A Bundle of TV Cables

this actually comes courtesy of one of our listeners. I'll go ahead and read the a listener many. This mail comes from Brian from Iowa. What's up, Tech Stuff? Guys? You rule? I have a quick question. Can you do a podcast explaining the differences between all the high definition hook ups for TV? For example, why is it that the video component cord now has three cables red, blue, and green instead of the old one yellow one? And

move on from there to the HDM my stuff. I know you could do this an email, but I feel like a lot of people are curious on this topic. So if it's no bother, can it be a podcast? Thanks? Well, Brian, it's a huge bother, but we're gonna do it anyway, You're actually it's not a bother at all. I'm I'm just I'm just giving you the business. So we're gonna talk about the different kinds of cables you used to send video feeds and audio feeds as well to and

from your television. Alright, then, so where to start. Let's start with the old ones, like well, I mean we CoA coaxial. Let's go with co axial. So coaxial cable. This is the stuff that comes from cable boxes, satellite boxes, that kind of thing. And it carries a signal that has both video and audio in it. Yeah, it's uh, it actually can carry quite a bit of information, which is why it's used in those connections. You know, it can work on your cable modem and you know that's

a pretty high speed connection. Alternatives, of course, would be fiber optic, but that's not something that you uh uh you would plug into your TV. Actually, a co actually has quite a quite a history. It was invented in so it's been around quite a while, right, and it it carries a modulated signal that means that you have to have some sort of tuner in order to to

uh tune into the signal that it that it's sending. Now, that tuner might be a cable box or a satellite box, or it might be a tuner that's actually in your television set. Um. It all depends on the TV. Actually, most new TVs probably have a basic tuner in there, so you can plug the cable directly from the wall into your television if you so wished. Um. Some cable providers do not like that so much, so you pretty

much have to get a cable box for that. But that's your basic video feed and audio feed into a TV set. Um. And it's an antenna, I guess, because you could get over the air broadcast antenna right right. Well, basically it's his copper wire and and his sheathings. So you know, that's it. It's it's not that fancy, but it it works. Yeah yeah, Now, I mean that's not it's not necessarily an ideal situation that you know, you're not necessarily going to get the best quality stuff that way.

But let's let's let's talk about I wanted to go straight to composite video really okay, yeah, that's that red, white and yellow set of cables, and of course only one of those is video. That's red and white are the left and right audio channel. That's correct, and as Brian pointed out, the yellow is video. Now he had said, why our component cables come in why do they come in threes instead of just ones like they used to well number and they never they never came in one

chord because it's composite video, not component video. They are two different things. Now. Composite video carries the entire video signal in one stream. YEP, it's compressed to get it in there. And as a matter of fact, it's really uh good for NTSC Standard definition video. Yeah, so we're talking about stuff that was used back in the old days when you'd have these things called v c rs. No no, not here either, but no, no, this is pretty much the stuff you would see in the old

and an older home theater equipment. So VCRs, uh you know, super vhs even things like that. You would hook this up with one of these yellow chords from the box to your television set and that would give you the video. And and not just you know, home theater, but also video game consoles. A lot of video game consoles use this as well. So for example, um Xbox, my old Xbox came with the composite video cord. You would have to go out and buy a special HD chord if

you wanted to get something in higher quality. And that's the thing the composite video, because it is a compressed signal. You're not going to get HD quality video out of that signal. So even if you have let's say you bought a DVD player, I bought a DVD player, and let's say that you bought an h D t V. I bought an HDTV, And let's say that you're using a composite video to hook the DVD player to your HDTV. Yeah, that I did that, Okay, So this is where I

would say, you foolish consumer. You have bought all these high quality products and you're using a subpar cable to hook the two up. Now you may remember we did a podcast ages ago about does cable quality matter? And we kind of came to the conclusion that ultimately it doesn't really matter. Well, that really only counts for within a specific kind of cable, right, Different kinds of cables

matter a lot, and this is one of them. So if you were to hook up your DVD player to your h D t V, with a with a posit video chord, you would only get standard video out. You wouldn't be able to view HD content at all because the cable itself is incapable of carrying that information. Yeah yeah, so don't do it. Yeah you know. Uh, since I have some older equipment and I'm saving up to actually for real by an HDTV, UM, I still have a

jumble of composite chords behind my TV. In fact, I'm using an ABC box to manage because I only have a couple uh you know, inputs for it. Is it as easy as one, two three? Um? Not quite, however, Um, I do have one S video input on the back of my television, so well, S video is better than composit video. It's still not HD. No, it doesn't carry an HD signal. Now S video. It separates the signal

into two signals. The video signal, I should say, Uh, you have your luminants signal, which is the level of white in whatever the images at the time, and the chrominance signal, which is the color information. So brightness and color essentially is what we're talking about. It get split up into these two different signals. It's sent to your TV. It gives you a better quality image than you would have with a composite video, but again it's still not

high definition. Now this is kind of confusing for people who bought h D t V several years ago because s video that was one of the new things on these TVs that people were unfamiliar with, and it was on the backs of DVD players and they just thought, oh, well, this is what h D is not quite it's not going to give you the quality that your h D t V is capable of showing. Um, you know, not the full ten a DP experience. I guess if you're on one of the smaller TVs. Uh yeah, D experience.

Isn't that a band? It should be patent pending. I'm just gonna throw that in there. I think that's number four. If you love swers are keeping track, just let us know how many patents we have pending, you know, and they're gonna put that up out of sequence, so people are gonna wonder why we had four patents pending before

we had three. What we need is we need someone to go out there and create a tech stuff Wikia, create a tech stuff wiki and and and keep track of all of our episodes and all of the patents we have pending. That would be nice because then we know what was that we've actually talked about. I'm sure all of you out there have plenty of spare times time on your hands. Uh, so go for it. So getting back to the cables and stdo Actually, the fact that you mentioned the chrominence and luminance, I had the

feeling that's going to come up again very shortly. It probably will, so, Uh. The nice thing about this the S video cable, is that it's a it's a single cable, that's true, except it doesn't have sound. You still have to use the red and white cables for sure. But the nice thing about the nice thing about for our video, Yeah, it's just one cable as opposed to, uh to the the component cables, which we'll get to an minute. But because it's just the one cable, that means less clutter

behind your entertainment system. UM. Now, I don't know about you. My entertainment system is cluttered like crazy because I've got you know, five or six video game consoles, hooful to it. I've got a DVD player, UM, I've got my my surround sound system. Um, there are a lot of components to my entertainment system. So I've got a lot of cables. So whenever I have an option to go with a single cable, I think about that quite a bit before

going and moving forward and purchasing cables. Now. Unfortunately, I didn't get in on the best option available right now because I purchased a television before they it became the standard. But we'll get to that as well. Alright then, so I guess we can move on to the Component Video cables.

And these are the cables that Brian was mentioning before right now that these come in red, green, and blue, I believe if I'm not miss again, yes, red, green, and blue, and you would you would might first think that these cables split the video into those three colors, and that each cable, you know, carries that color to the your TV and then it magically combines and then you've got a HD screen because Component Video is one

of the video cables that can transmit HD quality images. Well, it's only partially magic, right, And it's also not not true that it's each color. That's not exactly what's happening, um, because one of them, it's actually split into chrominance and luminance again, it's just that there's one luminance and two chrominans. That is correct. Wow, you actually researched this one. I'm not just making stuff. Yeah. The one wire carries the

brightness signals, that's the luminance, and the chrominans. You've got one that that carries a signal that has the difference between blue and the luminance, and then the other one splits it between the difference in red and the Lumit that. Wow, look at you. You know you and have an HDTV and you know this stuff. Um. So there are a lot of things on the market now that run that use this these cables, including um like the Xbox. Again,

I have an old Xbox. I don't have the Xbox three sixty, but I've got an old one and um And one of the cables you could buy was a component video cable source and again does not carry audio. So you need a different audio cable to be able to get sound out of your whatever system it is, whether it's a DVD player, video game console, whatever. Otherwise you're gonna have really cool video but no sounds. So unless you really like silent movies that look really really crisp,

you're gonna need another set of cables. Um, you know, it would be really nice if we had I don't know, one cable that would carry all this stuff, one cable to rule them all, cable to bind them, so to speak. Depends on how long the cable is. But okay, right, so U h d M I Okay, that'll work. That's your high Definition Multimedia interface cable. And this has become more or less the standard for HD cables with televisions and components moving forward. And uh, it's a darn good

one because it does carry HDI uncompressed video. It can carry uncompressed video and audio, so now you can get high quality audio and video using one cable. And uh, it's it's really impressive stuff. Now. As I was mentioning earlier, the reason why I used the component video cables is because my television does not have an h d M I uh input port, so I can't use it. And even if I could, I don't think that my DVD player has one either, so I wouldn't have anything to

plug it to. UM and uh, plus my DVD player broke ages ago, so I'm I'm in desperate straits. I watch all my DVDs. I'm Mac now, um, and I use my PlayStation two to watch DVDs. So yeah, here we aren't talking about high quality cables and we're like, all my equipment broke. I Actually I do have it on my list of things to do buy new stuff, but that's gonna have to wait for a little while anyway. H d M I. So there's some great things about h d M I. For one thing, you've got that

one single cable that carries everything. Um, that's uh that and it's also always being updated with new features. So it's it's one of those standards that's constantly evolving. UM, it's not going to be something that that is out of date in three or four months, because fortunately they work on they being the organizations behind the HDMI standard, work on making sure that it continues to meet the

needs of consumers. So that's a good thing about h d M I as well as opposed to some of the older methods which were invented, uh serve their purpose and now I mean they still work, they just don't work any better than they did way back when. Uh, and uh there's some other things that are maybe not quite as good. There's no locking mechanism on an HD in my cable. So anybody could just rip rip it right off the back of your TV and take off. Well, that could happen, or you could, you know, jostle it

while you're moving your components around falls out. And if you're like me and you have a television system where if something falls, it means you have to pull the damn TV all the way back out from the wall. Again. I've got a fifty one inch television and it's the kind on wheels. It's not a flat panel We're not, we're talking, you know, it's off flat panel display. So, uh, if something falls, then I have to move the whole

TV out. And of course, since I've got so many cables connected to the thing from all the different video game systems, and some of them are rather taught, it means I have to start disconnecting stuff from other things in order to get this one cable that's fallen out. Now, granted, unless you're moving your your system around a lot, it's probably not gonna happen. Um probably being the operative word here. Another thing that it has is um, well, it has

HDCP copy protection. Yes, and you're a fan of the copy protection, as I remember Oh, yeah, I love copy protection. Let me tell you. You You know, he goes on and on about that. Anybody who will listen, you know, because you know, I just love copy protection. I think it's the best thing ever to prevent made from from exercising fair use of your stuff, the stuff that I own. I you know what, I think it's the best thing

in the world. If I purchased something and I have absolutely no way of creating a backup copy for my own personal use, so that Heaven forbid something happens to the original, I don't have to go out and purchase the thing that I've already bought. Once again, is that a soapbox on the floor. I'm sorry, I like it. I'm just asking so. So, Yeah, the copy protection is actually built into the cable. Yeah, it's um that's kind

of irritating. And then there's some incompeted incompetibility issues that we're in some of the early HD my cables, UM, where you couldn't get the h D content from one source to your TV. Most of those have been worked out in in subsequent cables, but if you bought them early on, you might have experienced some problems. Now that's not the only kind of cables that you can hook up to your TV. Uh And so we can talk

about a few others. There's the Digital Visual Interface d I. Yes, d v I. It's actually very similar to h d M I, is it not. It's it's pretty similar, although it has one advantage. Let me guess, no copy protection. Well, I was gonna talk more about Well some of them don't support hd CP, so, but it does have copy protection, so that's not it. No, it has as a little screws that you can screw in. Okay, you were so excited about it. I figured it was the copy prodection.

D I does have copy protections, Yes it does. And if um, yeah, if you have a a monitor or a television that doesn't support h d C p um, it's not going to be compatible with whatever the source is for your video, so then you won't be able to display it. And uh So this is one of those things where you have to make sure that your devices are compatible with one another before you use it.

It looks like a little computer port, the kind that you would have on the back of any you know, monitor or on a computer card and you're on your desktop PC that kind of thing. Uh, and like I said, you can actually secure that one with little screws so it doesn't pop off like the h d M I could.

So there's that. Then there's a well, I mean, if you want to take a step back, there's the v g A uh connectors as well, which also looks like again, this is something that you would see in computer monitors usually, but some televisions have them, and it would allow you to to maybe hook up your computer to your your television so that you can use your TV as a giant computer monitor. So uh, some old HDTVs have them,

some old set top boxes have them. Um, it does have the little thumb screws again, so you can secure your cable to your TV. It's a not really common so, I mean hardly anyone talks about it. Really. The most common ones you're gonna see are the composite component, S video and h d M. I Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if S video started to kind of quietly go away. Um yeah, I mean it's you know, composite has been around and it's it's still leading a hearty, robust life.

Well and if you have any legacy UH hardware, like any VHS type stuff for old laser disc players or anything like that. Yeah, if you have anything like that, you need that composite video input or else you know, your your your That's when your equipment really becomes obsolete because you no longer have anything that can display the video. We'll put it this way. I've got to see stuff that's already got um some you know, tons and tons of composite cables and then one s video input on

my older TV. When I do upgrade to h D, I'm gonna want h D M I. Right. Well, I gotta say that one thing about component video that's kind of nice is that it does not have copy protection. Ah, so you might want to go with that because you don't have to worry about, you know, no longer being able to make copies. So let's talk about audio for a second. Okay, let's talk about audio for a second.

So you really have a couple of different options. I mean, you've got the HDM I, which carries audio on its own, but then you also have the the the red and white cables which, as you pointed out, carry the right and left speakers audio signals. But you also have one other option digital digital optical. Yeah, the optical audio I'll put this is a users fiber optics and it transmits audio through light. Oh that sounds like fun? Is that? Is that the best way to listen to I don't know,

l O Electrical Orchestra. Yes, it's the only way to listen to the l that's any way I listened to l O. Fiber optic does have an enormous bandwidth, just a very fragile cable right and it it's um, it provides really good sound. It's not necessarily the full stereo sound that you would expect from a real like big

home theater system for those you usually have. You will actually have a a setup where, um, you'll have feeds going to very specific speakers, so a front right, front, left, center, back, left, back, right, and then you know your left sub woffer is what I was going to say. But all right, so um yeah, so but the the optical cable, it provides pretty good sound. I mean really good sound. Really. That's and that's what I have with my Xbox. You know my Xbox with

the component video cord. I have an opt cold uh audio cord which connects from the Xbox directly to my sound system bypasses the television completely. Um, So those are the other kind of audio cables you might have. UM, let's say, I think we pretty much covered all the basic cables on a television. As we said, the ones you're more likely to see our your your composite component S video and h D M I UM component might actually go away as well, not because it's a an

inferior product, but because it doesn't support copy protection. So you're you were starting to see movie studios and UH and television studios really put pressure on manufacturers to stop supporting component video cables because they don't want their their material to get copied like crazy. So that's unfortunate because it does provide a very good picture. Well you know, once uh, once DRM gets involved, people are very very

serious about protecting their intellectual property from perceived threats. Yeah, let's not go there. That's just gonna make me angry all over again. Okay, how about we, Uh, do you have anything else to say about cables? All right, we're all tied up on the cables thing, so Brian, I hope that answers your question. Matt, Um, you can write to us later and tell us all the things we got wrong, or you can talk to us as soon as we stop recording. I mean he is capable of speaking, folks.

He's not a mime or a mute. But this brings us to our second about of a listener mail. Thank you now this listener mail, we actually have a duo. I have to listener mails, so strap yourselves in alright. The first one comes from Hayden, who is years old from Eastford, Connecticut, and he says, Hi, guys, I was just listening to your augmented reality podcast and the listener mail, and you guys were talking about first person shooters. Personally, I like shooters on the Wii. I don't know, just

wanted to tell you guys what I think. Uh. I actually think that the w is is pretty cool for first person shooters too, mainly because you can use the we moat as you know, you can aim it like a little gun, and in fact, there are plenty of add ons out there where you can slip the moat into a gun casing and use it as a light gun. Um. Here's another one though. This one comes from Eric Jonathan

Strickland and Chris Polett. I think he meant Pallette. I would very much love to see a Tech Conspiracy's podcast come out soon. Maybe you could bump that up this the list. I would also like to say that I prefer the PS three controller, but I'm fine with xboxes as well. The ones I have the most problems with are the Wei it's not very accurate and too oddly shaped, and the computer mouse for games. Have a nice day.

So we have one person who loves the we moat and one person who doesn't love the w moat so much. I don't know, I'm a fan of I'm a fan of all of them. Really, yeah, I mean I don't like really the fat old X control, and of course despise the PlayStation controllers. Yes, with a passion that burns brighter than a thousand exploding suns. Very short fingers, so it doesn't Yeah, I've got freakishly long fingers. Well, thank you very much, Hayden and Eric. We appreciate your mail.

If any of you wish to mail us, you can do so at our address, which is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com. If you want to learn more about television cables, hd TV, that kind of stuff, we got plenty of that at how stuff works dot com. And I would like to remind our listeners. If you want to see us live, actually see video that involves Chris and yours truly discussing the latest tech news, you can tune in Tuesday's one pm Eastern. Go to the

tech stuff blogs at how stuff works dot com. We put up a link and you can watch video as we talk about the latest news. And we have amazing special effects provided by Matt Frederick and uh. I hope you guys are having a great one. Crispy and I we will talk to you again really soon for more

on this and thousands of other topics. Doesn't how stuff works dot com and be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog now on the how Stuff Works homepage, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you