04-07-2006, 02:41 AM
About the aspect ratio- Only the component cables will carry the full bandwidth of an HD signal, and even though your TV cannot resolve this at full resolution, it can still work with it as you have figured out. Every TV program coming in through your HD tuner will be in either SD or HD format. SD is not widescreen, but since you are working in widescreen mode everything will be made to fit that, so the SD square gets stuck in the middle of the screen, effectively making your TV about 20% smaller. Sucks, but this will get better with the transition to more HD programming. There is a ratio button on your remote you can play with, also try out the zoom.
OK, so the real road block here is the fact that your TV has only one set of composite video inputs. This, as you say, will force you to decide between the HD tuner and the DVD recorder as sources for the TV.
Given that the HD tuner is the only true HD source, and that you can also use it for progressive scan DVD playback, it should be the source to use the component input on the TV.
The DVD recorder is unfortunately limited with composite as the highest quality video input offered. Did you hope to record the HDTV signal with your DVD recorder? I think the best you can do here is to hook up an antenna to the DVD recorder, then use the composite out to the TV.
All of these devices should have an antenna input and pass-through (except maybe for the alchemy) so hook up your antenna to one device first, say the HD tuner, then pass that through to the DVD recorder, VCR or whatever, then to the TV then to the Alchemy. In this way all devices will be able to use a regular OTA TV signal. As long as you use a decent well shielded coax you can make a pretty long chain and not lose quality. Splitters can cause problems, especially with an HD signal.
I think that's everything. Oh, the HD tuner has two composite outputs, so you can run one to your Alchemy and one to something else.
OK, so the real road block here is the fact that your TV has only one set of composite video inputs. This, as you say, will force you to decide between the HD tuner and the DVD recorder as sources for the TV.
Given that the HD tuner is the only true HD source, and that you can also use it for progressive scan DVD playback, it should be the source to use the component input on the TV.
The DVD recorder is unfortunately limited with composite as the highest quality video input offered. Did you hope to record the HDTV signal with your DVD recorder? I think the best you can do here is to hook up an antenna to the DVD recorder, then use the composite out to the TV.
All of these devices should have an antenna input and pass-through (except maybe for the alchemy) so hook up your antenna to one device first, say the HD tuner, then pass that through to the DVD recorder, VCR or whatever, then to the TV then to the Alchemy. In this way all devices will be able to use a regular OTA TV signal. As long as you use a decent well shielded coax you can make a pretty long chain and not lose quality. Splitters can cause problems, especially with an HD signal.
I think that's everything. Oh, the HD tuner has two composite outputs, so you can run one to your Alchemy and one to something else.