TV Connections, HDMI Cable, Displayport Cable, Scart Lead, Speaker Cable
HDMI Cable, Displayport Cable, Scart Lead, Component Video Cable to connect your TV
An HDMI splitter is a device that splits an HDMI signal to multiple displays, sometimes called an HDMI Distribution Amplifer. Suppose you wanted to watch Sky HD on 2 TVs, an HDMI splitter could be used to duplicate the input and give 2 identical outputs. The number of outputs provided is referred to as ports or ways, you may see the item described as a 2 port or 2 way if it has 2 outputs. A typical 2 port splitter shown below will cost around £40.
Despite being launched over 2 years ago displayport cables have struggled against the HDMI cable. Displayport has the advantage that there is no licensing required to use the connectors but manufacturers have been slow to adopt it. During recent months the displayport cable seems to have become more popular as manufacturers start to use the connection, big names such as Pioneer and Dell have started to ship products with display port connectivity.
Connecting a Sky HD box to a surround system will enhance your viewing experience especially when watching movies, to get the multichannel sound a digital connection must be made from the Sky HD box to the surround amplifier. If the surround sound system has an HDMI input it would seem the most obvious choice would be to connect the box to the amplifer with an HDMI cable and an HDMI cable from the amplifer to the TV. The problem is that Sky HD only supports 2 channel digital sound via the HDMI output hence an optical cable (toslink cable) should be connected from the Sky HD optical output to an optical input on the amplifier, this will provide 5.1 surround sound.
On 27th May 2009 HDMI Licensing LLC released version 1.4 of the HDMI Cable specification, the main changes include offering networking capability and a return audio channel, details of the individual enhancements are detailed below.
Welcome to TV Connections, here we look at the various ways of connecting a televisions, displays, media devices and home cinema systems etc. For the past 30 years the scart lead has been the primary connection cable for connecting a device to a TV but in the last 3 years everything has changed as we have moved into the digital age.
The scart lead is still in widespread use today but is only capable of carrying an analogue TV signal with a standard definition resolution, most commonly in the UK referred to as 576i (576 lines of interlaced picture).
A new connection called an HDMI cable was created to carry a high definition TV (HDTV) signal into the new LCD and Plasma TV ranges. HDMI Cables have much smaller plugs than scart and if you’re not familiar with them you could mistake it for a USB connector. The HDMI Cable carries the signal digitally as a stream of 1s and 0s, as such it is much less prone to interference and all but a faulty cable will transfer the sound and picture in perfect quality. Continue reading “TV Connections”
ITV has announced that they will launch an HD channel on the Freeview platform later this year.
A statement from the broadcaster said they had agreed final terms with the BBC (as the operator of Multiplex B which will deliver Freeview HD) to launch an ITV1 HD service on Freeview in advance of the World Cup which gets underway in June 2010.
The new ITV1 HD service will be rolled out across England and Wales with Digital Switchover, starting with Manchester in December 2009 and will be launched ahead of switchover in major cities such as London to enable reception in around half UK homes by the time of the World Cup, according to ITV.
To be able to receive the Freeview HD services viewers will need either need an HD Ready TV set with a new Freeview HD box or a Freeview HD integrated television.