As technology had advanced in the recent years there has been a development of different kinds of HD display devices and even more number of ways for connecting your devices to the source. The result is that every display has a myriad of plugs behind it such as for DVI, HDMI and component video connectors. This has left us all very confused on which one is the right choice. In order to figure that out all that needs to be done is gain knowledge on the difference between these different types of cables and which can be best compatible with our HDTV. Different formats will be available even when huge costs are incurred on manufacturing and use of the product because this can turn out to be a very lucrative business if the consumers like the product better than the others.
Initially, when HDTVs were launched data used to be transmitted from set- top boxes or DVD players in analog form. This was done using the component video inputs which used to work well the Cathode Ray Tube TV displays. Even the VGA cables today transmit data in analog form. As the market has slowly been captured by LCD or plasma TVs, the use of component or VGA transmission has reduced as they transmit data in compressed form resulting in the loss of data during transmission and a poor quality screen image. HDMI cables on the other hand, transmit uncompressed digital data as the result of which the image on the screen is of a superior quality.
Though DVI is a major improvement over the analog VGA that has been used with CRT displays for a long time, DVI cannot match the HDMI cables in many ways. A major flaw with the DVI cable is that it cannot transmit audio signals whereas the HDMI cable has what is called the 8 channels of audio transmission in uncompressed for that lets it transmit audio formats like Dolby digital and DTS without any data loss that can lead to degradation in sound quality. The HDMI cables are also cheaper to manufacture than the DVI cable and comes in longer lengths that can help you easily connect your wall mounted LCD or HDTV to the DVD player or set-top box. It also supports copper cables of lengths up to 15m. So, the DVI cable is not a good option when you need to connect your HDTV to the input.
Whenever you want to consider the connectivity options with your HDTV the best option would be to see if it has the HDMI connectivity. This is because presence of the HDMI input will largely impact the compatibility with the newer connectivity options in the future like the UDI input for PC monitors. Because the HDMI is very flexible, it has HDCP copy protection and multiple channels to transmit digital data you can be sure that whichever HD source you connect it to, you will get the maximum quality resolution available in your High Definition display which a DVI cable cannot ensure.