Difference between HDMI AND DVI
 

Hey guys,

Located in Singapore. Wondering if anyone could explain the diff between HDMI and DVI. Shopping for a 42 inch plasma and most come with DVI, not HDMI. Sets with HDMI cost more, at the moment.

Is it worth it to pay extra for the HDMI input or will DVI be just as good. Does HDMI provide significantly better audio? How about video, better than DVI, or the same thing?

I thank you for your patience, very new at this.

HDMI carries the audio with the video. DVI is video only. They both have the same video quality. You can find HDMI to DVI (and reverse) adapters if you need to.

There are three important differences between DVI and HDMI:

1) HDMI sends audio as well. For most home theater buffs, they use a separate audio hookup anyway, so this isn't relevant. But for some, it is important, and for others, it may be important in the future where your audio receiver serves as a HDMI switch, automatically switching audio and video at the same time.

2) HDMI supposedly allows longer cable runs. DVI runs run the risk of getting "sparklies" at lengths over 10-15 feet. HDMI supposedly can handle longer runs than that.

3) Black crush. HDMI usually uses a video black scale, and DVI uses the computer black scale. Hooking up DVI to HDMI occasionally causes "black crush" on a display. But this varies. Some equipment solves the problem internally, others have configuration options for dealing with it. But sometimes those solutions pose other problems. For instance, I can configure my projector to take either computer or video mode over DVI, but choosing video mode means I am using the projector's scaler, which I don't like as well (it causes overscan). I would recommend researching the options on your display before deciding on DVI. This problem has caused a lot of people to avoid going from DVI to HDMI and vice versa.

Personally, I bought a projector that had both inputs. Getting the HDMI input was worth a hundred or so to me.