Recently one of my friends have his parents visiting him. To make them feel at home and let them enjoy the day while he is out at work,he bought a LED smart TV and a cable service connection.
The next day, he came up to me and was asking me, how he can now setup his set top box, what video connector to use? How can he attach his laptop to his TV? He had many questions and I had answer for every question because I have keen interest in this video domain and more so because I have gone through all that stuff of connecting TV to different devices. So I decided to just write this down here to give an overall view of different video connectors we have.
There are several types of video connections on PC ,TVs, DVD etc. They all serve to the same purpose i.e. connect and transmit video signal from one device to another, but the video quality obtained by each type of connection is completely different.
1. Radio Frequency (RF)
RF is the oldest way to transmit video signals. It is used on TVs and VCRs to connect these devices to both terrestrial (antennas) and cable transmition.
RF cables are found in: 75-ohm coaxial and 300-ohm parallel. the 300-ohm parallel type was used by old terrestrial broadcasting antennas, but even this kind of antenna use the 75-ohm coaxial cable nowadays. You can install a 300-ohm connector into a 75-ohm connector by using an adapter.
So its clear that my friend first need this connector to have the cable signal from the wall socket to the RF socket of his set top box provided by the cable service provider.
2. Composite Video (RCA)
Composite vídeo is one of the most popular video connection types and uses a RCA connector. Composite video is used on the popular ”video in“ and ”video out“ connectors, found in VCRs, TVs, DVD players and video projectors. This is the best option to connect your VCR to your TV set, assuming that they don’t have a S-Video connector (usually newer TV sets have this connector, but VCRs usually don’t have S-Video output). But for other devices, like DVD players and even PCs, you should not use this connection, because S-Video, Component Video and other standards offer better video quality and usually you can find at least S-Video on those devices.
Since VCRs allow you to record videos, it has two composite connectors, one being an input and the other one being an output. You should connect the VCR output to the TV set input to make the proper connection. Its input should be used in the case you are willing to record something from another video source, like another VCR (for copying tapes) or even a PC with composite video output.
A typical RCA male connector cable will have three pins, yellow-for composite video and rest two for audio for left and right channel respectively. The color coding for different kind of RCA connectors is as follows:
5. Video Graphic Adapter (VGA)
VGA is the traditional connector used to connect your PC to video monitors. It is also one option to connect your PC to HDTV sets. This connection offers a better video quality compared to component video, S-Video and composite video because it uses an independent wire for each video signal: red, green, blue, horizontal sync and vertical sync.
This uses analog signals, while on DVI and HDMI information is transmitted digitally, thus better quality. So if HDTV set has a DVI or HDMI connector , one should use one of them instead of the traditional VGA connector to connect your PC to HDTV.
6. Digital Video Interface (DVI)
As the name suggests DVI should be an digital signal based connector, actually it can carry both analog and digital signals. Here are the types of DVI connectors available:
The next day, he came up to me and was asking me, how he can now setup his set top box, what video connector to use? How can he attach his laptop to his TV? He had many questions and I had answer for every question because I have keen interest in this video domain and more so because I have gone through all that stuff of connecting TV to different devices. So I decided to just write this down here to give an overall view of different video connectors we have.
There are several types of video connections on PC ,TVs, DVD etc. They all serve to the same purpose i.e. connect and transmit video signal from one device to another, but the video quality obtained by each type of connection is completely different.
1. Radio Frequency (RF)
RF is the oldest way to transmit video signals. It is used on TVs and VCRs to connect these devices to both terrestrial (antennas) and cable transmition.
RF cables are found in: 75-ohm coaxial and 300-ohm parallel. the 300-ohm parallel type was used by old terrestrial broadcasting antennas, but even this kind of antenna use the 75-ohm coaxial cable nowadays. You can install a 300-ohm connector into a 75-ohm connector by using an adapter.
So its clear that my friend first need this connector to have the cable signal from the wall socket to the RF socket of his set top box provided by the cable service provider.
2. Composite Video (RCA)
Composite vídeo is one of the most popular video connection types and uses a RCA connector. Composite video is used on the popular ”video in“ and ”video out“ connectors, found in VCRs, TVs, DVD players and video projectors. This is the best option to connect your VCR to your TV set, assuming that they don’t have a S-Video connector (usually newer TV sets have this connector, but VCRs usually don’t have S-Video output). But for other devices, like DVD players and even PCs, you should not use this connection, because S-Video, Component Video and other standards offer better video quality and usually you can find at least S-Video on those devices.
Since VCRs allow you to record videos, it has two composite connectors, one being an input and the other one being an output. You should connect the VCR output to the TV set input to make the proper connection. Its input should be used in the case you are willing to record something from another video source, like another VCR (for copying tapes) or even a PC with composite video output.
A typical RCA male connector cable will have three pins, yellow-for composite video and rest two for audio for left and right channel respectively. The color coding for different kind of RCA connectors is as follows:
- Yellow: Composite video.
- Red: Right channel (audio).
- White or black: Left channel (audio).
- Orange: Digital audio (a.k.a. SPDIF).
- Green: Component video.
- Blue: Component video.
- Red: Component video.
3. Separate Video (S-video)
S-Video provides a better image quality than composite video. S-Video has three wires; one for carrying the image in black-and-white, one for carrying the color information signal and the third is the ground (as the name suggests separated video).
All latest TV this connector. One should connect the DVD player to the TV or videoprojector using an S-Video cable only if your DVD player and/or TV or videoprojector don't offer a better connection option, like component video, DVI or HDMI.
4. Component Video
Component video offers a far better quality than S-Video, being the preferred video connection to use between your DVD player or your cable/satellite converter, in the case they have this kind of connection and they don't have a better connectivity option, like DVI or HDMI. It uses three cables, which should be connected as follows:
Green connector: green input or input labeled as Y; Blue connector: blue input or input labeled as Pb or Cb or B-Y; Red connector: red input or input labeled as Pr or Cr or R-Y.
The Y connector transmits luma information (black and white image) while the color information is transmitted on the other connectors.
All latest TV this connector. One should connect the DVD player to the TV or videoprojector using an S-Video cable only if your DVD player and/or TV or videoprojector don't offer a better connection option, like component video, DVI or HDMI.
4. Component Video
Component video offers a far better quality than S-Video, being the preferred video connection to use between your DVD player or your cable/satellite converter, in the case they have this kind of connection and they don't have a better connectivity option, like DVI or HDMI. It uses three cables, which should be connected as follows:
Green connector: green input or input labeled as Y; Blue connector: blue input or input labeled as Pb or Cb or B-Y; Red connector: red input or input labeled as Pr or Cr or R-Y.
The Y connector transmits luma information (black and white image) while the color information is transmitted on the other connectors.
5. Video Graphic Adapter (VGA)
VGA is the traditional connector used to connect your PC to video monitors. It is also one option to connect your PC to HDTV sets. This connection offers a better video quality compared to component video, S-Video and composite video because it uses an independent wire for each video signal: red, green, blue, horizontal sync and vertical sync.
This uses analog signals, while on DVI and HDMI information is transmitted digitally, thus better quality. So if HDTV set has a DVI or HDMI connector , one should use one of them instead of the traditional VGA connector to connect your PC to HDTV.
6. Digital Video Interface (DVI)
As the name suggests DVI should be an digital signal based connector, actually it can carry both analog and digital signals. Here are the types of DVI connectors available:
- DVI-A: Analog connection.
- DVI-D: Digital connection. Usually when we say “DVI” we are referring to DVI-D.
- DVI-I: Cable or connector that can carry both DVI-A and DVI-D signals. DVI-A cables can carry only DVI-A signals and DVI-D cables can carry only DVI-D signals.
- Single Link: Allows screen resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 pixels at 60 frames per second.
- Dual Link: Allows screen resolutions up to 2048 x 1536 pixels at 60 frames per second.
If a device has a DVI-I connector this means that it produces both analog and digital signals. One should use a cable (DVI-A or DVI-D) according to the kind of connection your display supports, analog or digital.
7. High-Definition Multimedia Interface ( HDMI)
HDMI is today the most high-end kind of video connection available . Find this connection on the latest DVD players, Blu-Ray players, HD-DVD players, HDTV sets and probably on the latest digital cable/satellite converters.
This connection works 100% in digital mode, is capable of transferring higher resolutions than DVI even compatible with resolutions not commercially released yet it even features a copy-protection mechanism called HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection) and the best part is transfers digital audio signal on the same cable, eliminating the need of an extra cable for connecting audio if devices being connected support this feature.
This connection works 100% in digital mode, is capable of transferring higher resolutions than DVI even compatible with resolutions not commercially released yet it even features a copy-protection mechanism called HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection) and the best part is transfers digital audio signal on the same cable, eliminating the need of an extra cable for connecting audio if devices being connected support this feature.
