After months of mucking around with PC based TV tuners, we finally decided to upgrade our whole TV system (we had an 8 year old Sony TV (pre wega)), since with a VCR, Sony ps2, wii, dvd player, the cords and switching equipment was getting difficult to juggle.

So we spent some serious money and got a Sony KDL40D3100 (40″ LCD).

We also got a ds6200 PVR (personal video recorder). A cheap hard drive unit from dick smith, but with a dual tuner, so it can record 2 channels at once. This allowed us to finally throw out the VCR.

I did some research, and found out the difference between the different cables you can use to connect the TV to various equipment: component cables are best, followed by svideo, then composite.

Since the TV had 1 svideo input, 2 component inputs, 3 hdmi, and a few composite inputs, then I managed to connect up as follows:

• PVR – connected using svideo (it didn’t have any component outputs).
• DVD – component cable.
• PS2 & Wii – composite (initially), and eventually a combined component cable.

So now, if I need to connect anything else, I’ll need to use composite, or HDMI (no more component inputs).

I’m not sure I like HDMI… some bandwidth is taken up to check for valid copyright checking… the “industry” keeps trying to enforce copyright protection… its not worked in the past, and its going to keep failing… no matter what they try. It just feels like hdmi is either going to fail as a universal standard, or someone will find a simple way to bypass the copyright protection.