By Bob Gatton
In the article about connecting audio components, we discussed the need to keep the "out" cables or wires going to "in" receptacles on the video equipment. The same rule applies to video connections. For example, the video signal should go "out" from the VCR to "in" on the television.
The connection with the lowest quality is called an F pin, coax or an RG6 cable. It carries both the audio and the video, and it's the same cable that, before the age of digital cable boxes and satellite receivers, connected your television to the cable outlet in the wall. If you turn your television to channel three to watch a video, this is the connection that you use between the VCR and TV.
The next step up in video quality is a composite video cable. When using this connection and the rest that will be discussed in this article, you will need to use a separate audio cable(s). Except for the basic coax cable, the rest of the analog video connections only carry the video signal. While composite video cables may look like analog audio cables and is similar to digital coax audio connections, use a cable that is specifically made for video, or you might experience a distorted picture. These cables and jacks are usually color coded yellow.
Or you can move up another step in quality to an S cable or S video cable. There are four pins on this plug of this cable – the black and white information uses two of the pins and the color information the other two. Keeping these signals separate delivers a better quality picture. This connection can only be plugged in one way. Be sure to line up the guide groove on the plug and the equipment before inserting the plug; it is very easy to bend the pins if the plug is not lined up properly. Take your time.
The top quality connection is component video, which uses three composite video cables. Sometimes labeled as Y, Pb and Pr, the three cables and plugs are color coded – red, green and blue. This complicates connecting the plugs a bit, since you have to keep the same color "out" component going to the same color "in" on the receiver or television. For example, the red component "out" on your DVD player needs to be connected to the red video component "in" on the receiver or television. Repeat with the blue and green plugs.
Use the best connection that the various components in your system have, but you can only use the lowest quality connection that is common to the pieces that you are going to connect. For instance, if your DVD player has composite, S video and component outputs and you want to connect it to a television that has only composite and S video inputs, the best connection that you can use is the S video.
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