You'd be surprised how many people route the video signal through an audio receiver. Because they are told by places like Best Buy that it is how they get the best possible picture and sound.
I have had a Best Buy employee tell me that HDMI had a better audio quality than optical. I laughed at him. But your average Joe is not going to know that these people are full of sh*t. So yes, a lot of people route HDMI video through the surround sound receiver.
I never implied that component was exactly like HDMI because of 1080p. What i said was that the difference between the two was negligible. People push this idea that component cabling is somehow far inferior to HDMI in picture quality. Which is not the case. I would challenge you to set up two TVs of the same model, one hooked up to a blu-ray player through HDMI and the other through component, playing the same blu-ray, and ask random people to sit at normal viewing distance and tell you which TV looks better. Guarantee you, the majority of people won't see a difference, and those that do, around only half of them will choose the TV hooked up via HDMI as looking better.
There's two reasons for this. One, and most importantly, component is not some kind of super inferior cable that significantly lacks the picture capabilities of HDMI. Again, the difference is negligible. The second reason, is that your average TV watcher doesn't know anything about HD or how to see the differences.
You would be surprised how many people watch the SD 480i channels stretched and think they are seeing HD. Sounds dumb, but I can't tell you how many times I have taken calls into the cable company from people asking why all of the sudden channel 10 doesn't fill the screen, only to spend the next half hour educating the customer that channel 10 isn't even a HD channel and what channel # they need to actually be tuned to to get HD.
A lot of these people are surprised and start tuning to the correct channel, and some idiots won't care and demand I "fix" their TVs so they can watch the SD channels like they always have. Even people with brand new 50" LED TVs.
The only reason the industry has pushed HDMI so much is DRM. From a picture quality standpoint, there is no real difference between HDMI and component.
"DirecTV suggests a workaround?switching to component video instead of HDMI?but as Ars points out, this is a pretty weak response: component video is much lower quality, and some content still won't work, because first-run movies employ selectable output control (another silly DRM restriction) to prevent analog output."
As someone who works for a cable provider, I am not really sure why people still carry this misconception about component. First off, component is capable of 1080p video, and the difference for a blu-ray between component and HDMI is fairly negligible. For broadcast TV: Not a single HD channel broadcasts in 1080p. They all broadcast in 1080i or 720p. So now we're at there being absolutely no difference in picture quality between HDMI and component when it comes to broadcast television.
In TV setups with surround sound systems, it could be argued that running component directly to the TV actually produces a HIGHER quality picture than setups with HDMI routing through the surround sound receiver, because the video signal is no longer being needlessly routed and processed through a secondary device before going to the TV.
As far as the ability to limit "first run movies" from outputting through component, I have never seen this with my cable box being hooked up to the TV through component. Maybe DirecTV boxes work differently, but my cable company's boxes certainly never generate any DRM errors when outputting through component. Ever.
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Re: Re: Component misconceptions
You'd be surprised how many people route the video signal through an audio receiver. Because they are told by places like Best Buy that it is how they get the best possible picture and sound.
I have had a Best Buy employee tell me that HDMI had a better audio quality than optical. I laughed at him. But your average Joe is not going to know that these people are full of sh*t. So yes, a lot of people route HDMI video through the surround sound receiver.
Re: Re: Component misconceptions
Jeff R.,
I never implied that component was exactly like HDMI because of 1080p. What i said was that the difference between the two was negligible. People push this idea that component cabling is somehow far inferior to HDMI in picture quality. Which is not the case. I would challenge you to set up two TVs of the same model, one hooked up to a blu-ray player through HDMI and the other through component, playing the same blu-ray, and ask random people to sit at normal viewing distance and tell you which TV looks better. Guarantee you, the majority of people won't see a difference, and those that do, around only half of them will choose the TV hooked up via HDMI as looking better.
There's two reasons for this. One, and most importantly, component is not some kind of super inferior cable that significantly lacks the picture capabilities of HDMI. Again, the difference is negligible. The second reason, is that your average TV watcher doesn't know anything about HD or how to see the differences.
You would be surprised how many people watch the SD 480i channels stretched and think they are seeing HD. Sounds dumb, but I can't tell you how many times I have taken calls into the cable company from people asking why all of the sudden channel 10 doesn't fill the screen, only to spend the next half hour educating the customer that channel 10 isn't even a HD channel and what channel # they need to actually be tuned to to get HD.
A lot of these people are surprised and start tuning to the correct channel, and some idiots won't care and demand I "fix" their TVs so they can watch the SD channels like they always have. Even people with brand new 50" LED TVs.
The only reason the industry has pushed HDMI so much is DRM. From a picture quality standpoint, there is no real difference between HDMI and component.
Component misconceptions
"DirecTV suggests a workaround?switching to component video instead of HDMI?but as Ars points out, this is a pretty weak response: component video is much lower quality, and some content still won't work, because first-run movies employ selectable output control (another silly DRM restriction) to prevent analog output."
As someone who works for a cable provider, I am not really sure why people still carry this misconception about component. First off, component is capable of 1080p video, and the difference for a blu-ray between component and HDMI is fairly negligible. For broadcast TV: Not a single HD channel broadcasts in 1080p. They all broadcast in 1080i or 720p. So now we're at there being absolutely no difference in picture quality between HDMI and component when it comes to broadcast television.
In TV setups with surround sound systems, it could be argued that running component directly to the TV actually produces a HIGHER quality picture than setups with HDMI routing through the surround sound receiver, because the video signal is no longer being needlessly routed and processed through a secondary device before going to the TV.
As far as the ability to limit "first run movies" from outputting through component, I have never seen this with my cable box being hooked up to the TV through component. Maybe DirecTV boxes work differently, but my cable company's boxes certainly never generate any DRM errors when outputting through component. Ever.