So are you guys saying that if you have Digital cable but are not using HDMI cables you are NOT getting the best picture you can? So if I have mediacom digital cable and a plasma but am only using the old rca cables (or whatever you call them) I'm losing picture quality and should get a HDMI cable?
Sorry for sounding so stupid if this has been discussed already...
RCA's (red, white, and yellow) cables are for old anolog television. Even an S-Video cable is far above that for video quality.
The best solution is to try and stay digital no matter what. Your signal is digital, and your T.V. supports digital. So why convert down to anolog and then back to digital. Even the component cables do that. HDMI, DVI, Digital Coax or optical are all the better ways to go depending on what you can use. The nice thing also is that HDMI and DVI carry the audio signals for you. ONE cable to do both audio and video; its about time.
As far as the quality of the cable really only matters once reaching long distances as I said before. The signal weakens as the distance becomes longer. The thicker and more shielded cable you get the better off the singal will be by the time it reaches the source.
If you all really want some help, look into Clean Power by Monster Cable. It is suppose to help take out the "noise" in any type of signal, thus trying to give you the cleanest picture possible.