RG6 or HDMI to HD TV?
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outerbanker
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RG6 or HDMI to HD TV?
I am in the process of building a new house and my A/V contractor has pre-wired HDMI to the TV's for the Blu-Ray Players and RG6 to the TV's from the HD Sat Box Receiver. Should there be an HDMI cable running to the TV from the Sat Box as well? Do I lose any picture quality running on RG6 instead of HDMI?
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bobby_c
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Do not, I repeat, do not use RG6 from your satellite box to the TV. You will not receive HD pictures that way. You can use HDMI or component cables (RGB) from the satellite receiver to the TV and all will be fine. If you use component cables you will also need to run a red white audio cable between them as well.
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bobby_c
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Do not, I repeat, do not use RG6 from your satellite box to the TV. You will not receive HD pictures that way. You can use HDMI or component cables (RGB) from the satellite receiver to the TV and all will be fine. If you use component cables you will also need to run a red white audio cable between them as well.
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eliwhitney
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- Location: Oklahoma
Hi outerbanker -
Not mentioned in your "post" is the footage involved?
Longer lengths of HDMI cabling & their terminations s/b of a carefully-made, "certified" variety - - - try them from here, credits to JazzGuyy = =
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/hdm ... -cable.htm
eli
Not mentioned in your "post" is the footage involved?
Longer lengths of HDMI cabling & their terminations s/b of a carefully-made, "certified" variety - - - try them from here, credits to JazzGuyy = =
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/hdm ... -cable.htm
eli
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pkwaug
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I use the Monoprice 5 way switch with BJC Series 1 running from each component to the switch and then a 40' BJC Series 1 through my builder installed conduit and have had no problems.eliwhitney wrote:Hi outerbanker -
Not mentioned in your "post" is the footage involved?
Longer lengths of HDMI cabling & their terminations s/b of a carefully-made, "certified" variety - - - try them from here, credits to JazzGuyy = =
http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/hdm ... -cable.htm
eli
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Rodolfo
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- Posts: 755
- Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:46 pm
- Location: Lansdowne VA
Outerbanker,
Perhaps you also needed to know why not using RG6 the way it appears you wanted to use it, and also other possibilities for your installation.
The RG6 RF output from typical STB tuners is generally used to send a downscaled signal to legacy analog TVs (non-HDTV sets), that is 9 times less than HD quality. Legacy TVs do not need more than a 480i signal because is all they can display, and they would tune to that signal by using channel 3 or 4, as typical VCRs/TVs did for years. Since your TV is HD you should always use HDMI or component analog (YPbPr, 3 cables) from any source device, if you want the HD resolution of the image to reach the TV.
This gets more complicated now with a new “Analog sunset” regulation that restricts component analog connections whereby HD may be downgraded to SD by the player regardless if you have good HD wiring; if you are concern with that subject, post again. If I would be you I would double up (HDMI and component analog) all in-wall wiring (test the cables outside the walls first).
HDMI carries video and the digital audio in the same wire, component analog cables only carries the video part, reason by which a poster suggested also to run L/R audio wiring, but that audio is not digital audio surround, it is stereo or, at its best, a Pro-logic analog audio of L/R/C matrixed/surround mono (4 total), carried over the left/right channels in a matrix manner, so I suggest using fiber-optic (Toslink), or digital coax wiring for the audio to be digital (lossless at its best, Dolby Digital/DTS).
The confusion may exist when cable companies install coax RG6 all over a house to transport their HD channels to the DTVs, but those signals are compressed over an RF transport, and they are uncompressed before the DTV displays them. The same applies if you use the network of RG6 house wiring for transporting over-the-air HD tuned by an external antenna, or satellite, the tuner/TV uncompresses the signal that travelled over coax RG6.
If the RG6 wiring is already in place, you do not want more wiring, walls are done, distances are too long, and the RF wall plates are already close to the devices, there are extenders/adaptors that convert HDMI output from a player/STB to an RF RG6 format, and at the other end another adaptor converts back to HDMI for the TV, such as:
http://www.audioholics.com/news/press-r ... -over-coax/
The same exists using Cat5/6 house wiring, and using wireless converters. Their prices are relatively high compared to just wiring but as I said, sometimes the distances are too long and the labor of installing whole house wiring could be higher than using existing wires with adaptors. I would not use that approach if an HDMI/component analog cable can be used because every time conversions take place there is a chance of signal deterioration.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
Perhaps you also needed to know why not using RG6 the way it appears you wanted to use it, and also other possibilities for your installation.
The RG6 RF output from typical STB tuners is generally used to send a downscaled signal to legacy analog TVs (non-HDTV sets), that is 9 times less than HD quality. Legacy TVs do not need more than a 480i signal because is all they can display, and they would tune to that signal by using channel 3 or 4, as typical VCRs/TVs did for years. Since your TV is HD you should always use HDMI or component analog (YPbPr, 3 cables) from any source device, if you want the HD resolution of the image to reach the TV.
This gets more complicated now with a new “Analog sunset” regulation that restricts component analog connections whereby HD may be downgraded to SD by the player regardless if you have good HD wiring; if you are concern with that subject, post again. If I would be you I would double up (HDMI and component analog) all in-wall wiring (test the cables outside the walls first).
HDMI carries video and the digital audio in the same wire, component analog cables only carries the video part, reason by which a poster suggested also to run L/R audio wiring, but that audio is not digital audio surround, it is stereo or, at its best, a Pro-logic analog audio of L/R/C matrixed/surround mono (4 total), carried over the left/right channels in a matrix manner, so I suggest using fiber-optic (Toslink), or digital coax wiring for the audio to be digital (lossless at its best, Dolby Digital/DTS).
The confusion may exist when cable companies install coax RG6 all over a house to transport their HD channels to the DTVs, but those signals are compressed over an RF transport, and they are uncompressed before the DTV displays them. The same applies if you use the network of RG6 house wiring for transporting over-the-air HD tuned by an external antenna, or satellite, the tuner/TV uncompresses the signal that travelled over coax RG6.
If the RG6 wiring is already in place, you do not want more wiring, walls are done, distances are too long, and the RF wall plates are already close to the devices, there are extenders/adaptors that convert HDMI output from a player/STB to an RF RG6 format, and at the other end another adaptor converts back to HDMI for the TV, such as:
http://www.audioholics.com/news/press-r ... -over-coax/
The same exists using Cat5/6 house wiring, and using wireless converters. Their prices are relatively high compared to just wiring but as I said, sometimes the distances are too long and the labor of installing whole house wiring could be higher than using existing wires with adaptors. I would not use that approach if an HDMI/component analog cable can be used because every time conversions take place there is a chance of signal deterioration.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
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wallaua
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- Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:39 am
RG6 or HDMI to HD TV?
Rodolfo - Do you mean to say that the coaxial analog output from an STB is 1/9th the quality of an HDMI digital output ? - Alex
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Rodolfo
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- Location: Lansdowne VA
Alex,
The quick answer to your question is Yes; that is exactly what I meant on my first paragraph.
The comparison is based on the resolution of a single frame of video of both formats running at the same 30 frames per second.
However, they have different aspect ratios, meaning the HDTV image is wider than an NTSC image. If you need to be exact, based on the 4x3 aspect ratio of NTSC, you have to take the HDTV frame pixel count of just that smaller 4x3 area within the HDTV 16x9 video frame, which is not usually done in informal comparisons. Nor the TVL standard commonly used for analog television in the CRT era is used for digital images.
A picture element of an analog TV signal (which is: vertical columns in horizontal lines) cannot be exactly matched to a discrete pixel on the digital world (panel or image), but it is generally accepted to make this type of comparisons with the digital world. A similar situation happens when trying to compare the implied resolution of a celluloid frame of film with its digital version, where pixels can be counted with more exactitude.
Here are the numbers:
NTSC legacy analog TV: 480i lines x 450 (picture elements on the whole horizontal line, not TVL) = 216,000 total per frame.
HDTV 1080i: 1080i lines x 1920 = 2,073,600 total pixels per frame
Therefore a HDTV video frame has 9.6 times the pixel count resolution of NTSC video frame (and exactly 6 times of anamorphic DVD 480x720, which has the same 16x9 aspect ratio as HDTV, and both are digital).
As mentioned, the RG6 coax output on STBs permits the connection to legacy NTSC analog displays/VCRs and, in order to be backward compatible, the resolution of a tuned HDTV signal has to be adapted to 480i.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra
The quick answer to your question is Yes; that is exactly what I meant on my first paragraph.
The comparison is based on the resolution of a single frame of video of both formats running at the same 30 frames per second.
However, they have different aspect ratios, meaning the HDTV image is wider than an NTSC image. If you need to be exact, based on the 4x3 aspect ratio of NTSC, you have to take the HDTV frame pixel count of just that smaller 4x3 area within the HDTV 16x9 video frame, which is not usually done in informal comparisons. Nor the TVL standard commonly used for analog television in the CRT era is used for digital images.
A picture element of an analog TV signal (which is: vertical columns in horizontal lines) cannot be exactly matched to a discrete pixel on the digital world (panel or image), but it is generally accepted to make this type of comparisons with the digital world. A similar situation happens when trying to compare the implied resolution of a celluloid frame of film with its digital version, where pixels can be counted with more exactitude.
Here are the numbers:
NTSC legacy analog TV: 480i lines x 450 (picture elements on the whole horizontal line, not TVL) = 216,000 total per frame.
HDTV 1080i: 1080i lines x 1920 = 2,073,600 total pixels per frame
Therefore a HDTV video frame has 9.6 times the pixel count resolution of NTSC video frame (and exactly 6 times of anamorphic DVD 480x720, which has the same 16x9 aspect ratio as HDTV, and both are digital).
As mentioned, the RG6 coax output on STBs permits the connection to legacy NTSC analog displays/VCRs and, in order to be backward compatible, the resolution of a tuned HDTV signal has to be adapted to 480i.
Best Regards,
Rodolfo La Maestra