I'm so glad we didn't get that projector the other day. Thank god. It would be the worst buy ever. Here are my new findings:
An initial uncompressed video is in RGB format, the classic 3 colors. What do we get in the TV screens? This is first transformed to Component Video, which consists of Y, Y-Cb, Y-Cr the 3 channels for video. Then this is compressed to Composite Video, which is just a degraded Component Video. TVs show composite video at 480i, that's 480 lines at interlaced format (i.e. every other line is drawn at each pass, while in 480p all lines are drawn at a pass).
DVDs use 480p Component Video. That means: If you connect non-progressive scan dvd player through composite video (the classic yellow cable) to the tv you will get the same quality of standard tv! You don't want to do that! (We have a progressive dvd player hooked up through composite - this will soon change).
First choice is digital (e.g. DVI) at 720 x 480 or greater Second choice is component video (Y/Pb/Pr), or RGB Third choice is DVI at 640 x 480 Fourth choice is S-video (Y/C) Distant fifth choice is composite video (yellow video jack)
HDTV uses either 720p or 1080i (same quality). Now, there are some dvd players out there that upconvert the 480p of a dvd to 720p and provide better resolution. These devices stream the video usually through DVI or HDMI(=DVI+Audio) [better] or through component. DVI/HDMI are uncompressed digital video formats (everything else is analog), and this is how we can get the best of the picture quality.
