Home Theater Blog

Here is a comparison of HDMI and Component video. Both cables broadcast High Def but HDMI uses a digital signal while Component uses analog. More differences are explained in the video.

A few basic things. Component video as you know is the red, blue, and green cable and it started to enter the home theater industry from around 2001 to 2002. Back then it was the common form of getting your HD signal but common HD signals today such as 720p or 1080p/i were not popular and did not penetrate the market since it was expensive to produce the chips. Instead you had 480p which is also coined as “Progressive Scan”. This was common on almost all DVD players and few cable and dish receivers. Slowly 720p and 1080i penetrated the market and Component was able to support the bandwidth for those signals. This happened from around 2003-2005. It was not until late 2005 that sets started to have 1080p but they were quite expensive. Component theoretically supports 1080p and it has been proven and tested. However most tv sets do not support 1080p through Component maybe due to incompatible frequencies (I might be wrong, if anyone knows send me a message to correct this). HDMI then already developed 2003 but was not popular and it was until late 2005 that is started to appear on a lot of tv sets. HDMI supported all video resolutions and had the capacity to expand, it also supported audio as well and this was all transmitted to one cable that was thiner than component. Below I will lay out some similarities between HDMI and component.

Similarities
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1. Both cables can support all standard video resolutions and HD resolutions.*

2. Both are compatible with almost all HDTV’s and are both pretty reliable.

Differences
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1. HDMI transmits audio and video through one cable while Component only transmits video through three cables. HDMI is seen as the ideal home theater connection due to reliability and less cable clutter.

2. Component does not support any audio what so ever whereas HDMI support 5.1 Surround Sound along with Dolby True HD and DTS HD.

3. HDMI uses multiple pins to transmit digital signals whereas Component uses three cable inputs to transmit an analog signal which is later converted to digital.

4. HDMI has the capacity to expand with better resolutions and audio in the future whereas Component today is at it’s limit in terms of video resolution.

5. Both cables are fully capable of supporting HD signals but HDMI can support 1080p at different frequencies whereas Component cannot.

6. HDMI uses DRM (Digital Rights Management) and does not allow copyrighted material to be copied through the signal. Component does not have DRM and HD signal can be copied.

7. hdmi is quickly becoming the industry standard in terms of video and audio capabilities. Component is slowly becoming obsolete but most consumers still use it because it is cheaper than HDMI.

Here are some quick facts.

Average Component Cable price is around 25 to 30 dollars.

Average HDMI price is around 40 to 50 dollars.

**NOTE that these are only average prices, there are cheaper and more expensive cables than the prices I listed.**

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Technorati Tags: 1080i, 1080p, 720p, apfaq, apmastersite, cable, component, Definition, digital, hdmi, hdtv, High, interface, Multimedia, Video, vs

Tags: 1080i, 1080p, 720p, apfaq, apmastersite, cable, component, Definition, digital, hdmi, hdtv, High, interface, Multimedia, Video, vs