RGB vs HDMI--cable issue

[fastupslowdown]

Not a bike matter. I went to upgrade my cable system and the new Verizon FIOS set-top box doesn't support RBG video connection. My Wall mounted plasma bought back in 2004 does have an HDMI port but I never bothered connecting to it and snaking it behind my wall since at the time none of my cable equipment had an HDMI port.

So my options are to pay someone to temporarily lift my TV remove the RGB cables and snake through an HDMI cable or to buy an HDMI to RGB adapter that would sit I guess near the cable box. Clearly the latter has the advantage of ease and cost but will the solution degrade the signal at all? I looked at a box on line and they look cheap , like something sold out of Radio Shack back in the day not meant for high end equipment.

Incredible that Verizon's box supports only HDMI and a composite signal which if memory serves would be g-d awful in terms of quality. I won't even try that. For those that don't recall RGB , even though its analog unlike HDMI the signal quality is identical so long as the cable is kept short -Mike G

[sk_tle]

Not a bike matter. I went to upgrade my cable system and the new Verizon FIOS set-top box doesn't support RBG video connection. My Wall mounted plasma bought back in 2004 does have an HDMI port but I never bothered connecting to it and snaking it behind my wall since at the time none of my cable equipment had an HDMI port.

So my options are to pay someone to temporarily lift my TV remove the RGB cables and snake through an HDMI cable or to buy an HDMI to RGB adapter that would sit I guess near the cable box. Clearly the latter has the advantage of ease and cost but will the solution degrade the signal at all? I looked at a box on line and they look cheap , like something sold out of Radio Shack back in the day not meant for high end equipment.

Incredible that Verizon's box supports only HDMI and a composite signal which if memory serves would be g-d awful in terms of quality. I won't even try that. For those that don't recall RGB , even though its analog unlike HDMI the signal quality is identical so long as the cable is kept short -Mike G

Well signal quality is only identical on lower res TVs and totally depend on the signal conversion device in the adapter. I would totally look at installing a proper hdmi cable. You just need 4 arms / 2 people to do that if that TV is heavy.

[fastupslowdown]

Well signal quality is only identical on lower res TVs and totally depend on the signal conversion device in the adapter. I would totally look at installing a proper hdmi cable. You just need 4 arms / 2 people to do that if that TV is heavy.

That's what i was afraid of taking a performance hit at the adapter level. Going to splurge and do the HDMI. The RGB was getting the job done till now but it was bulky anyway. Will be nice to have less wires to deal with too. Now with my luck a month from now my plasma will die and I'll be forced to get an OLED TV(which hopefully is still state of the art?)

[sk_tle]

You can never be totally future proof but just make sure you buy a cable that supports at least the latest hdmi specs (cat3 or hdmi 2.1 compatible).

[Peter Polack]

Tie the HDMI cable to the RGB cable and use the RGB cable as "the snake". Pull on the RGB cable at the other end to bring the HDMI cable out to where it's needed.

Simple electrical tape is all that's needed. To make it easier, you might want to cut off the RCA ends of the RGB cable prior to the pull.

Prior to the job, I would connect your HDMI cable directly from the TV to the box to ensure there are no surprises i.e., for some strange reason it doesn't work.

[fastupslowdown]

You can never be totally future proof but just make sure you buy a cable that supports at least the latest hdmi specs (cat3 or hdmi 2.1 compatible).

Why should I care? The TV is a plasma from 2003? its' maybe 1080 resolution but I'm sure not equal to what's coming out today. If I upgrade my TV to say OLED I can get a new cable then. Am I missing something?

[rec head]

What you are missing is that if you run the new cable now you are done with cable running for a while. If you have conduit in the wall then this might not be an issue. Running things in walls is never easy in my place. But why not spend maybe a couple dollars more and get the highest speed cable and run it once? https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=42674

Most electronics are dropping all the legacy ports they can. HDMI can be a real pain in the ass due to the copy protection that is used (HDCP) but overall it is cheaper for manufacturers to use and better quality than most legacy connections. Don't forget cable companies have never really cared about your picture quality. They usually have a monopoly so they give you good enough.

[jonlumpkin]

By RGB do you mean Component video? Three cables round barrel, one labeled Y, one Cr, One Cb? This is technically not RGB but is a luminance/chrominance standard for analog HD Video (up to 1080i). VGA used by computers (15 pin, usually blue) is technically RGB and TVs of that ear would have it too. If so, both connection are pretty much dead these days. There are converters to go Component->HDMI but HDMI->Component is harder due to the digital rights handshakes for copy protection (HDCP as noted above).

Since the TV is from 2004, have you considered upgrading it too? Could probably get a new one of similar size and higher quality for under $500. If you're going to take it down to recable...

[fastupslowdown]

By RGB do you mean Component video? Three cables round barrel, one labeled Y, one Cr, One Cb? This is technically not RGB but is a luminance/chrominance standard for analog HD Video (up to 1080i). VGA used by computers (15 pin, usually blue) is technically RGB and TVs of that ear would have it too. If so, both connection are pretty much dead these days. There are converters to go Component->HDMI but HDMI->Component is harder due to the digital rights handshakes for copy protection (HDCP as noted above).

Since the TV is from 2004, have you considered upgrading it too? Could probably get a new one of similar size and higher quality for under $500. If you're going to take it down to recable...

nope , not composite video. separate cables for red, green, and blue and then another cable for left and then right audio. its a plasma tv 1080. very good picture quality. totally happy. its better than led sets. i will spend the money to get oled which i believe is of similar quality when and if this set dies

[rec head]

Not that it matters but I'm pretty sure jonlumpkin is right. I think the cables you are using are simply color coded to make connections easier.

https://geoffthegreygeek.com/rgb-video/

[j44ke]

Thread moved to OT as not bike related general content.

[sk_tle]

Why should I care? The TV is a plasma from 2003? its' maybe 1080 resolution but I'm sure not equal to what's coming out today. If I upgrade my TV to say OLED I can get a new cable then. Am I missing something?

Well yes you can always upgrade cable when you upgrade the tv.

[beeatnik]

OP, did you buy your components in Europe?

[gt6267a]

A few thoughts on cables ... once the TV is off, if running cables is no problem please ignore. If running the cables is a nuisance where you are, maybe drop a few things in there to future proof / make things easier ...

1) 2-3 x HDMI cables and at least one with a long cord. Like 25'. For hooking up laptops or gaming consoles or other things that might have some video. For example, during Covid putting zoom up on the big TV powered by a laptop has been nice. With a long cord its easy to sit on the couch with laptop / camera on an ottoman. setup is really comfortable for back to school night, multi-city family events, and corp things. so comfortable to be on our coach with 65" TV vs crowded around a small screen. Think this was $20 on amazon for something in-wall rated.
2) Audio cables for a soundbar. We have a optical toslink cable from TV to soundbar. again, $20 will get you a decent cable. we have a 25' in wall cable. if you don't have a soundbar or audio outside your TV, even an inexpensive soundbar will be a huge improvement.

[9tubes]

Not a bike matter. I went to upgrade my cable system and the new Verizon FIOS set-top box doesn't support RBG video connection. My Wall mounted plasma bought back in 2004 does have an HDMI port but I never bothered connecting to it and snaking it behind my wall since at the time none of my cable equipment had an HDMI port.

Mike, I'm no expert in this area but is there such a thing as a HDMI to RGB converter? The whole point of HDMI is to prevent people from pirating video. HDMI is a 19-wire mess made unduly complicated and solely for the purpose of digital rights management. I would think that the new FIOS cable box must do a digital handshake to connect to your tv, and I'm not sure it can do that through RGB. RGB is a very old unencrypted standard. Otherwise a user could connect to the RGB and steal the high-res video stream and pirate the movie or tv show.

If it weren't for digital rights management (and the desire to make bank on cables), we would use $0.20 per foot for ethernet cable rather than $25.00 for 15 feet of HDMI cable.

[rec head]

If it weren't for digital rights management (and the desire to make bank on cables), we would use $0.20 per foot for ethernet cable rather than $25.00 for 15 feet of HDMI cable.

And think of how long you could run that ethernet cable without getting crazy. I've always hated HDMI but it is convenient when it works.

[fastupslowdown]

OP, did you buy your components in Europe?

Bought my Panasonic Plasma back in 2003-2004 with a company discount extended to us by J&R Music world. The RGB cables were gold plated. It was a set-up I opted for at the time because even though the TV did come with one HDMI connection the equipment by the cable operators at the time did not support it and since sound or video quality was not an issue I kept the arrangement.

I did know the HDMI was really about pirating but I read that so long ago I no longer recalled that fact. I'm not using an HDMI in my bedroom TV and as expected absolutely no discernible difference in audio or video quality, just fewer wires.

[fastupslowdown]

Mike, I'm no expert in this area but is there such a thing as a HDMI to RGB converter? The whole point of HDMI is to prevent people from pirating video. HDMI is a 19-wire mess made unduly complicated and solely for the purpose of digital rights management. I would think that the new FIOS cable box must do a digital handshake to connect to your tv, and I'm not sure it can do that through RGB. RGB is a very old unencrypted standard. Otherwise a user could connect to the RGB and steal the high-res video stream and pirate the movie or tv show.

If it weren't for digital rights management (and the desire to make bank on cables), we would use $0.20 per foot for ethernet cable rather than $25.00 for 15 feet of HDMI cable.

I did know about the copy right issue at one time, but HDMI came out so long ago I no longer recalled that. Just convinces me yet again that no all new technology is an upgrade.

[sk_tle]

Mike, I'm no expert in this area but is there such a thing as a HDMI to RGB converter? The whole point of HDMI is to prevent people from pirating video.

They are.

They are also splitter , stream and record boxes available. This is mostly used for gamers who want to broadcast to twitch but you can also record anything really. As long as there is an use case and the manufacturing is done in a different juridiction (such as far east asia) there is very little you can do. Copy protection that involves using commodity appliances that the manufacturer cannot be expected to patch forever always end up being broken, be it by finding a flaw or having keys copied in the wild and not being revocable, there is very little broadcasters can do against it. HDCP has been broken for a while.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...roken-at-will/
https://www.howtogeek.com/208917/htg...how-to-fix-it/
https://www.wired.com/2010/09/intel-...ens-consumers/

[rec head]

Copy protection is pretty stupid. I've been able to rip, for backup, UHD discs for a couple years now. That is the highest quality source material out there and if copy protection doesn't work on it then what is the point?