If you have the equipment use it!

As I was helping move the couch last night I noticed that Karen's roommates had gotten a new Mitsubishi RPTV and they had a new HDTV capable cable box. However as I was looking at it I realized the cable box and their DVD player were curiously hooked up. The cable box was hooked up using standard coax to the antenna input on TV. Not composite, s-video or component; coax ARGH!. Then the DVD player was hooked up to composite. As I looked at the cables they had all the right cables they were just all hooked up wrong. After the moving was done I went to work fixing their setup. First I hooked up the HDTV to component. They didn't have a DVI cable or I would have used that. I went to the only channel they had that was broadcasting HD at the time which was NBC. It was showing the loop of the opening ceremonies. Karen was immediately amazed at the difference. I then went in and turned down the contrast and brightness a bunch, they were both almost at max. I also went in and looked the convergence which was way out of whack. I spent 15 minutes or so doing a quick touchup (needs another 30-45 minutes of work). I then went on to the DVD player. Again I got it hooked up to component and switched the DVD player to progressive. I also had to again fix the brightness and contrast, also the convergence is per resolution on this TV and seemed almost as out of whack at 480P as 1080i was. It isn't as perfect as I would like but it is much better than it was. Maybe it will inspire them to get it to where it should be.