DVI- Bad or Good?

[Brigadeer]

Sorry for yet another post, but I wanted to get an answer on this issues since the brand TV I am purchasing does not support DVI (Mitsubishi).

My sales rep explained DVI in this way to me: In no way is DVI good. DVI cannot do anything but bad for the consumer and you not only don't need it, but don't want it.

Is this position accurate? From what I can tell, DVI is supposed to make sure that people are not copying at digital levels and then selling them illegally.

If you don't have DVI on your HDTV, are you buying todays equivalent of BetaMax? I really love Mitsubishi, but if they are on the wrong end of this debate, I don't want to be stuck with a BetaMax. I would then rather go to Hitachi.

I post this DVI question in the General Forum because there are hardly any posts at all in the DVI forum. That said, anyone with knowledge on this, please let me know what you think. Thanks!

Eric

[BrianW]

This will be ironed out more once the industry knows what standard they will use. Right now you have three standards competing for an edge.

Component Video Cables - The default
DVI - One way STB to TV prevents recording of HD stuff. Hollywood loves it everyone else hates it.
IEEE1394 (Firewire) - Can be used to network all your HD equipment, plug STB into D-VHS or D-PVR into TV. This way you can record and watch recorded HD stuff. Hollywood hates PVR anyway so this will just enflame them.

There are other connection out there but they are proprietary and vary from manufacturer to manufacturer (RCA like to use RGB that looks like a computer monitor port).

[Brigadeer]

BrianW- The Mitsubishi TV I am looking at has firewire and component inputs, just not DVI. Would it be safe to say (as well as you can predict at this point) that I would not be buying a TV that will be outdated anytime soon.

[BrianW]

Very good question, unfortunately that I don't know myself. Again it depends on what happens in the next few years. It is likely that all three will still be around but you will find that some other devices will not fit into you set. Right now all three are working in one way or another.

If Hollywood has its way (and so far they haven’t) you will be stuck with something that doesn't fit in their grand plan. They will try to force us all to buy expensive decryption equipment and use DVI and ban all recording devices. But, as you can see with the plethora of PVR's and VCR's on the market that Hollywood is fighting a loosing battle.

If anyone wants to post about the Digital Millennium Act this can be exposed a bit more.

I personally think you will be just fine for more years then your TV will last anyhow.

[Brigadeer]

BrianW, thats my hope and thought as well. I plan on having this TV for about the next 10 years, so hopefully nothing will get completely outdated by then.

As far as PVR's go and what not. I don't use those now and don't plan on using them later anyway, so even if those are the things that I can't get to work on my TV, then I won't be disappointed.

I guess only time will tell. Again, thanks for the input.

[Animalism]

Brigadeer,

DVI is good, so is firewire. When it comes to bandwith though, DVI is dominant over firewire. Firewire offers around 60mb/sec of bandwith. DVI has 6GB/sec of bandwith. That's equivalent to a CD-R of information compared to a hard drive of information. In picture quality, there is a huge difference between 6GB and 60mb of information. Hope it helps, Thanks.

[57U]

Since HD material is 19.4 Mb/sec, the bandwidth issue is moot.

[Animalism]

57U brings up a great point. I should clarrify that the bandwith between DVI and Firewire are their capabilities and are not exceeded by High Definition today. I was stating a difference between the two as a feature. Although the bandwidth between the two may be irrelavant today, the future is uncertain with the many transitions of tomorrow's technology. To be politically correct: DVI supports higher bandwidth than Firewire, which can be useful if needed in the future. I appreciate 57U pointing out HD bandwidth because as a newbie to this forum I do not intend to step on anyone's toes. Thanks.

[Skyboss]

Buying a unit with DVI protects you from having an incompatible product if Hollywood wins out. Having DVI does not degrade anything. There are no bandwidth issues.

[kidslice]

The biggest issue between DVI vs 1394 is the quality of the MPEG decoder. If the STB has a high quality MPEG decoder and correctly translates YCC to RGB, then DVI is the better choice. However, if the TV has a better MPEG decoder, then you are better off letting the STB pass the MPEG stream to the TV and let the TV decode.

Both DVI and 1394 have more than enough bandwidth. EIA-775 (DTV 1394 spec) requires that DTVs support at least 40mbps over 1394. EIA-861 (DTV DVI spec) requires that a DTV support at least a Single link TMDS, which is enough to handle 1080i.

DVI also has the advantage of allowing the STB to paint all of the graphics (i.e. EPG, VOD applications, Interactive applications, etc). This guarantees that the graphics will be placed properly and blended with the video correctly.

1394 on the other hand relies on the asynchronous OSD (On Screen Display) protocol to handle graphics. Asnch OSD works by the STB packetizing the digitized graphics and passing the OSD to the TV for rendering. The video is passed isochronously. The DTV takes the iso-video and the async-OSD and "mixes" the two together. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the DTV is doing the job right (think how some web pages look on various browsers).