video card, VGA or HDMI (read faq)

[rabbit]

I have read the FAQ of video cards and I guess my question is... If my TV's (sony KDL-46x4100) d-sub port supports all its resolutions (HD) and I have a VGA adapter that can match those resolutions, Would there be much of a difference in PQ compared to a similar HDMI video card?

I understand that using the VGA port I will have deal with sound by itself.


Tks!

[Razillian]

I never noticed a difference between running VGA and DVI, I imagine HDMI compared to VGA would be negligible as well. I do know my TV supports higher gradation levels with DVI than VGA, but I really did not notice the difference. YMMV.

The one thing you do give up is HDCP by going with VGA (and the aforementioned sound), but if it is just a Sage box and you don't use BluRay, Netflix, etc than it's not a problem.

[paulbeers]

Technically there should be some degradation by going with VGA. VGA being analog, means that your digital computer has to convert the image to analog when sending out via VGA and then your television has to convert that analog VGA connection back into a digital image so that it can display it on your television. Obviously YMMV. You probably will not notice much of a difference, but I think the general consensus is that if you can go all digital (aka DVI or HDMI) you are better off.

As stated previously, also by going VGA you lose all HDCP so that is another disappointment as it pertains to VGA.

[SWKerr]

I certainly would not buy a motherboard or video card without HDMI at this point. For $40 you can get a card that will take the load of almost all the video processing and with HDMI you only have to deal with one cord for both audio and video.

But if you already have a setup where the VGA card supports the max resolution of your TV then I doubt you would notice a difference. I upgraded the 720DLP awhile back and could not tell the difference in video but the sound is now all digital and noticeably better. Before I did not have inputs for digital audio on my TV for my VGA connection.

[rabbit]

If I use an HDMI card does that decrease the CPU requirements for HD playback?

[Razillian]

Most newer cards have some form of hardware decoding built in, but you also need to be running video decoders that can take advantage of that. I'm biased towards nVidia chipsets as they have worked great for me for quite a while (although I still hold a grudge against nVidia for killing 3DFX).