There may be nothing wrong with component hookup, but there is clearly a definite color change in my picture when switched from component to HDMI which would require a recalibration. I haven't performed this to see if the PQ would be any better or worse, but my concern is to take every step to assure my HD is at its best. It's very difficult for anyone to determine the difference visually without seeing an actual side by side comparison. I believe that HDMI is technically the best connection for HD, although I can't say for certain if the difference is detectable by the human eye. I did quite a bit of research before spending $2400 on what I believe to be the best 40" LCD set available and would hate to think I had to settle for anything I believe could possibly be a lesser quality connection.
From Samsung USA:
"Note that if your TV does not have a DVI or HDMI connection, you can use Component connections, if your TV has them, and get a picture almost as good."
For what it's worth, this is the analogy of an electrical engineer who has been working on HDTV design for 9 years.
"Most digital cable and satellite subscribers complain about the standard or normal channels being of low quality with lots of noise. And they find that the premium or pay channels have the best quality picture. This is because the pay or premium channels are broadcast in a digital mpeg format with a much higher ATSC resolution. And its signal path to your house to the set top box and to your HDTV is mostly all digital. However, the standard or normal channels are just re-broadcast from their old former NTSC analog formats of lower quality and then digitized. When any old low resolution analog signal is digitized, it make a very accurate copy of the signal along with any of the inherent noise and artifacts imbedded with it. And when it gets to your home into your set top box and to your HDTV through a completely digital path, it does a good job in retaining all of that noise it copied when it was digitized. The digital circuits don't know that it is noise and artifacts. It just knows it must keep the digital data signal integrity like a computer does so it keeps the noise. It never gets filtered out in a complete digital path. However to resolve this, you should use a component video cable from the set top box to the HDTV only for standard or normal channels. This is because the analog signal path provides chroma and noise filters that are standard in analog circuits. This helps clean up the noise when the digital signal is converted back to an analog signal in the HDTV component input. Only in this case does the analog component signal appear better then the digital signals of DVI and HDMI."