HD questions

[Butter]

I know, we've had conglomerates of various threads discussing aspects of this before, but I thought I'd throw out some unique questions that I hadn't seen answered before, since I just took the plunge with a Panasonic 42" Viera Plasma with 720p. I have a smallish living room, so this thing is huge, but not overwhelmingly so.

Anyway, I am getting DirecTV to come out and hook up a new dish and an HD-DVR in about 2 weeks. Do they provide cables with the HD box? Is it just component cables, or an HDMI cable? Should I get an HDMI cable separately and hook it up that way? If so, would it be a male-to-male cable I would need?

Also, I have a Wii hooked up in the living room. I am not home to check, but does the Wii come with component cables? Can I get a cable that hooks up to the HDMI slot in the TV, or is that overkill?

Thanks!

[gstelmack]

Wii has component cables available for you to buy (they don't come with it), and will need a component cable hookup. Gains you 480P widescreen video mode.

I am not up-to-date on DirecTV HD-DVRs, but when I had one it came with both HDMI and DVI cables. That should be part of the install.

A/V receivers that do component / HDMI switching are coming down in price. You can buy decent ones for around $300, or pretty good ones for around $500.

[Rich1033]

The questions are pretty specific so other devices/services that I cant really answer, but congrats on the TV. Panasonic makes some very nice sets.

Not sure if DTV provides cables, but if not monoprice.com is great.

I pretty sure the Wii only goes up to 480p and doesnt have HDMI. Component or whatever the Wii offers will look great.

[MizzouRah]

I have dish network and they had the hdmi cables with them when they installed my HD-DVR.

For the wii, get component cables (cheapos work fine).

[stevew]

Good call on the TV. The Panasonic 42px80u is like the best value for money on the market. For sub $800 bucks you get an awesome performer, which rivals most all LCDs except for the higher end ones.

My parents got the 50" of that recently, and probably 6 different people I work with have the 42. They are all happy.