Electronics Vault Posts

Recently, we purchased a Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD HDTV (hi-def television) and are quite happy with the picture quality of the system. We have been reluctant to buy the HDTV since we had no plans to upgrade to HD cable or buy one of the new Blu-ray hi-def video players anytime in the near future. These upgrades and purchases are planned to be tackled sometime in the future.

Upon connecting our Toshiba standard DVD player to the new LCD (liquid crystal display) TV, we noticed the picture quality was good, but not great. Moving close to the HD television revealed a bit of granularity and slightly visible pixels in the picture quality. This was basically what we had suspected would occur.

Surprisingly, the picture quality using standard cable television line looks incredible. We are in no hurry to upgrade to HD cable, although this will also probably be done in the future as well.

But the connection from the DVD player to the HDTV was made with standard AV cables (using the red, white and yellow RCA jacks) that are customarily available with standard television sets. Then it occurred to us that S-video (sometimes known as super or separated video) was available on both the DVD player and new HDTV systems. We wondered if it would make much difference, so we decided to do a little research on the difference between the video formats.

It was determined that S-video is a form of component video where the yellow AV cable using the RCA jacks is referred to as composite. It’s called composite because all of the parts of the video signal are mixed and travel on the one single line. S-video splits the video signal into two parts, the luma or luminance and the chroma or colour (chrominance). These video signals are carried on two separate line using usually a 4-pin mini DIN connector.

When these parts of the video signal are mixed on the single composite line, the video signal and quality are degraded since there is only so much bandwidth that can be used to transfer the video signal. Keeping the luma and chroma separate in component video using the S-video cable results in less signal degradation and a better picture quality. We were convinced that it was time to purchase an S-video cable.

But looking into it further, we found out that there is another form of component video that transfers the video signal on three separate lines. This is the RGB (red, green, blue), also known as RGB component video or RCA jacks you find on better quality DVD players and televisions. This form of component video is often labeled as YPbPr where the Y component represents the green line and also carries other components of the video signal. The Pb is the blue line and the Pr is the red line.

This RGB form of component video was described as delivering even better video quality than S-video. So we gave it a try and the results were great. The granularity and slightly visible pixels noted with the standard AV composite connection (single yellow video cable) had disappeared. The picture quality had improved by using the component connection. Now the new HDTV was getting utilized to more of it’s capability. Note that the RGB carries only the video signal. That means the right and left audio cables (usually red and white) are still required in addition to the RGB cables. That’s a total of five lines that need to be connected between the DVD player and television.

Some day, we will move to Blu-ray and HDMI connectors and all of this component versus composite video talk will be ancient history. But we will leave that discussion to a whole new post. But if your not ready to make the leap to a new Blu-ray player and not ready to buy a whole new set of Blu-ray DVD’s just yet, this is a fairly simple interim step that will get you better picture quality for only a few dollars. The RGB component video cables in the electronics department of most stores can be obtained for $10 to $20 depending on the length of the cables that you need.

So if you want to invoke a few blank stares from the sales people at your local electronics or video store, ask them if it’s better to use composite or component video. Then explain to them that you want to utilize component video because it’s better quality than composite video. Just make sure you have the RGB connectors on both your DVD or video player and television before purchasing the RGB cables. If you give it a try, feel free to leave your comments here so we can compare notes and hear about your results.