Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

"The argument often made for the HDMI signal format is the "pure
digital" argument--that by taking a digital recording, such as a DVD or a
digital satellite signal, and rendering it straight into digital form
as an HDMI signal, and then delivering that digital signal straight to
the display, there is a sort of a perfect
no-loss-and-no-alteration-of-information signal chain. If the display
itself is a native digital display (e.g. an LCD or Plasma display), the
argument goes, the signal never has to undergo digital-to-analog
conversion and therefore is less altered along the way.


That might be true, were it not for the fact that digital signals
are encoded in different ways and have to be converted, and that these
signals have to be scaled and processed to be displayed. Consequently,
there are always conversions going on, and these conversions aren't
always easy going. "Digital to digital" conversion is no more a
guarantee of signal quality than "digital to analog," and in practice
may be substantially worse. Whether it's better or worse will depend
upon the circuitry involved--and that is something which isn't usually
practical to figure out on paper."

-http://www.bluejeanscable.com/articles/dvihdmicomponent.htm

Ugh. I deeply respect bluejeanscable for the policies they hold and the things they do but that statement always irked me.

Quote:That might be true, were it not for the fact that digital signals
are encoded in different ways and have to be converted, and that these
signals have to be scaled and processed to be displayed. Consequently,
there are always conversions going on, and these conversions aren't
always easy going.

These conversions pale in comparison to what has to be done with an analog signal. The same scaling applies except you have to convert YPbPr analog to RGB digital instead of RGB digital to RGB digital (sometimes the bit depths are different but that's it).

Quote:"Digital to digital" conversion is no more a
guarantee of signal quality than "digital to analog," and in practice
may be substantially worse. Whether it's better or worse will depend
upon the circuitry involved--and that is something which isn't usually
practical to figure out on paper."

Yeah that's a complete load of horseshit. With a digital display a digital signal will be better 99% of the time. There is no distortion from EMI or attenuation. Limited if any conversion of format. And the same scaling. There is no downside.

It's very simply. Use digital signals with digital displays and use analog signals with analog displays. There is no point in converting to analog if the display will just convert it back to digital. And there is no point in converting to digital if the display will just convert it back to analog. The only exception to this is if the source itself is analog. But that never happens these days! Everything is digital! Settop boxes for CATV and SAT, DVD/BD players, video game consoles, PCs, you name it.