hdmi wires can be found for cheap. I got mine at meritline.com for about 12 bucks and i think if you live by a fry's electronics they have a hdmi wire on sale till mon for 9.99...they might have it on there outpost.com website...The Bestbuy Installer told us to check the web and recomended the first site i mention for hdmi cables

TO bump an old thread.....if given the choice, always go HDMI, correct? I currently have my Comcast DVR connected via Component, and audio uses Optical. However, I believe I have the DVR with HDMI (I have to double check later). If I use HDMI for the video, I can keep my same audio optical, correct?

Will I notice an increase in picture quality from Component to HDMI? I have a 1080p Sony 60A2020 TV also.

No. Given a choice, try them both and see which works better in your system.

Yes, very possible that HDMI would be better. But don't fall for the hype. Test it yourself in your system.

Thanks...I guess it is fine with Component, but I hate to see what I'm missing, if anything. I suppose I can try my PS3 HDMI cable to see how it looks. I know I DO have the Motorola 6412 III DVR box through Comcast (w/HDMI).

Order a HMDI cable from monoprice. Heck order 2 they are cheap and you never know when you will need them.

And I'm not making light of any change there might be. There very well could be a large improvement. But I don't believe it is a fair statement that HDMI is better in every case, in every system, with every component. So try it and go with what looks best in your system and in your set up.

You shouldn't be missing anything, component is quite capable of transmitting all the necessary data for pristine HD. However, your equipment could do a better job of coping with the colors and the data stream over HDMI. Or it might be easier to set the color, brightness, etc with HDMI. Or it might not.

I played around with it a little last night with HDMI from my PS3 (I unhooked it and used with my TV). The colors seemed pretty similiar, nothing really changed. I did order an HDMI cable, since I needed another cable from Monoprice anyways. I guess I'll hook it up and swap between inputs and really compare.

Will it hurt having both my component and HDMI hooked up to my TV? Does it make the cable box "work more"? Just curious.

No, many machines turn component off when HDMI is plugged in, actually. In any case, it is different hardware parts inside that work on the 2 formats. You're just wasting wires, is all.