Hey, everyone, it's been a long time since I've been here and it's good to be back.

Recently, I purchased a Sharp 26" LCD panel and switched to DIRECTV's HD service. The box gives me a choice of HDMI, DVI, or component to broadcast HD. I have it plugged up by HDMI (thankfully, I only paid $10 for the cable instead of the ridiculous prices that they're going for now) but as an experiment, I borrowed a DVI cable from work and used an old component cable to see if there really was any difference in picture quality.

Trust me, I looked hard and long and from my eyes, I just could not see any difference between an analog (component) versus a digital (HDMI, DVI) connection. Sure, HDMI's and DVI's original purpose was not to improve PQ but to protect content owners from piracy but it's very telling how salespeople or product literature all proclaim the vast difference between analog and digital connections. Perhaps they just want to sell more expensive HDMI and DVI cables, I don't know.

Is it just me or does anyone else not notice a difference between the various HD connections?