The reason I picked my Plasma over the LCD was because of the picture quality. The Plasma just looked a lot sharper when compared to LCD TV's of the same price range. I like to play video game and so do my kids and I was warned about playing to long as the images could be burned into the plasma screen. I still chose the plasma over the LCD just because of the picture quality and then it was later explained to me that newer Plasma TV's have a lot better refresh rate to prevent images from burning into the screen and that you would have to play games for like 24 hours straight before the screen would start ghosting. Overall I am very happy with my choice, but I still plan on getting a 50+ plasma sometime before the end of the year.

 

slim rear projection for the win. samsung 61" 1080p tv.

 

I had actually read this article on the explanation of the differences between the various cables and it was this article that made me buy the HDMI cables. Being that I am using a quality HDMI cable on a short run I figured it would be better since there is no digital signal degradation . One of the other deciding factors was that the test results varied depending on the equipment used for testing. You can't expect a quality picture from your TV if you have low quality equipment, so being that I had a good quality plasma TV, receiver (Denon), and Blu-ray player I decided to go with the HDMI & fiber optic cables.

I also have a very good friend that does whole home automation, & home theater and he does not use HDMI because of the extended runs he has to make to equipment rooms that can be over 50 ft away sometimes. So his choice of connection for now is component since it is more stable over long distances. Do I think one is better than the other ......... No, as it depends on the application and conditions. I will end with this though, my wife who is not an audio/video person said she noticed a difference in the picture quality (better) when watching movies now (regular and especially blu-ray) and the only thing that changed was the player and the cables, so which is it? I know for a fact the player helped but did the cables? My reasoning was that it couldn't hurt but one thing to consider is price as a 4ft quality HDMI cable cost almost $100 at Best Buys ........