New TV wiring help

[syeve]

I just bought a plasma TV. I am running digital cable and was told, to get the best out of my TV, to buy S-Video from the cable box to the TV. I did and found the quality to be pretty good but not great, so I switched to regular cable wire and found the picture to be much clearer.

I know the easy answer is that S-video is better than a regular cable wire, but in this case I really can tell the difference, the regular cable is better.

The S-Video cable I am using is the monster cable 2, so its not a bad cable, I have even taken it back once to switch because I though i had a faulty cable. The TV is a 42" panasonic.

Anyways, just looking for some input :dunno:

Thanks,
Steve

[ricosuave]

maybe there is a setting on your cable box menu?

[Khyron]

Check if your TV and cable box supports component (3 color rca jacks) or DVI - a white many pinned plug. Both of those are higher quality than svideo. Monster is overpriced - don't blow the bank on cables.

Then you will need a cable for your audio - either toslink (little square) or digital coax. I assume you are using the red/white rca's right now?

Are you testing with digital channels?

Khyron

[Xtrema]

Digital Cable or HD Digital Cable?

If it's the typical digital cable terminal, you only get S-Video and Composite (1 yellow RCA). S-Video should be better than Composite but I find the difference is minute and hardly detectable unless you have a big screen TV (32"+)

If it's HD Cable, you must at least use Component (3 RGB RCA cables) to your HDTV set. Then the next up is DVI/HDMI which is pure digital signal to your set.

[syeve]

The cable box doesnt support component video, just S-Vid RCA and plain cable wire.

I checked for settings on the cabel box and on the TV and cant find anything.

Non HD signal may be my problem, I just assumed S-vid would be better than plain cable wire?

Thanks guys,
Steve

[b_t]

S video is actually probably clearer then the plain cable wire, except since it has a higher contrast then a cable it has the side effect of showing off all the little grains and flaws in the cable signal that the plain cable wire will hide, so the problem is your signal is too good.
On my TV, I use component cables with my HD cable box and on regular cable channels it borderlines on terrible for quality, especially on the low number channels (like A channel), while those same channels are perfectly watchable on all my other TVs.

[Xtrema]

One more thing, regardless of what type of terminal you have, all channels in the 1st 3 tiers are analog. They are no different than your standard TV. Sometimes worse because some TVs have better signal handler than the digital terminal.

[syeve]

Originally posted by b_t
it borderlines on terrible for quality, especially on the low number channels (like A channel), while those same channels are perfectly watchable on all my other TVs.

Exactly, A-Channel is the channel I compare the two different cables.

Oh well, its a good thing I mainly watch movies.

Thanks guys,
Steve

[hedge]

You really owe it to yourself to get a hd cable box to get the most out of the new tv.

generally the sd (standard definition) channells will look like crap on a fixed-pixel tv such as plasma, dlp, lcd but HD is outstanding.

I have the shaw hd pvr box. once you've had a pvr you'll wonder how you ever did without it.

PS. this assumes it's a hdtv, you have to watch the salesmen, they'll tell you it's hdtv when it's only edtv.