i am rpeparing to purchase an hdtv within the next few months. what I'd like to do, to spread the cost out, is to slowly begin upgrading cables and accessories now.

pertty much everything currently in my home theater set up is hooked up via composite to a standard def 480i television.

this television has component input, so I'm going to start switching over the cable box and three gaming systems to component cables. I currently have a 360, Wii, and PS2, in addition to a DVD player and cable box hooked up. None of these devices support HDMI or DVI of any sort, so I shouldn't have to repurchase cables at a later point in time.

My questions are this:

1) Will I see any immediate picture upgrade when switching from composite to component on a standard def television. I understand that this will make a huge difference when I add the new television in later, but I'm interested in immediate benefit.

2) Does anyone know of a decent-priced component video input switch box?

thanks for your help.

Wait...am i reading this right?

You're asking if there's a big difference between composite and component??

On a standard def tv, yes, i am, in regards to quality.

pardon my ignorance.

I take your shocked response to mean:

"You sir, are clearly a newb. There is a large difference, and you are a moron for asking."

Am I right?

there's a huge difference between component and composite. I'm not sure the difference will be as great on a SDtv compared to HDtv. Before I had HD, I could definitely tell the difference between the 2 connections.

www.monoprice.com has high quality cables at a much lower cost than retail stores.

Well, your question doesn't have much to do with HD. The component/composite difference would benefit whichever tv/dvd player you're using as long as the TV has the inputs. Then the HD improvement would be another pretty monumental difference.

I apologize if i put this in the wrong forum. Thanks for the input.

If I'm understanding you correctly, it seems like you're asking 2 different questions. But one of them has to do with HD so you're kinda sorta ok.

One thing I would note is that you have these three systems, and a cable box, but how many component inputs do you have now, and how many does the set you are looking for accomodate? You may want to target a model of HDTV and see what will hook up where before you start springing for the extra cables.

Alternatively, you could buy a switch box for the different boxes as well.

well, my current set only has one component input, so at least temporarily a switch would be a necessity. i haven't really nailed down a TV yet, but i'd need at least 5 component inputs, and that's probably asking a lot, so a switchbox is most likely in order. If I got one with three inputs (I'm assuming that's a more reasonable number, though I could be off base) I could use one for the cable or satellite, one for DVD and one with a simple three port switch for the game systems.

it's all kind of up in the air, but regardless, I'm going to need the cables at some point.

Why do you need 5 component inputs if you're getting an HDTV???

Some of your options will be able to use HDMI so that will cut out some of those component needs.

Well the cable box would have an HDMI option, but the current DVD player and 3 video game systems do not at the moment. So I'd still need 4. The eventual plan of course would be to get a HD-dvd player or Blu Ray that would likely support HDMI, but that won't be in the immediate future, so I'm looking for potentially four composite inputs, I guess.

Careful, careful. Composite is red/white (audio) and yellow (video). Component is red/green/blue (video).

My recommendation? Look for something with 1 or 2 HDMI inputs, which will give you 2 component inputs, or thereabouts. Spend part of your budget on an A/V receiver and don't waste a single buck on a switch. For the most part they are garbage. Adding an A/V receiver will give you anywhere from 1 to 2 additional component inputs.

thanks for the tip