Why HDMI ISN'T Always The Answer
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
1,425 words · ~7 min read
0:00
thanks for watching techwiki click the Subscribe button then enable
0:03
notifications with the Bell icon so you won't miss any future videos so you've
0:07
bought yourself a fancy new TV you've plugged in the power cord and an HDMI
0:12
cable for your cable box and Bam you're ready to go but hold on a minute what's
0:17
this Festival of multi-colored connectors on the back what are those
0:20
even used for I mean those are basically everything use HDMI these days well
0:26
while HDMI has superseded a lot of older
0:29
standards those other Jacks can still be quite useful So today we're going to
0:33
demystify the little ports you might find on the back of your TV or your AV
0:36
receiver starting out with a venerable RCA connector this thing is named for
0:41
the old radio Corporation of America who originally designed it as a simple
0:45
analog connection for audio devices and actually goes all the way back to the
0:50
1940s but because of its versatility and
0:53
simplicity it still surprisingly common on Modern Electronics on the TV or
0:58
receiver you're likely to find at least a pair of them one white and one red
1:02
which correspond to left and right analog stereo audio channels
1:06
respectively RC audio is still quite popular as it makes simple tasks like
1:11
connecting a pair of speakers to your TV once you get sick of the tinny built-in
1:14
audio rather straightforward but you may also see the grouped with a yellow Jack
1:19
which carries composite video this supports a standard definition analog
1:24
video signal and can be found on tons of VCRs DVD players and game consoles prior
1:29
to the late 2000s so while composite video has fallen off in popularity due
1:34
to its limited resolution and the fact it's more susceptible to interference
1:37
than modern standards is still useful if you want to dust off the old N64 and
1:41
enjoy some Ocarina of Time on your flat screen which isn't to say it's the best
1:46
way to enjoy your retro games if your TV happens to have one of these dude as
1:51
congrats you've got support for S video the idea behind it was that instead of a
1:55
single conductor it had two using one for brightness information and another
1:59
are for color now this cut down on interference and improved picture
2:03
quality it was once popular on DVD players and even on some game consoles
2:07
but it enjoyed only a very short time in the sun eventually getting mostly phased
2:11
out in favor of what RCA again yeah so
2:15
if you spot a green blue and red set of RCA jacks next to each other your device
2:20
supports component video the idea here is similar to S video except that the
2:25
green cable carries brightness information while the blue and red
2:28
cables both carry color signals blue and reds respectively which makes a lot of
2:32
sense right separating the signals out improves image quality even further and
2:37
even enables high definition output component video was common on game
2:41
consoles like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 for HD output to TVs
2:45
before HDMI became super widespread and
2:49
that brings us at last to the final thing you'll commonly see RCA connectors
2:53
used for digital audio like Dolby 5.1
2:56
usually it'll have a label that says coaxial on it but it should not be
3:01
confused with the coaxial connector for cable TV service or an FM antenna
3:05
because that's a totally different kind of cable the audio coaxial cable is
3:09
built to a different internal spec than running the mill RCA audio cables but in
3:13
practice you can probably get away with using a garden variety RCA cable as long
3:18
as it isn't too long or you could just use this thing called a toslink
3:22
connector for digital audio toslink is actually an optical standard so it uses
3:27
light to transfer data over a specialized cable hence the reason
3:30
tosslet connectors often glow on the back of your TV or receiver another
3:35
Audio Only standard is the familiar 3.5 millimeter Jack for connecting
3:39
headphones speakers which you'll find on computers audio players and older
3:44
smartphones some equipment uses the larger quarter inch stereo connector
3:48
which has the same functionality moving away from audio you may also find this
3:52
dsub VGA connector which was very common on older computer monitors but since
3:57
it's an analog standard it's more prone to interference so modern PCS have
4:01
largely ditched it in favor of digital standards we felt like we needed to
4:05
mention it anyway though because it's still included on some TVs and many
4:09
projectors in case you need to connect something like an aging laptop now of
4:13
course you might bypass using all of these and just go with this thing the
4:17
HDMI connector which supports both high def video and audio along with
4:21
networking on the same cable and although digital coaxial and toslink can
4:26
only carry traditional surround sound like Dolby Digital and DTS only HDMI
4:31
supports lossless floor mats like Dolby true HD and DTS Master audio the newest
4:36
revision support High resolutions and refresh rate outputs as well as HDR for
4:40
more realistic images a feature also found on HDMI's PC Focus competitor
4:45
DisplayPort now on the subject of surround sound these aren't common on
4:49
TVs themselves but if you have an AV receiver it's likely you'll find a Bank
4:53
of old-fashioned two conductor speaker wire outputs for your speakers this tab
4:59
style is normally found on the lower end and can also be used for AM radio
5:03
antennas but if you go more fancy they'll probably look a little bit more
5:07
like this now there are a couple of ways to connect to these guys either by
5:11
stripping the wire and screwing it into place or by picking up some of what are
5:15
called banana plugs and simply plugging them in as for the 0.1 of your however
5:21
many 0.1 audio setup Standalone subwoofers usually still use RCA yeah
5:27
when I said we were done with RCA I um I lied sorry now the funny thing here is
5:32
that RCA isn't even the only shockingly old connector you'll find on the back of
5:36
a receiver this rs-232 serial Port can
5:40
be used both for firmware updates and hardwire remote control for folks who
5:44
find infrared just not reliable enough for some reason and finally and this is
5:49
true of both receivers and TVs you'll usually find some USB and Ethernet ports
5:53
on Modern AV Equipment they can both be used for firmware updates and USB is
5:58
great for everything from streaming media content to charging your game console controllers while Ethernet is
6:02
for well I mean I don't think I really have to explain this but I'll do it
6:06
anyway for the sake of completeness you can use it to connect to the Internet so
6:09
you can stream content from online apps integrate with digital assistants and
6:13
browse the internet if you're just a sucker for punishment
6:17
and speaking of punishment do you constantly find yourself racing against
6:20
the clock as a freelancer it's challenging but with the growth of the
6:23
internet there's never been more opportunities for the self-employee to
6:27
meet this need check out freshbooks Cloud accounting software designed for
6:30
the way that you work it's the simplest and easiest way to be more productive
6:33
more organized and most importantly get paid more quickly create and send
6:38
professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds set up online payments
6:41
with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to four days faster see when
6:45
your client has seen your invoice and put an end to the guessing games and
6:48
right now freshbooks is offering a 30-day unrestricted free trial to our
6:51
viewers to claim it just go to freshbooks.com techwiki and enter
6:55
techwiki and the how did you hear about this section okay guys as always thanks
6:59
for watching techwookie like this video if you liked it dislike it if you didn't
7:02
check out our other videos over here get subscribed leave a comment with your
7:05
ideas for future episodes and don't forget to wait I already said to get
7:10
subscribed didn't I well don't forget to keep watching I guess see you next time