How Do I Hook my HDTV equipment together
Why HDMI?
But first, try shopping at my HD entertainment holiday store at AMAZON online-great prices aplenty.
So HOW DO I hook these things together? Many people's brains stop working when faced with this dilemma, but it's simple to envision taking the audio and video from one box, to the selected device to enjoy that content. Now what connection is the best?Well there is a big story behind it, which I will paraphrase, and finish with why HDMI cords are worth the expense...
So you buy your BluRay player, an awesome LCD HDTV, and a Multichannel Receiver, but all you got in the boxes were these Yellow, Red and White cords. Ok, I get a picture and left and right stereo sound.
Congratulations, you now have the worst possible connection compared to today's technology!
In fact the yellow Composite cord won't even show true HD from one device to another. It doesn't have the bandwidth to pass it. Basically, there is more water than pipe to push it through.
Let me tell you what is happening and why...A video signal is made up of Luminance (Brightness or Black, white, and Green) and Chrominance (Separate Colors of Red and Blue) These signals are normally separate signals when going from one device to another. The composite (Yellow Cord) connection is what most devices used with VCR's (tape based media for you young-uns). This forces these three signals into one. Your TV then has to use it's comb filter to separate the signals back out so the Green pixels show Green, the Blue pixels show Blue and so on.
Huh??
To really simplify the process, look at your laundry basket...
Ha ha real funny, you need to do laundry don't you, but will you mix all the colors together in the wash?
If your a Woman, probably not. But a Man... well, if he wants to get out of doing laundry forever, he can mix them all together now..whoops gave away a secret man law there. Sorry guys.
Anyway, if you mix red with white and hot water, you get pink right?
Why would you do that with your Television signal?
This is can be seen on straight edges in a TV show-like a wall, rail or wire that is in the movie. You will see a little rainbow effect along it's edge. That's because the TV is the washing machine, and trying not to bleed your colors. Or if you read the HDTV section, you might have a DLP TV.
So When Laser Disc came out, S-Video was introduced and actually separates Luminance from Chrominance. This does a little better job. But to truly get the best performance using analog RCA style plug connections...Component was introduced with DVD players, and separates Luminance (Y) from Chrominance Red Cr and Blue Cb (RGB, YCrCb are other interpretations). But Component video is three cords, and we haven't even discussed audio. If you have three components (Bluray, Cable/Satellite, Media center) now you have up to 18 cords to patch through a Receiver to pick up the sound, then to the HDTV. Talk about an analog rat's nest.
Now for Audio. You have a couple of choices. Simply put, You can use the red and white RCA cords for analog stereo sound..These also come in the box...Or you can use Optical or Coaxial connections. These are both a one cord solution for multichannel audio and both support the most current standards of Surround Sound 5 or 6.1 channels (number of speakers, the .1 refers to the subwoofer channel). Technically, Coaxial is a better specs wise on paper than optical, but you would be hardpressed to hear the difference. But read below and find out why this is not compatible with the sound codecs of Blu-Ray!!
So, what if I could use 1 cord to do it all!
Back in the late 90's, when HDTV's were first introduced with Digital HD VHS, A few people invented a cord called IEEE1394. Apple called it FireWire(tm), Sony called it i-Link(tm). This allowed (for TV and Video applications) the transfer of Audio and Video from one device to another, Digitally. Great idea, but one major flaw... The movie studios and content producers didn't like the opportunity of being able to copy that content onto Digital VHS. Basically, they couldn't protect the content. So they forced another solution.
That solution was DVI(Digital Video Interface). Now DVI is also used in computers, but it's different from the video protocol. This led to a lot of confusion between the computer crowd and the hifi crowd. Plus, Audio was taken off the cord and put back on RCA red and whites. Further still, the cord had a huge head-like an old printer connection, and was not easy to custom install into walls...There must be a better way.
HDMI-the solution...
And NOW there is...HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) HDMI was born from Sony, Matsushita, and other large electronics and computer corporations. This cord puts all the Digital, component style separation, multichannel audio, and control, on 1 CORD!!! This means you only need one cord from each device. No rats nest.
HDMI is also intelligent and forward compatible as well as backward compatible. If you have a TV that only displays 720 lines of resolution, but the DVD player or Bluray player can output at 1080, the HDMI connection will automatically figure out what is the best resolution to maximize the Television. In this case, in the auto setting on the player, it would output at 720 to the TV after asking the TV what it's capable of showing.
Most receivers are also now being integrated with HDMI pass through, so you can hook up your devices to it, then pass the video to the TV. One thing to be careful of though. Make sure the Receiver you are buying has HDMI with Repeater capability. Wait, what does Repeater mean?
Repeating (Active Intelligence) vs. Pass Through
When you hook up components with HDMI, they talk to each other. In the case of a pass through, using a player, amplifier/receiver, and TV, the player will ask the TV what it can handle regarding picture and sound. The HDTV may answer back "1080p/24 and 2 channel sound" (Most TV's only have two speakers). The Amp then says "OK" and passes the information through.
Wait a second...Didn't you buy a Receiver that can do Multichannel Audio? The quick way to solve this is to run an optical or coaxial cord for sound to the receiver to get the 5.1 channel sound (meaning 5 speakers and 1 subwoofer), but something may still be missing, and why do I know have to run two cords and reassign the audio (tell the receiver you are using Optical instead of HDMI for sound) in the receiver to make it work? Read below and find out why you won't get Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio...
Click Here to Shop Discount HDMI cords!!
The Good News is if you are buying a new Receiver right now, most brands have Repeater at $500-but make sure it does. The Receiver here is an ideal solution for someone who doesn't want to worry about it.
Sony STR-DN1000 7.1-Channel Audio Video Receiver (Black)
So, this Receiver with Repeater or ACTIVE INTELLIGENCE, can interrupt the player and say "HOLD ON, I see that you have 5.1-7.1 on that disc, and I can amplify that, so send the noise and I'll pass the video to the TV" Ahh much better, considering you spent all that money to get surround sound, you might as well actually use it. And it's still just 1 cord.
What about new sound codes of DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD?
These newest and purest reproduction of sound codecs will ONLY pass via HDMI or analog outputs from a decoding Bluray player, due to the volume of data that is present. Here's where you need to be careful. Unless you have a new Receiver or an incredibly new Bluray player, you won't get these sound codecs until you upgrade. You will still hear the Bluray, but since your equipment wasn't built for it, it will revert to it's highest capability.
One way around this is to check to see if your Receiver has 7.1 Analog Multi Channel Inputs on the back. If you do, then when the Bluray players hit with DECODING the advanced 7.1 codecs, you can keep your Receiver. But the Bluray player also has to have 7.1 analog (8 RCA plugs) pre-outs-this is what tells you that it actually decodes, not just passes through the DTS Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD. If it doesn't, then you need to buy a new receiver that does decode the signals and you can save on a Bluray that passes it through HDMI.
One more thing about decoding, The PS3 and some other BluRay players out there, do indeed decode the latest sound codecs, but don't have analog preouts. What happens in this situation is that the player converts the codec to LPCM (Linear Pulse Code Modulation), essentially a bit for bit copy and outputs it via HDMI. Thus, you need to make sure that if your receiver doesn't have DTS Master Audio or Dolby True HD, that it at least accepts 8ch LPCM via HDMI. The other downer is that you won't get an indication on the Receiver of what sound codec you are listening to, but you are hearing it.
Now the other nice thing about HDMI is that it works to whatever the capability of the connecting device is. Meaning, there were just new capabilities added this past June 2006 called HDMI 1.3 that can take advantage of new color standards that have been approved along with 7.1 HD multichannel surround sound that will start appearing in movies soon. Now to take advantage of that, you would need newer TV's and Hifi Equipment that also have the capabilities.
But it's still ok if you don't. HDMI will still work to whatever the capability is in the device.
One other thing, HDMI does cost a bit, but you don't have to buy the best HDMI plug out there. The specs and performance are the same regardless of the coating around the cord. You will be upsold on this because there is a lot of margin in accessories.
I hope this cleared up some questions for you...
If you found this information to be helpful, Please consider a donation to keep the site up and running. Thank You!
