Summary: I bought this Panasonic brand 5 foot length HDMI cable for hooking up my 50\" Panasonic 720p Plasma HDTV (TH-PX60U) to my new Panasonic DVD/VHS Recorder w/HD upconversion (DMR-EZ47VK).

My previous connection to my HDTV from my old Lite-On standard resolution DVD player was using a S-Video cable.

I can definitely see a difference in the picture quality - in the color clarity and contrast, though not much difference in the sharpness.

Other than that I now have the best possible connection (HDMI) for my HDTV, the added advantage is that now I can make use of Panasonic's HDAVI control EZ Sync feature, where all devices are automatically controlled including turning on and off as appropriate and required.

Though the above Panasonic features will work with any HDMI cable and not just with a Panasonic cable, I do really like the white color of this one that blends in well with my wall on which my flat panel TV is mounted, and it is the perfect length too.

I bought this cable for less than $25. This makes it a relatively good value deal for the Panasonic brand name, which uses better quality connectors that cheaper cables.

Summary: I recently purchased (less than one year old) a Panasonic (plasma) HDTV and have a HDTV box from our cable company. When the cable company brought us the HDTV box after we bought the HDTV, they hooked it up for us using a component cable. Our DVD player (although it has a component out) was still on a composite cable since this was the only thing our old TV would accept. So, every time we would watch a movie on the new TV, I would borrow the component cable from the HDTV box to use on the DVD player so that we could enjoy the better picture quality. I finally got tired of the switching and decided to get a new cable. Instead of upgrading to a new component cable for the DVD player, I decided I would use the one from the HDTV box on the DVD player permanently, and purchased the 4.9’ Panasonic HDMI Cable for the TV/cable box. The HDTV box has a HDMI out and the HDTV has a HDMI in so why not? I called the cable company first to verify that the HDMI port on their box was OK to use. (Since they installed the box using the component cable [even though there was an HDMI slot] I figured they may have had a reason for this [other than just being too cheap to give us a HDMI cable].) They gave me the thumbs up on the HDMI port and said there would be no problem with switching. By the title of this review, you can probably guess the rest. I got the HDMI cable (the one recommended in my TV’s manual) and the picture was many times worse. I’m chalking this up to some sort of issue between the cable company, their box, and our TV as opposed to something wrong with the cable itself. The lesson – you’ll just have to try for yourself to see if HDMI or component is right for you. As for this cable - for now I’ve decided to hang on to it for the future (maybe to use with a DVD player upgrade!). After all, we love our new Panasonic HDTV – the matching Panasonic HDMI cable can’t be too bad as HDMI cables go.