It was a surprise to us, and it is a surprise to most people when they first experience a DVD played back through a DVI connection. "Jaw dropping" is the phrase often used, and it describes our reaction. Except in our case we had no prior clue - so it contained shock and confusion as well. It seemed almost high definition. There are hundreds of reactions like mine in this forum, and now there are reviews in many publications attesting to the phenomenal quality difference. See DVI Quotes.
Why is that? DVI is not magically adding quality to your signal, it is Component that has been degrading the signal ? we just didn?t how badly.
Component: When you use a component connection, your original digital signal is converted to analog, then it is sent over to the TV and becomes susceptible to noise, then it is converted back to digital by the TV. This dual conversion introduces conversion artifacts, plus the transmission can pick up noise.
DVI: In a DVI connection, the original digital signal is passed to the TV digitally in its original pristine condition.
In the past, when you had poor quality input signal and a poor fidelity TV, you could get by with component connections. Now you have high quality inputs (HD, PC or DVD) and high fidelity digital TVs (even CRT HDTV?s are digital in this context), so the component connection makes no sense. DVI is the only sensible option.
Indeed it is our opinion that HDTV without DVI is an oxymoron. Why go through all the trouble of creating an expensive digital setup, generating a high quality digital signal into a high fidelity digital display, if you are going to throw the analog Component monkey wrench into it.
And until you've switched to DVI, don't look for other culprits for video artifacts - clay faces, dithering, motion artifacts, etc. Find out first how many are actually introduced by your component connection.
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