Which one is better? Component connection or VGA?

[silhouette]

Has anyone ever tested the difference between these two with a HTPC or a DVD player with up-conversion on a HDTV?

My TV supports both these inputs. The premium pack comes with component cable but not with VGA cable, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to spend another 40$ for the VGA cable. I would like to have people's opinions/experience if it is really worth to upgrade to VGA cables. Thanks.

 

[Npl]

Should be no big diff. in Quality, both have 3 lines for the picture. VGA-Cables tend to be better shielded though.

 

[expletive]

Has anyone ever tested the difference between these two with a HTPC or a DVD player with up-conversion on a HDTV?

My TV supports both these inputs. The premium pack comes with component cable but not with VGA cable, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to spend another 40$ for the VGA cable. I would like to have people's opinions/experience if it is really worth to upgrade to VGA cables. Thanks.

Technically VGA should be better but whether or not youll see a difference is debateable.

 

[dopefishzzz]

VGA is better.

But not 40$ better

 

[MrWibble]

Has anyone ever tested the difference between these two with a HTPC or a DVD player with up-conversion on a HDTV?

My TV supports both these inputs. The premium pack comes with component cable but not with VGA cable, and I am not sure if it is a good idea to spend another 40$ for the VGA cable. I would like to have people's opinions/experience if it is really worth to upgrade to VGA cables. Thanks.

My experience is that many LCD panels will match a VGA signal perfectly to the display, whereas with component at the same resolution they tend to overscan.

On that basis I'd probably opt for VGA or digital where possible but there's a whole bunch of reasons that it wouldn't matter. I'd probably try it out with the component leads and only bother buying new ones if I see problems.

 

[Berak]

They contain virtually the same information and should be practically identical. Of course circuitry in the receiving device may alter one differently than the other.

 

[Guden Oden]

Should be no big diff. in Quality, both have 3 lines for the picture.

Technically tho, VGA has 5 wires for picture. RGB, VS, HS. Very likely tho, this is overkill and simply a legacy throwback from the dark old days when connections had all sorts of signal pins included. Just look at the full 25-pin RS232 serial port or centronics parallel interface for example; crazy stuff.

I agree however pic quality should be very similar. Apparantly, component uses some kind of video encoding (instead of plain RGB) in addition to having the synch signals baked into the video signal, but difference is probably very hard to spot...with the possibility of some percentage of the picture simply being scaled out of frame on component input as already mentioned.

 

[darkblu]

in theory, a VGA signal should undergo less transofrmations on both ends (not counting amplifications/attentuations), whereas component should pass first through an RGB-to-YUV transform on the source end and then back to RGB on the receiver end (as the display most likely would work with RGB).

 

[Pozer]

It also depends on the TV. On my cheapo sdtv the s-video looks better than component from the same source. Who knows why....

 

[jvd]

It also depends on the TV. On my cheapo sdtv the s-video looks better than component from the same source. Who knows why....

if your sdtv has component its most likely doing 480p . Putting a 480i image on 480p wont look very good at all .

 

[randycat99]

VGA has the potential to be far superior to component, but that potential will never be utilized on any consumer-level digital video source device, anyway. Quite possibly component isn't particularly taxed by consumer-level digital video sources, either. VGA can deliver an "effective" full 4:4:4 chroma scheme, while consumer video equipment is typically throttled at a mere 4:2:0 (that is essentially 75% spatial color information just thrown out the window). Arguably, for most material, this is "acceptable", but we can't hope to achieve that "computer monitor perfect" look until we get at least "4:4:4", one day... CG generated live from a computer would really put VGA to good use, while component and VGA are essentially equal using any sort of DVD or even HD material (because all the performance is throttled by the source, anyway). Even with "pro-gear", you would only get to "4:2:2", and that is considered "reference" grade. We are a long way off before even full VGA performance is pervasive in every stage from camera to your TV set (maybe it will never happen).

 

[bouy]

Would component vs VGA make a difference on my Dell 2405FPW? I have the VGA free and the Xbox in component. Only gripe I have to say is Xbox is playing 480p on a screen large enough to do 1080i. So it looks real sharp when the image is 1:1 scale rather than stretched or aspect.

 

[jvd]

according to an ign poster

The system allows you to set your display resolution and aspect ratio depending on the type of video cables you use. VGA cables will give you six different resolution options: 640x480, 848x480, 1024x768, 1280x720, 1280x768, and 1360x768. Component cables will give you 480p, 720p, and 1080i resolution choices. Games are actually rendered internally at 720p, and the ATI video engine scales the video up or down to the desired resolution.

http://boards.ign.com/xbox_360_general_board/b8266/103040090/p1/?35

 

[silhouette]

Thanks everybody for the response, especially randycat and jvd. I did not know that the signal carried by component cables are 4:2:2 format. I wish they would have changed it when they finalized the specs of wideband component I/O. Anyway, this clearly shows that VGA do have two advantages over component. 1- 4:4:4 color format 2- Ability to have resolutions like 1024x768 on PC monitors.

Although my TV is 720p (seems a perfect match to xb360) and has VGA input, I will still stick to component cable for a while until I found VGA cables cheaper somewhere...

Thanks again..

 

[MrWibble]

Thanks everybody for the response, especially randycat and jvd. I did not know that the signal carried by component cables are 4:2:2 format. I wish they would have changed it when they finalized the specs of wideband component I/O. Anyway, this clearly shows that VGA do have two advantages over component. 1- 4:4:4 color format 2- Ability to have resolutions like 1024x768 on PC monitors.

Although my TV is 720p (seems a perfect match to xb360) and has VGA input, I will still stick to component cable for a while until I found VGA cables cheaper somewhere...

Thanks again..

Neither VGA nor Component signals are inherently quantised to a number of bits.

The number of bits for the components should really only (logically) apply to digital signals or processing. Your TV may well digitise the display and mangle it in the process, but that's not the fault of the cable, the signal, nor the device sending it.

It does seem that the X360 will only output some resolutions over VGA, which is a really stupid idea IMHO - they very nearly got the video output features exactly right...

 

[pipo]

FWIW: one of the guys on the Bizarre team mentioned he preferred the VGA cable over component for his Samsung display.

 

[silhouette]

Neither VGA nor Component signals are inherently quantised to a number of bits.

The number of bits for the components should really only (logically) apply to digital signals or processing. Your TV may well digitise the display and mangle it in the process, but that's not the fault of the cable, the signal, nor the device sending it.

It does seem that the X360 will only output some resolutions over VGA, which is a really stupid idea IMHO - they very nearly got the video output features exactly right...

4:2:2 is not related to number of quantization bits.. it is about resolution.. So, say - if it is 4:2:2, it means for each 2x2 pixel block, luminace is transfered in 2x2, and other two chrominance information is transfered in 2x1 or 1x2 (i.e. either one horizantal line or one vertical line in a 2x2 pixel block is not transmitted). The lost information is interpolated in the receiving end (i.e in TV most of the time).

FWIW: one of the guys on the Bizarre team mentioned he preferred the VGA cable over component for his Samsung display.

You make me think again on this one

 

[MrWibble]

4:2:2 is not related to number of quantization bits.. it is about resolution.. So, say - if it is 4:2:2, it means for each 2x2 pixel block, luminace is transfered in 2x2, and other two chrominance information is transfered in 2x1 or 1x2 (i.e. either one horizantal line or one vertical line in a 2x2 pixel block is not transmitted). The lost information is interpolated in the receiving end (i.e in TV most of the time).

Yes, wrong terminology - however my point stands, it's not applicable to the analog signal transmitted over a component cable. To all intents and purposes it's just a different colour space.

 

[pipo]

You make me think again on this one

In that case, here's the quote:

Well when it comes to displays I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of LCD screens, I prefer the image on a good quality CRT or Plasma. This is personal preference and I’m sure as the technology progresses I’ll be won over. There is a new Philips LCD (32PF9830) that is supposed to give the best CRT a run for it’s money but until I see it in the flesh then I’m still not sold! A Toshiba Picture Frame CRT with a Component input and a good quality source is still one of the best pictures I’ve ever seen.

To get back on to the topic though, I’ve had PGR3 running on a Samsung LCD with both VGA and Component and the VGA wins hands down every time, it’s a cleaner image on the LCD and when I was showing the game off last Friday it didn’t have any problems with anti aliasing. Also the screen I was using was a 28inch LCD which really you should be 2.5 metres away from otherwise you’ll get square eyes!

http://www.bizarreonline.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8864&start=18

Also in that thread:

We’ve looked at this in the office, especially when it comes to the final city lighting. What looks fine on a standard Sony CRT using SCART may look quite different on a Samsung LCD using Component and as always some people prefer the LCD panel others prefer the CRT display!

That's about it....

 

[randycat99]

I did not know that the signal carried by component cables are 4:2:2 format.

I don't think that is a given. It entirely depends on what it is connecting. If it is coming from any sort of consumer-level digital video playback device, the signal will more likely be 4:2:0-based (or will have been at one time, and that is the real bottleneck). Real 4:2:2 material is what you get only with the real top shelf "prosumer" videocam equipment.

I wish they would have changed it when they finalized the specs of wideband component I/O. Anyway, this clearly shows that VGA do have two advantages over component. 1- 4:4:4 color format 2- Ability to have resolutions like 1024x768 on PC monitors.

...well the rabbit hole gets deeper than that even. For all we know, component could do 4:4:4, as well, BUT it just so happens such program material is simply not accessible to joe-consumer via any equipment he would connect using a component cable (so it's a catch-22 of sorts). VGA just happens to nicely sidestep that whole issue (though, it too, is only as good as the program material that is fed through- live CG?..."effective" 4:4:4, yes. DVD or HD playback from a PC?...still 4:2:0-based). The "effective" qualifier is yet another fly in the ointment, actually. If that "4:4:4" comes from a computer-based RGB vs. video-based yuv can represent different states of performance, as well. This time, the quality of color rendition can come into play, rather than color-based screen resolution as it pertains to 4:4:4 vs. 4:2:0. In that respect, yuv-based digital video seems to have the upperhand over CG-based RGB imagery when it comes to leveraging the full gamut of color spectrum. It seems to be give-take depending on the origin of the program material.

In summary, yuv-based video (and hence the cable connectors that support it, by association) is superior for color rendition, but unfortunately the only form we consumers get to experience is abundantly 4:2:0-level (it can never have that "computer monitor perfect" sharpness in anything other than a plain B&W image). VGA, otoh, gives a nifty direct path to "effective" 4:4:4-level visual resolution from live CG sources, but at the expense of some color rendition performance (sacrifice to available colors to resolve smooth low-level gradations and peak output for high-saturation conditions). In a world, where program material may have to traverse between these different colorspaces multiple times (which would be quite the norm), we get the worst of both worlds, unfortunately- 4:2:0 yuv with VGA-truncated colorspace + various compression codecs in play, for example. The only "control" we consumers really have in the matter is to keep live CG in the VGA realm and digital-video in the yuv realm (but most people probably couldn't tell the difference, anyway, so the situation isn't exactly dire).