i just got my dvd player in my bedroom hooked up to my tv via a $99 Au component video cable. It looks much better than the A/V in cable does.

to make this legal, post what cables you use for your video and audio on your tv (i.e. the one you have for yourself, not the family tv)

My t.v. that i use for my ps2 just has a normal connection (although i think the cable needs replaceing as the playstation end is a bt touchy)

The one in my room has a normal connection for my gamecube, and a component video with normal audio for my dvd. (but is able to do up to coaxial and optical fiber for the audio, but no scart. meh)

I recently purchased a 42" Panasonic Plasma (hooray for capitalism and the NYSE). I now use striclty component for all my video inputs (digital cable, XBox, DVD, PS2, Gamecube). Now all I need is the surround sound.

I've been using Component Video with my DVD player and PS2 for over a year now (love the quality of the picture, especially when it lets you run Gran Turismo 4 in HD :D)

Good old SCART for my Digital TV box.

RCA for connecting my comp to the TV. I use my comp speakers though. My TV is only stereo. 5.1 on the PC. Also use the PC for playing dvds.

RCA |:

Here at school, all I have is my computer screen, so just a generic VGA cable. Also a coax cable to hook up the antenna. At home I've used an S-video cable to hook my computer to the TV, and I have a DVI-to-component converter that I could never get working right... composite cables to connect the old camcorder; FireWire to connect the new camcorder (that my dad brought home from his work)... hmm that's about it.

I use component to hook up my Xbox. HDMI for the dvd player, and a DVI-HDMI conversion cable for my pc.

Just for the record HDMI>>>>>>>Component.

Hahahaha, you got ripped off.

Unless by "AU" he meant it was made of gold.

People need to stop saying "to make this legal."

Every time I read that, I get a little more angry. Grr!

Yeah I was going to say... I paid $15 for mine and it does just fine... You'll notice slightly better quality, but without your TV supporting progressive scan it won't be all that component cables can do.

I use component video b/c I believe that it is the best quality.

S-video is good, but not as good as component.

When I bought my TV, I opted for a smaller size than I planned b/c only one model in my price range had component video (actualy, it can suport 2 component video devices) as well as S-video. I could have gotten a larger screen size for less money, but it only would have had S-video.

edited because I'm a retard and mixed up composite and component

PS2 - Component
GameCube - Good S-Video Cable (didn't wanna spend money for the component when I don't play it all too often)
HD Receiver (for my room) - Component
HD TiVo Downstairs - DVI / HDMI
Both DVD Players - Component
TiVo upstairs - Good S-Video

Absolutley nothing hooked up with regular Composite cables. With a 50" LCD downstiars, 32" Flat Screen CRT HDTV upstairs, and the 17" LCD HDTV in my room (doubles as my comp monitor), nothing less than S-Video is suitable.

BNC Coax Video and RCA audio.

Oh wait...you mean consumer connections?

All RCA...except my PS2 optical audio!!!

/gloats about working at a TV station
//sad that it doesn't pay for a better TV

Ok, to everyone yakking about component being the best: STOP! It is not the best!

The worst picture quality is conventional coax, which tends to be poorly-shielded. Next up from that is composite video (RCA connectors). Composite encodes chroma and luma (color and brightness) on the same pin, in an analog signal. This makes it susceptible to noise, color bleeding and undefined contrast.

S-video is an improvement since it encodes chroma and luma on separate pins. It's still analog, but since two are encoded separately the image appears sharper.

Component video encodes video as a vector of analog streams: CR, CB, Y. Two pins for defining color and one for defining luma. In reality it's only a marginal improvement over s-video - you get far superior definition of color at the expense of some image definition. Many TVs attempt to subtract entropy data (unsharp information - also known as an unsharp mask) in an effort to improve the image definition of component video. It's enough for most purposes but it's not winning any awards. Of course, component video does have sufficient bandwidth and the cables have a low enough impedence to allow higher resolutions.

VGA or SCART is the best of the analog world. It separates R, G, and B signals into individual pins with separate horizontal and vertical synchronization pins. SCART can carry either VGA-style RGB with sync signals or s-video-style C/Y signals. SCART also carries audio. As far as I know this is only used in Europe and for token ring ethernet.

The best is DVI or HDMI. They're the same technology, but HDMI has a smaller connector and includes more DRM to punish honest consumers. These two encode video data as a series of binary pulses instead of using an analog wave. This means perfect color reproduction (as far as the monitor is capable of), absolutely no spill-over and no interference. You either have a signal or you don't. (This is actually a simplification - there are several variants of DVI capable of carrying different kinds of analog and digital signals and at different bandwidths!) The cables and connectors are also quite expensive.


All of the devices connected to my TV are connected with component video and optical audio. HDMI TVs were a tad uncommon when I bought mine, and DVI doesn't really offer that much in the way of image quality when you're talking about TVs.
My monitors are hooked up with DVI.

Edit: DVI and VGA are not compatible. Those little adapters that come with your video cards just short 2 pins so the video card can tell what kind of signal to send. Don't use the adapters on your TV or monitor or what-have-you.

99 dollars australian

and, it is actualy gold plated and is of high quality, so i did not get ripped off. also, we got that cable when we bought our new tv and we never used that one so i took it to use on my dvd player in my room.

Still got ripped off. Gold plating well prevent corrosion on connectors, but it's not necessary for home use. Nickel plating is fine. Gold plating the cable itself prevents corrosion, but the insulation should already be doing that. Gold is actually worse a conductor of electricity than copper. Even if it were better, plating would not significantly lower the resistance of the wire.

Cables don't matter nearly as much as people think. They are almost meaningless in audio, although they matter a little more in video.

Also, making your own cables is 10 kinds of cool. If you feel like having a project anyway. It probably ends up being the same price, though.

No, it never ends up being the same price. Not unless you buy from companies that sell DIY materials for ripoff prices.

SCART for everything.

Which is why I can get the same 'quality' cable at a local store for ~25-30 US. Which is far less than even 100 AU

terestrial antenna to VCR/SAT/TV --> Coax
VCR/N64/SNES (and for the time being PC) to Beamer --> Composite
PC to TV --> S-Video
VCR/SAT to TV --> Scart
PC to Monitor --> VGA
PC to Beamer (when I finally get the cable) --> DVI