Do they exist? I was wondering if there are cables that connect to the back of a PC on one end and split into the Red, Yellow, and White cable thing on the other end to be connected to a TV. Thanks in advance
Simple cables? No. Conversion boxes? Yes. The good boxes are going to set you back a few though. If you want to do TV out from a PC the best option is a good ATI card with TV out. The high end ATI cards can output composite, S-Video and component to a TV. If your TV supports DVI or VGA, you can obviously use those outputs so long as your PC card supports HDTV resolutions. Keep in mind that NTSC TV is 480i, which is roughly equivalent to 352x240 (or 640x240 depending on a number of factors, though the 352x340 number is most often used as a base of comparison) in practice so going to a TV out will lose a lot of fine detail, making text hard to read. Conversely it's basically free AA so a game with jagged edges and artifacts on a high res PC display will actually look *better* to the naked eye on a TV. Making the jump to progressive scan (480p) is roughly equivalent to 640x480 on the PC. Technically 480p is 720x480, however it uses a 0.9 PAR while a PC uses a 1.0 PAR so 720x480 really does equal 640x480. -hl718
I seriously believe there should be a sticky post regarding Video cables etc, with detailed info on each. There has been tons of posts on similar subjects. Anyway, here goes ANALOGUE CABLES RF cable: RF not the first type of connection actually. People old enough to remember will remember the "twin" cable that you had to screw to the back of your Tele. The first famicomes used that too! RF is found on all televisions and is the lowest of the low. It carries video in AM modulation, and video in FM. Composite: The Red/White and Yellow are called Composite. The connector they use is called RCA (male or female). As you know, red and white are for L and R audio. YELLOW carries the video signal, along with the SYNC. alot of cramming in that little cable, so quality is not that good. Supports only 15Khz (interlaced) S-Video Next off, is the S-video ( someone give detailed info on this since i m not familiar with its modus operandi, I think it carries luminance in a seperate channel though) which is better in quality than RCA COMPOSITE and most laptops output through that to TVs. Audio is still on Red and White RCA cables (if analogue) Supports only 15Khz Horizontal scanning (interlaced) RGB and the EURO-SCART variant: RGB as the name suggests, carries YCrCp, each cable carrying a different colour, and the Y channel (green) also carries Horizontal and Vertical Sync (HV sync). You ll find RGB in BNC and RCA type connectors, and also in europe, the popular EURO-SCART connector (which also carries Stereo analogue audio) RGB that ends in RCA connectors is called "Component" Component supports 15 and 31Khz Horizontal sync (interlaced and progressive) EURO-SCART only supports 15Khz Horizontal sync (interlaced ONLY). EURO-SCART also supports a type of signal that sets the aspect ratio so you don't have to enter it manually. (This is also seen in the Japanese D-terminal) RGBHV: This is similar to RGB but has got seperate cables to carry the HV sync. This cable can be found in a variety of connectors, namely BNC, RCA and DB15 (Also known as VGA cable in laymen's terms) - As you understood already, this is the type of video your PC outputs through its VGA card. RGBHV is used on projectors in BNC and RCA connector form and on Computer monitors and relevant hardware as DB15. Supports 31Khz for Horizontal sync (this might be because the sources that create such a signal don't need to produce interlaced signal, i.e no PC video card does 15Khz) D-terminal: This is the Japanese alternative to component, which offers RGB with sync on Y on a HR18 connector and also offers the ratio determining signals, also found in EURO-SCART DVI-i Not very popular to my knowledge, it's the Analogue type of DVi. DIGITAL CABLES: A common thing about digital cables is that they all carry their video data in bit-streams, and not in an analogue modulation. As such, in theory, the quality remains intact because regardless of the strength of the signal, a 0 is always a 0 and a 1 is always 1 (broadly speaking). That said, each one might be using a different compression algorithm, depending on the bandwidth of the cable or the protection that is sought instead of leaving the signal raw. Firewire (IEEE 1394) used by professionals, and some TVs might have them too. DVi-D (reffered to as DVi usually) Found in many TV sets and PC graphics boards and monitors HDMI Same thing as DVi-D as far as video goes, but also carries digital audio. HDCP is the guard-dog on it for copyrighted material.
Can you describe your pc better (maybe give us the type of video card)? Alot of newer video cards these days have composite/svideo outs on them. Alot of them I've seen have some sort of obscure dongle required to get to it though. I bet you do. I see you posting the same explanations of cabling over and over :lol: Edit: S-Video is the same as composite. The difference is that in s-video, Y/C are carried on separate channels. Composite just combines Y/C on the same channel and does a low filter pass to remove Y. Separating the two helps to clean up Y a good deal.
Few errors there - First, DVI-I is normally only ever an output, as it is a DVI port wired for both Analog and digital (so you can use a DVI->VGA adaptor). You are looking for DVI-A, which is VGA with a different pinout, and is rarely(Never?) used Also, RGB is not the same as YCrCp - See these 2 images and associated wiki articles for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Barns_grand_tetons_YCbCr_separation.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Barn_grand_tetons_rgb_separation.jpg If what you were saying were true you could get a simple pin converter to connect SCART to a component only TV, which unfortunately isn't the case.
Thanks for the corrections. I m not the most suitable person regarding EURO-SCART, DVi and S-video, as I never use those standards in practice. If a sticky is made indeed, it would be best that information is provided by Wiki sources, and a small summary for laymen done by anyone really. Also, I have NEVER seen a component-only TV set. Every TV that had the "Red Green Blue female RCA" connectors and did support HDTV/EDTV was also compatible (through the same female RCA connectors) with RGB and Component.
