HDMI to DVI adapter?


Has anyone tried this? I am hoping it may remedy my delemma with my Sony 1080i CRT that does not have a HDMI input. It is incompatible with several blu-ray players that will only output an HD signal via HDMI (including the Playstation 3.) I would obviously have to run audio cables as well.

Thanks
rrekstad
Have any of you tried using a DVI cable between two HDMI output and input ports (HD player and TV) with an HDMI-to-DVI adaptor at the input end and DVI-to-HDMI adaptor at the DVI cable's output end versus using a plain HDMI cable (forgetting about audio signal for a while.) Basically I'm describing using a DVI cable between a TV and HD player with HDMI only outputs/inputs (i.e., no DVI inputs on either the player or TV, just HDMI.) Is this even possible with HDMI technology? (I believe so.)

I'm trying to determine if the HDMI cable messes up the video output relative to the DVI design which does not run audio interspersed with the video signal down a single conductor. My feeling is that it does, and significantly so. Obviously, in the comparison outlined above, you're adding the artifacts and distortions from a pair of adaptor interfaces when you put the HDMI-to-DVI/DVI-to-HDMI adaptors on the ends of the DVI cable, but that might not be enough to overcome the inherent design flaws of the HDMI design. (I spoke to a noted HDMI cable designer/manufacturer a few days ago who agreed that DVI was a better design for VIDEO only purposes, far exceeding HDMI in potential for video playback due to the mixing of audio and video signals on the HDMI wires. He said convenience was king when HDMI was designed, not performance. HDMI simply did away with lots of cumbersome, confusing wires for audio, making it consumer friendly, but NOT optimized for video.)

So let me know PLEASE if anyone has done this experiment (if such an experiment is possible.) Again, even though it's not fair to compare a DVI cable with HDMI adaptors at both ends vs. an HDMI cable with no adaptors, I believe this test will reveal a lot about the real performance capabilities of HDMI vs. DVI. If DVI still outperforms HDMI when DVI is clearly at a grave disadvantage (with HDMI adaptors at both ends), this will demonstrate the need to designers to get us back to that performance level by making cables that use the HDMI connectors but put a DVI cable in between, shit-canning the audio portion of the HDMI signal for those of us who only want the BEST in video resolution and playback.

Thanks for any input on the question.

HAPPY LISTENING/VIEWING!
Winston;

Trash the adaptors.

They weigh too much and will sooner or later fatigue you HDMI inputs. This is a real common problem.

Stick with the DVI/HDMI cable.
Unkie Jeff-

You may have misunderstood my goal with this query. I am NOT interested in the performance characteristics of the connectors ( I assume they screw up the picture, as connectors do in every other application I can think of.) This is all about testing the cables side-by-side in an identical situation (except for the connectors) to see which format truly is better for video. If you have another way of doing so, let me know, please. Most TVs and DVD players are now HDMI only. I know of no TVs or players that have both HDMI and DVI inputs/outputs which, in turn, would allow us to do a real side-by-side comparison. That would be optimal, but I suspect quite unlikely.
Unkie Jeff -

You can use adapters, but only on the DVI side. DVI connector is very robust.
Yes, I so much do like the robust DVI connector that I am sorry they didn't stick with it when they decided to include audio and came up with HDMI. My own NEC 50XM5 Plasma monitor has no speakers so I am not at all interested in a cable to it that includes audio, anyway.

Winston, I would suspect that any improvement you might somehow find in a cable will be defeated by using adaptors as they will weaken the signal.

"The more stuff along the way, the more there is to contend with."

I can tell you that my own picture quality does improve a bit when I went from a Radio Shack Gold DVI/HDMI to a Varastarr cable with the same terminations.