Wow. What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?
There's not one person out there who doesn't have *some* kind of device with RCA. Hell, the "all-in-one" joystick games that are still coming out are all RCA-based. Just about every TV out there, except for the most basic, have an RCA interface. Hell, some portable DVD players have RCA inputs in them so that you can use the screen for something other than DVDs.
RCA is the universal standard when it comes to audio and video. I realize that we tend to be a bit elitist on EngHD and that RCA produces the worse video quality when compared to S-Video, but getting rid of RCA would be one of the dumbest moves out there.
John's right, RCA is pretty much universal, S-Video has always been a "premium" feature (well, until component came along.)
The other problem is that there's serious reason to question whether S-Video gives you much of anything at all. You're still getting the same encoding (and thus resolution and depth) used for color with S-Video as you are with RCA, though the luminosity information is theoretically a little better. The only practical advantage this has for many people is an absence of dot crawl, which while positive, rarely appears outside of computer generated titles (and similar graphics), and is rarely noticeable from a distance on normal displays.
I'm happy to see it replaced with component and HDMI. Actually, I'd like to see HDMI better supported and component dropped too. It's depressing that most receivers under $500 these days have no idea what to do with HDMI, treating it as a video source to be switched rather than the primary connection to the monitor and primary source of audio.
I just think it is an awkward place to start nixing analog signals. I agree that RCA has a universal purpose still. But as for many computer devices, they have S-Video only and support RCA via an adapter. Now, we don't want endless adapters flying around, but I still prefer S-Video over RCA if I can use it. A have an old computer hooked up to a tv via S-Video
Erwos - You generally have to pay over or near $500 for a receiver that accepts HDMI as an audio feed, and which outputs all video signals (RCA, Component, etc) through the HDMI port, not just those it received HDMI.
A huge number of lower cost receivers are marked as supporting HDMI, but on closer inspection do nothing more than HDMI switching. So you need to switch your TV between HDMI and component/RCA/et al depending on the source (you can't just switch the receiver), and the audio feed with each component has to be analog or SPDIF.
The majority of receivers over $500 do it properly in some shape or form, but under $500, it's difficult to find anything that supports the bare minimum. Which is a shame, it's not exactly hard to convert an analog signal into a digital one if you're not trying to upscale it or anything like that, and why ignore HDMI audio as an audio feed? (I'm guessing 90% of the time the designers are recycling some old design and just attaching an off-the-shelf HDMI switch, so the receiver can be buzzword compliant.)
Sorry, but you're just totally off. Sony's STR-DG720 and up accept 7.1 PCM over HDMI. That receiver is < $300 shipped off Amazon. The Onkyo 605 and 606 accept bitstreams over HDMI - again, < $500. You were more correct a couple years ago, but time has marched on.
Oh brother, every time someone says "There aren't many such-and-suches available for under $X", someone trots out the old "But I can find a discontinued model on eBay for $X-1" line.
605 = discontinued, Amazon doesn't even advertise new models as available. 720 = also discontinued. 606 = technically accurate but 1c less than the figure I quoted is nothing to boast about.
Yes, you find them on special, no that doesn't count (otherwise you can start arguing that Blu-ray player prices have dropped under $50 because a friend of a friend of a friend bought one off of another friend. Of course, Engadget HD would actually report that, but then make no big deal of, say, Vizio releasing one for $150.)
I stand by my point. The majority of low and mid-end receivers do not properly support HDMI. Only a handful will read the audio from an HDMI stream, and almost none will allow the HDMI output to be used for all video sources, analog or digital. The vast majority, the /vast vast/ majority, are a late nineties receiver with an HDMI switch glued on.
Oh, and this isn't theoretical either. I've been out shopping for one. I'd like something with a price tag that doesn't scare my wife. Even Circuit City - you know, the company currently engaged in a firesale - didn't sell anything for under $350. And that was a nice looking Denon that, alas, had parts missing.
Oh, and reading the reviews, the 720 isn't to my original spec in the first place! It will read audio from HDMI, but it will not relay all video feeds through the HDMI-out, only HDMI feeds. Analog isn't digitized or upconverted.
So we're stuck with one Onkyo that's 1c less than $500, which really proves the point, that sub-$500 receivers that do HDMI properly are virtually impossible to find.
I've tried both, and couldn't spot any difference in video quality between composite and s-video. Dropping s-video makes sense, since every s-video device also has composite.
I find it sort of strange that I do see a noticeable difference between 480i component and 480i composite though. You'd think then that s-video would be somewhere in-between, but it just looks like composite to me.
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They're getting rid of S-Video but they're hanging onto RCA Video?
you never know when you'll need 80 RCA inputs...
Wow. What are you smoking and why aren't you sharing?
There's not one person out there who doesn't have *some* kind of device with RCA. Hell, the "all-in-one" joystick games that are still coming out are all RCA-based. Just about every TV out there, except for the most basic, have an RCA interface. Hell, some portable DVD players have RCA inputs in them so that you can use the screen for something other than DVDs.
RCA is the universal standard when it comes to audio and video. I realize that we tend to be a bit elitist on EngHD and that RCA produces the worse video quality when compared to S-Video, but getting rid of RCA would be one of the dumbest moves out there.
John's right, RCA is pretty much universal, S-Video has always been a "premium" feature (well, until component came along.)
The other problem is that there's serious reason to question whether S-Video gives you much of anything at all. You're still getting the same encoding (and thus resolution and depth) used for color with S-Video as you are with RCA, though the luminosity information is theoretically a little better. The only practical advantage this has for many people is an absence of dot crawl, which while positive, rarely appears outside of computer generated titles (and similar graphics), and is rarely noticeable from a distance on normal displays.
I'm happy to see it replaced with component and HDMI. Actually, I'd like to see HDMI better supported and component dropped too. It's depressing that most receivers under $500 these days have no idea what to do with HDMI, treating it as a video source to be switched rather than the primary connection to the monitor and primary source of audio.
Huh? Most receivers these days treat HDMI quite well. Only limitation that's almost universal is lack of HDMI upscaling, and that's just a cost issue.
I just think it is an awkward place to start nixing analog signals. I agree that RCA has a universal purpose still. But as for many computer devices, they have S-Video only and support RCA via an adapter. Now, we don't want endless adapters flying around, but I still prefer S-Video over RCA if I can use it. A have an old computer hooked up to a tv via S-Video
Erwos - You generally have to pay over or near $500 for a receiver that accepts HDMI as an audio feed, and which outputs all video signals (RCA, Component, etc) through the HDMI port, not just those it received HDMI.
A huge number of lower cost receivers are marked as supporting HDMI, but on closer inspection do nothing more than HDMI switching. So you need to switch your TV between HDMI and component/RCA/et al depending on the source (you can't just switch the receiver), and the audio feed with each component has to be analog or SPDIF.
The majority of receivers over $500 do it properly in some shape or form, but under $500, it's difficult to find anything that supports the bare minimum. Which is a shame, it's not exactly hard to convert an analog signal into a digital one if you're not trying to upscale it or anything like that, and why ignore HDMI audio as an audio feed? (I'm guessing 90% of the time the designers are recycling some old design and just attaching an off-the-shelf HDMI switch, so the receiver can be buzzword compliant.)
Sorry, but you're just totally off. Sony's STR-DG720 and up accept 7.1 PCM over HDMI. That receiver is < $300 shipped off Amazon. The Onkyo 605 and 606 accept bitstreams over HDMI - again, < $500. You were more correct a couple years ago, but time has marched on.
You need to look at your choices again.
Oh brother, every time someone says "There aren't many such-and-suches available for under $X", someone trots out the old "But I can find a discontinued model on eBay for $X-1" line.
605 = discontinued, Amazon doesn't even advertise new models as available. 720 = also discontinued.
606 = technically accurate but 1c less than the figure I quoted is nothing to boast about.
Yes, you find them on special, no that doesn't count (otherwise you can start arguing that Blu-ray player prices have dropped under $50 because a friend of a friend of a friend bought one off of another friend. Of course, Engadget HD would actually report that, but then make no big deal of, say, Vizio releasing one for $150.)
I stand by my point. The majority of low and mid-end receivers do not properly support HDMI. Only a handful will read the audio from an HDMI stream, and almost none will allow the HDMI output to be used for all video sources, analog or digital. The vast majority, the /vast vast/ majority, are a late nineties receiver with an HDMI switch glued on.
Oh, and this isn't theoretical either. I've been out shopping for one. I'd like something with a price tag that doesn't scare my wife. Even Circuit City - you know, the company currently engaged in a firesale - didn't sell anything for under $350. And that was a nice looking Denon that, alas, had parts missing.
Oh, and reading the reviews, the 720 isn't to my original spec in the first place! It will read audio from HDMI, but it will not relay all video feeds through the HDMI-out, only HDMI feeds. Analog isn't digitized or upconverted.
So we're stuck with one Onkyo that's 1c less than $500, which really proves the point, that sub-$500 receivers that do HDMI properly are virtually impossible to find.
I've tried both, and couldn't spot any difference in video quality between composite and s-video. Dropping s-video makes sense, since every s-video device also has composite.
I find it sort of strange that I do see a noticeable difference between 480i component and 480i composite though. You'd think then that s-video would be somewhere in-between, but it just looks like composite to me.
never used it ..