 102nd, or as you get further away, you might start making more and more mistakes... At some point you won't know if the person is on the 13th step or the 50th step....  NOW... In a digital signal, we don't care if he's on the 13th or 14th or 15th step... All we care about is rather he's at the TOP or the BOTTOM... So now, as we back you up further and further (introduce more noise), you might have no idea what STEP he's on, but you'll STILL be able to tell if he's a "1" or a "0"...  THIS is why digital signals aren't affected by cheaper cables, etc... Now eventually if you keep moving further and further back, there may come a point where you can no longer tell if he's up or down... But the good news is, digital signals don't "guess"... If they SEE the signal, they work... If they DON'T, they DON'T.. LOL  So if anyone ever tells you they can "see the difference" between HDMI cables, etc... You can knowingly laugh to yourself and think about how much money the poor sole wasted on something that was pointless.   Now, I've seen others say that they make a difference in audio... ALL audio carried over HDMI is STILL in digital format... So again, since it's a digital signal, it will not make ANY difference at all....  I've also seen various posts in regards to things like "Make sure you get a v1.3 cable"... The various HDMI versions determine the capabilities of the DEVICES on either end of that cable (most of the HDMI versions (other then 1.0 to 1.1) have to do with AUDIO and how many channels / type of audio are carried...) Because of this, the cable itself is NO DIFFERENT... It's just marketing that some companies charge more for a "v1.3" cable then a "v1.1" cable, etc... The cables themselves will work now and WELL into the future for any other HDMI versions that come along the way....  So there you have it... Hopefully it's clear enough to understand and hopefully it will help prevent a few posts... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czarina Posted December 8, 2008 Author Share Posted December 8, 2008 We ended up with 2 6' HDMI cables from monoprice at 9.50 each, along with a something or other cable for the Wii. Grand total of about $25 with shipping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avernus Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 We ended up with 2 6' HDMI cables from monoprice at 9.50 each, along with a something or other cable for the Wii. Grand total of about $25 with shipping. Â I usually suggest the gold plated ones because of the cheap price.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
driveby Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 If anyone has AT&T DSL/Uverse, be advised that HDMI cables tend to freeze their HD cable boxes if you have certain HD TV's. They recommend component video cables and will come out and switch out your HDMI cables if you are having this problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 We ended up with 2 6' HDMI cables from monoprice at 9.50 each, along with a something or other cable for the Wii. Grand total of about $25 with shipping. Â Â Hmmm. You might want to be careful - no offense. A good, solid HDMI cable runs $70+ at last check. Under 10 sounds too good to be true IMO.... Â Also, you got the RGB component cable for the Wii? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wildcat2334 Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 Hmmm. You might want to be careful - no offense. A good, solid HDMI cable runs $70+ at last check. Under 10 sounds too good to be true IMO.... Also, you got the RGB component cable for the Wii?   negative - the cheap ones work just as well as monster and the other expensive ones Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Irish Doggy Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 (edited) Hmmm. You might want to be careful - no offense. A good, solid HDMI cable runs $70+ at last check. Under 10 sounds too good to be true IMO.... Also, you got the RGB component cable for the Wii?  Check this out.  I have bought a few different types of cables from monoprice and have no complaints. Edited December 8, 2008 by The Irish Doggy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 The Wii does not have a HDMI plug in it. I just hooked my Wii to my LCD using the cables that came with the Wii (the red, white and yellow one). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twiley Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 Can't help on the HDMI stuff. Charter boxes don't have the HDMI The HD boxes do. You need to upgrade, you're not getting your full TV usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egret Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 Hmmm. You might want to be careful - no offense. A good, solid HDMI cable runs $70+ at last check. Under 10 sounds too good to be true IMO.... Also, you got the RGB component cable for the Wii? Quality matters more with analog cables. With digital cables, you either get the signal or you don't. You don't need to worry about interference like you would with an analog signal. The expensive HDMI cables are a way for companies to make money. Monoprice is the way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyBalata Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 The HD boxes do. You need to upgrade, you're not getting your full TV usage. Â Â Apparently they don't around here. I specifically requested them when I went in to pick up a HD box. Had been told by several people around here that I wouldnt be able to get one. Sure enough when I asked, I was told our boxes don't come with HDMI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pope Flick Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 negative - the cheap ones work just as well as monster and the other expensive ones   But do they last as long? I would tend to doubt it, and I work with the stuff nearly everyday - just not in living rooms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
millerx Posted December 8, 2008 Share Posted December 8, 2008 The HD boxes do. You need to upgrade, you're not getting your full TV usage. Â Okay, guru's... can one of you break down Component Video and Digital Audio (optical) vs. HDMI (A/V) ? Â How great a difference is there? My DVD player is a little older and only has Component (Red, Green, Blue) and my Receiver only has Optical or Coaxial for digital audio. Am I missing the full HD experience with having this type of hookups? Â I will be having DirecTV connecting HD for the first time tomorrow (to my first Full HD LCD) and was curious on what I can get away with before spending money I don't have upgrading my audio and DVD players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.