What Is Needed For True High Definition
Setting up your own Home Theater System is now easier than ever to do. Not too long ago it was very expensive so only the people with the extra cash were taking part. You may have needed 20 thousand dollars or more to have your own personal system. Many people just sat back and waited as with most electronic components, if you waited the cost would drastically come down and be affordable for many more of us in the not too distant future. Well now that time has come.
To start lets look at how High definition TVs have come down, way down. They started out at around $5000. Now you can get a full HD TV, like a 50” 1080p for $1000. And to play back HD DVD movies on full screen you needed either a Blu-ray or HD DVD player. They were upwards toward $1000 but now they are less than two hundred dollars.
So now you just bought a brand new HDTV and you are thinking you want to setup your own personal home theater system. You also purchased a new Blu-ray DVD player to watch some full screen high definition DVDs. And you probably still have some existing stereo components as well as an older DVD/VHS recorder you’d like to setup and use all together with your new HDTV.
Cables Needed For Your Home Theater
Through the last 20 years there has been a tremendous change in the types of connections used for new consumer electronics. We started years ago using RCA analog cables for audio related components like stereo receivers and video too which also was used for VHS video recorders and they are still in use today.
As the equipment changed there was also a desire to increase the output quality of these components and so the manufacturers started evolving in many types of higher quality connection cables. In doing so they also had to have a more advanced cable to carry the signal to it’s final destination or source. The introduction of Dolby sound helped move along the new technology as it was now desirable in the home.
The New Standard
One of the newest and highest of the quality cables are now a standard part of new electronics and is called HDMI or (High Definition Multimedia Interface). This digital connection is a compact audio/video cable for transmitting uncompressed digital data. This is the new choice for consumers as it replaces the analog hookups like coax cable, composite video, S-Video, and VGA. It is now used for Set Top boxes from TV service providers, Blu-ray disc players, Personal Computers, Video games, AV receivers, Computer monitors and most of all the new Digital TVs.
Still On The Market And Useful
If you own older component equipment there is still a need for older type cables. With earlier high def TVs the most advanced cables were component cables. These came in a bundled cable consisting of Red, Blue and Green. They did provide the best color quality and are considered broadcast quality. These cables resemble an rca type connector with the better ones having gold tip plating for ultimate performance.
There are a lot of different cable still being used for slightly older equipment as follows:
- S-Video
- Composite Video
- Digital Audio/SPDIF
- Optical/TOSlink
- Stereo Audio
- RGB/H/V
- Balanced Audio
- Speaker
- Network/Ethernet
- Firewire
- RF Coax
- Audio/Multi-channel
- Balanced Audio
- XLR
- DVI
- BNC/Component Video