Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and I love all things tech. It's time for
Speaker 1: a classic episode. This episode originally published on February third,
Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen. It is titled tech Stuff looks
Speaker 1: at TV Connectors. Then the title pretty much says it all.
Speaker 1: It's all about the various connectors to television's. Uh, there
Speaker 1: have been a ton of different ones over the years,
Speaker 1: and um, a lot of them are are essentially obsolete now.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna be hearing about some stuff that you know,
Speaker 1: you just don't need to worry about unless you happen
Speaker 1: to have a vintage TV on your hands. But let's
Speaker 1: go back and listen to this classic episode. I did
Speaker 1: have a topic suggestion for you all that came to
Speaker 1: my mind when I was hooking up the TV I
Speaker 1: got for Christmas. I'd like to think I'm tech savvy,
Speaker 1: but my head spins when I'm asked what's the difference
Speaker 1: between different connectors like H D, M, I, R C,
Speaker 1: A V G, a USB, A V slash, F, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like most consumers, I don't really know the difference outside
Speaker 1: of being told one device requires another connector. It would
Speaker 1: be informative if tech stuff covers the most common connectors,
Speaker 1: trying to explain the differences and why certain ones were
Speaker 1: adopted and later discarded. It it'd certainly helped my understanding
Speaker 1: of the issue. Well, Daniel, that's what this episode is
Speaker 1: all about. Guys. We're gonna look at TV connectors and
Speaker 1: kind of demystify things, explain what all the different ones are,
Speaker 1: at least the ones that you're most commonly going to
Speaker 1: encounter with televisions these days. I'm even looking a little
Speaker 1: bit beyond the United States with a couple of these.
Speaker 1: So there's gonna be some connectors I'm going to mention
Speaker 1: that people, depending upon what region they're and may never
Speaker 1: have seen and may never encounter. But I thought it
Speaker 1: would be fun to kind of go through them all. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to begin with analog connections. Now, analo connectors
Speaker 1: transmit video signals through continuously varying the voltage across that connection.
Speaker 1: That's how they generate the images you see. And you've
Speaker 1: got different elements that make up an image, the brightness
Speaker 1: of the screen and the color. Those are the two
Speaker 1: main ones, but they're synchronization issues as well. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that has to come through for you
Speaker 1: to get video, and of course audio is another component.
Speaker 1: Some of these connectors also carry audio. Some of them
Speaker 1: carry video only, and you have to use a separate
Speaker 1: connector to get audio into your television or from your
Speaker 1: television to some other component like an amplifier. So let's
Speaker 1: begin with one of the most common, the radio frequency
Speaker 1: connectors are f connectors. That's the oldest way to transmit
Speaker 1: video signals to your television using radio frequency power. And
Speaker 1: these are coaxial cables. Now you might wonder what does
Speaker 1: coaxial cable mean. We've seen coaxial cable, you probably are
Speaker 1: able to imagine one off the top of your head,
Speaker 1: but what does that actually mean. So the term coaxial
Speaker 1: actually means that you have a a form linear form
Speaker 1: in this case, because it's a cable that has uh
Speaker 1: multiple substances that are all aligned along the same axis. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: this means that you've got kind of a concentric circles.
Speaker 1: So you have a core and then an outer layer,
Speaker 1: and then a layer even further out from that and
Speaker 1: then whatever you know, it can keep going as many
Speaker 1: times as you need, depending upon what you're doing. With
Speaker 1: co axial RF cable, you're talking about essentially three main
Speaker 1: layers and then a coating. So you have a wire
Speaker 1: conductor as the core of the cable. Around that is
Speaker 1: the dielectric, which is an insulating medium, and around that
Speaker 1: is the outer conductor. Then on the very outside you've
Speaker 1: got the protective layer that coats the cable and make
Speaker 1: sure that it doesn't get damaged. It doesn't end up
Speaker 1: causing interference with other cables, it doesn't get interference from
Speaker 1: other things. It's insulated somewhat. Uh So, the physical dimensions
Speaker 1: and the material you use to make those different layers
Speaker 1: is what determines the impotence and the attenuation of the
Speaker 1: cable at different frequencies. What does that mean. Impotence is
Speaker 1: the effective resistance of an electric circuit or component to
Speaker 1: alternating current. That's dependent upon the combined effects of ohmic
Speaker 1: resistance and reactants. And I could go into more detail,
Speaker 1: but really that could be its own episode to go
Speaker 1: into the basic terms of uh of electricity and voltage
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. If you guys think that that
Speaker 1: would be a really fun or interesting podcast right to
Speaker 1: me and let me know. I'll be glad to go
Speaker 1: through that and kind of explain what all those terms mean,
Speaker 1: because they can be pretty confusing if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with them. Attenuation, on the other hand, that refers to loss,
Speaker 1: in this case signal loss frequency laws. So in an
Speaker 1: ideal situation, if you have a cable and you're putting
Speaker 1: a signal into the cable, you know you're putting a
Speaker 1: certain amount of energy into one end. Ideally you would
Speaker 1: get the same amount out on the other end. But
Speaker 1: that's not the way the world works. We actually lose
Speaker 1: some of that power that goes into the cable, and
Speaker 1: the longer the cable, the more loss you tend to encounter.
Speaker 1: Other factors also play a role, including the materials you use.
Speaker 1: So this is where a lot of those high end
Speaker 1: cable manufacturers really try and and sell their products. They
Speaker 1: say that the materials they use are much higher quality
Speaker 1: and you're going to suffer much less loss as a result.
Speaker 1: While that might be true over great distances, in general,
Speaker 1: for the average consumer, the length of cables that we
Speaker 1: typically need somewhere in the three to nine ft range.
Speaker 1: It's really negligible. It's it's not really detectable unless you're
Speaker 1: talking about super cheap cables that don't have very good shielding,
Speaker 1: in which case you could get a lot of interference.
Speaker 1: So in the US we use the F connector, which
Speaker 1: is standard in many parts of the world, although there
Speaker 1: are other types of connectors as well, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the old peripherals that you would connect to televisions,
Speaker 1: like older video game consoles, connect through an OURF connector.
Speaker 1: It's also used for terrestrial antenna and cable connections. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's called our radio frequency connectors because it's
Speaker 1: actually using radio frequency power. Um, that's that's the key
Speaker 1: to that. It's pushing those radio frequencies through a cable
Speaker 1: as opposed to through it through the air. Now, next,
Speaker 1: the next most common that I would say you you'd
Speaker 1: encounter on the back of an average television is composite
Speaker 1: video also known as r c A connectors. Now, this
Speaker 1: is a video connector. Typically it's yellow. Will also find
Speaker 1: it usually next to red and white r c A connectors.
Speaker 1: The red and white, however, are for audio. The red
Speaker 1: is for the right channel and the white is for
Speaker 1: the left channel. Sometimes it's black, not white, but it's
Speaker 1: still the left channel. The yellow connector is just video.
Speaker 1: Composite video is an analog video transmission cable. It can
Speaker 1: carry video at standard definition resolution, but not higher. So
Speaker 1: you're not going to get high definition or beyond using
Speaker 1: this kind of these kind of cables. UM, and all
Speaker 1: the video information is encoded on a single channel. Uh.
Speaker 1: That means that the quality of that picture, it's probably
Speaker 1: not gonna be as high as using alternate means of
Speaker 1: delivering a signal to your TV. UM. That's where a
Speaker 1: lot of the other connectors that came up have kind
Speaker 1: of gotten the advantage, at least in the marketing world
Speaker 1: by being said to be greater quality, like S video
Speaker 1: or separated video. Now, that's a connector that carries two
Speaker 1: encoded video signals. One is for the brightness or essentially
Speaker 1: black and white, and the other is for the color
Speaker 1: of the image. Uh. The cable also transmits in standard definition,
Speaker 1: but it's better video quality than composite, it's just not
Speaker 1: at high definition levels of resolution. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people got confused about that when S video first came out,
Speaker 1: including myself. I was not familiar with S video and
Speaker 1: this was when really your three options were composite video,
Speaker 1: S video, and component video. Those were the three main ones,
Speaker 1: and uh S video look like it was pretty easy
Speaker 1: because it was one cable, although it only carries video,
Speaker 1: not audio. Um so you'd have to use separate cables
Speaker 1: to get audio to and from your television. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if you were hooking up a VCR, for example, you
Speaker 1: would need to have audio uh our c A connectors
Speaker 1: to get that to your TV. Well S video like
Speaker 1: it was easy because it was a single video cable,
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to be higher quality than composite,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't really explained well at least not to me,
Speaker 1: that it wasn't high definition. It was still standard definition.
Speaker 1: So yes, it was technically a better picture, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't a higher resolution. We'll be back with more about
Speaker 1: TV connectors in just a moment, but first let's take
Speaker 1: this quick break. Moving on with more analog choices. We've
Speaker 1: got v g A or video graphics array. Now this
Speaker 1: is not common on a lot of TVs, but there
Speaker 1: are some televisions that have it. Cables that are v
Speaker 1: g A cables have three rows of pins. There are
Speaker 1: fifteen pins total on the connectors. It's meant to connect
Speaker 1: a PC and a display together, so not necessarily a television,
Speaker 1: but some form of video display like a monitor. But
Speaker 1: some TVs do have them, and they allow for the
Speaker 1: transmission of analog display resolutions to a television, and it
Speaker 1: could carry high definition resolutions to the display. So this
Speaker 1: one could actually do a higher resolution and say s
Speaker 1: video or composite, then we've got component video. These are
Speaker 1: the red, green, and blue connectors that you might see
Speaker 1: on the back of some televisions. And you might think
Speaker 1: that those different colors indicate that each cable carries only
Speaker 1: one color to the TV, because if you are familiar
Speaker 1: with the way television's work, you know that there pixels
Speaker 1: and TVs are made up of subpixels of red, green,
Speaker 1: and blue, and that it's the combination of red, green,
Speaker 1: and blue in different ways that creates the various images
Speaker 1: we see on television and the different colors we see
Speaker 1: on television. So surely component video that's red, green, and
Speaker 1: blue carries those colors, right, Not exactly. The green connector
Speaker 1: is actually in charge of carrying the video image in
Speaker 1: black and white, so the brightness as well as the
Speaker 1: synchronization data, the other two connectors carry the color information,
Speaker 1: but essentially green is left up to the brightness as well.
Speaker 1: It's not their analog video cable, but this one can
Speaker 1: carry singles of up to ten a DP or higher.
Speaker 1: So this is truly able to give a high definition
Speaker 1: video feed to your TV. And honestly, it's the kind
Speaker 1: that I prefer over all others. And I'll explain why
Speaker 1: in a little bit. But I need to talk about
Speaker 1: one other analog connection that is not found here in
Speaker 1: the United States. This is one that if you are
Speaker 1: in the U s you probably have not seen one
Speaker 1: of these, but if you live in Europe you probably have,
Speaker 1: and that is SCART S C A R T. So
Speaker 1: unless your TV is an old set from Europe, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna see this. It was another analog transmission cable.
Speaker 1: It has twenty one pens and carries both video and
Speaker 1: audio and originated in France, which is why its full name.
Speaker 1: And please forgive me because I'm going to butcher. This
Speaker 1: is the Sindicat de Constructors Dapa real Radio. I should
Speaker 1: roll my art on that one radio receptor de Tevisier.
Speaker 1: And for all of my French speaking friends out there,
Speaker 1: um Monsieur mid Dame Jan Papa. All right, so those
Speaker 1: are your analog connections. Those are the ones that are
Speaker 1: going to create the video through varying that voltage. Then
Speaker 1: we have digital connections now. These deliver video as a
Speaker 1: bit stream, so essentially zeros and ones. Right, this is
Speaker 1: not a variable voltage delivery system. It's purely digital. Now,
Speaker 1: there's a common misconception that digital these days is better
Speaker 1: than analog are Some people go the other way, saying
Speaker 1: analog is always better than digital. The digital is better
Speaker 1: than analog argument goes something like this. It says, since
Speaker 1: televisions these days are digital devices, they're not analog TVs.
Speaker 1: We have digital TVs now. If you're buying a new
Speaker 1: one anyway, and since a lot, if not most, if
Speaker 1: not all, of the main ways we get content these
Speaker 1: days is also digital, then you want to have digital
Speaker 1: connectors and digital cables so that you never have to
Speaker 1: convert from digital to analog and back to digital again.
Speaker 1: So in other words, if I'm watching a Blu Ray
Speaker 1: and I want to connect the Blu Ray player to
Speaker 1: my TV, I should use a digital cable because that's
Speaker 1: a digital form factor or digital format rather. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then it'll go through a digital cable to my digital
Speaker 1: TV and never have to convert to analog where I
Speaker 1: might have some signal loss or artifacts or some other problem.
Speaker 1: That's the common misconception. Uh. The reason I call it
Speaker 1: a misconception is not because of the conversion issue. That
Speaker 1: really is a thing, but conversion issues are a thing
Speaker 1: with pure digital as well, because every form of digital uh,
Speaker 1: information that will go to your TV is encoded in
Speaker 1: a different way, and these different encodings mean that they
Speaker 1: have to be decoded. You actually do have digital to
Speaker 1: digital conversions. Uh. It's it's not like every television can
Speaker 1: show every digital format and its native resolution. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's trying to show any type of data to the
Speaker 1: TV's native resolution, which often means it has to upraise something.
Speaker 1: In other words, it has to add an extra information
Speaker 1: to make up for the fact that the resolution of
Speaker 1: the incoming stream is not the same or is lower
Speaker 1: than the native resolution of the TV. That with that
Speaker 1: in mind, sometimes we get bad digital to digital conversions.
Speaker 1: There's digital error correction that's supposed to mediate this, but
Speaker 1: occasionally you get a set or a series of components
Speaker 1: that don't work so well together and it's it's a
Speaker 1: disappointing experience. So, in other words, just because we're moving
Speaker 1: to more digital formats and more digital set it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean digital cables are automatically better than analog. On
Speaker 1: the other side of this is the idea that analog
Speaker 1: is always better because digital is a series of zeros
Speaker 1: and one, so it's always going to be a step
Speaker 1: letter type thing. It's always going to have these these
Speaker 1: sharp drop offs at some point, no matter how large
Speaker 1: a uh bandwidth you're talking about. At some point it
Speaker 1: is either a zero or a one, whereas an analog
Speaker 1: system is a continuous signal, and therefore it is much
Speaker 1: more natural and free flowing, and you're going to get
Speaker 1: a much more warm or or satisfying experience from it,
Speaker 1: which maybe in the very earliest days of digital was
Speaker 1: true when we weren't really good at encoding, or we
Speaker 1: weren't using very good samples bit samples, But these days
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty much a bogus argument. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: we've reached a point where it's beyond the ability for
Speaker 1: a human to perceive the difference, assuming that you're using
Speaker 1: well calibrated equipment. Obviously, if you were to take one
Speaker 1: system and not calibrated very well, and you took another
Speaker 1: system and calibrated it extremely well, you're gonna notice the difference.
Speaker 1: But assuming a level playing field, you aren't really going
Speaker 1: to notice that difference. So really comes down to personal preference.
Speaker 1: So why did I say I like those, uh, those
Speaker 1: component cables so much as opposed to digital ones. Well,
Speaker 1: here's another thing that separates analog from digital. It's the
Speaker 1: potential for dr M measures such as high bandwidth Digital
Speaker 1: Content Protection or h d c P. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a form of copy protection that was created by Intel,
Speaker 1: and it's meant to prevent the copying of digital audio
Speaker 1: or video content across various devices. So, for example, but
Speaker 1: let's say that I have a Blu Ray player again,
Speaker 1: and let's say I've got a device that can burn
Speaker 1: to Blu ray, and I am a dirty, nasty pirate,
Speaker 1: and I decided I want to steal in a movie
Speaker 1: and distribute it on my own, or make copies, real
Speaker 1: cheap copies and sell them on the street. So I
Speaker 1: go out and I buy a copy of my favorite
Speaker 1: Blue Ray, which is of course Bio Dome with Polly Shore,
Speaker 1: and I put it into the system and I start
Speaker 1: making copies of well, I could just end up ruining
Speaker 1: the market obviously, and then Paul Shore would never experience
Speaker 1: that great career comeback that we're all hoping he has
Speaker 1: in the very near future. Uh. So, HDCP is meant
Speaker 1: to counteract that. It's supposed to prevent people from either
Speaker 1: sending hd CP content to unauthorized devices or two devices
Speaker 1: that have been hacked to allow for copying materials. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if I've got my lew ray player
Speaker 1: and it's h d CP compliant, and I've hooked it
Speaker 1: up using something like an hd MY cable to another
Speaker 1: another peripheral, another system in order to try and copy
Speaker 1: the material that's being shown on that Blu ray player
Speaker 1: or being played by that Blu ray player. But because
Speaker 1: of that HDCP protection, it won't go to my hacked
Speaker 1: system or my unauthorized system, and I won't be able
Speaker 1: to make those copies. I'm prevented from doing it. Uh However,
Speaker 1: it's not entirely true. There's a hacked master key to
Speaker 1: h d CP that was leaked way back in two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, So technically you could end up with a
Speaker 1: computer that has this on it and you could end
Speaker 1: up recording stuff from other devices, and and you're using
Speaker 1: this master key. It fools the whole system into believing
Speaker 1: that you're using an authorized device, so there's no problem. However,
Speaker 1: this would essentially just record whatever was playing at that
Speaker 1: time on the Blu ray player or whatever other media
Speaker 1: device you happen to be talking about. It would not
Speaker 1: get the entire experience. So if I were copying that
Speaker 1: that Blu Ray, I would get the movie, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't get the menus. I wouldn't get the added material.
Speaker 1: It would just be whatever was playing at that time.
Speaker 1: So there are other ways to actually hack or decrypt
Speaker 1: the protection on disks. Then that's pretty much what pirates
Speaker 1: concentrate on rather than just making a direct copy, because
Speaker 1: most people want the full experience as opposed to just
Speaker 1: the film. Although I don't know why, I mean biodom
Speaker 1: by itself obviously a work of art, uh at any rate,
Speaker 1: it's this DRM that has had a lot of people
Speaker 1: who prefer to have unfettered kind of control of their
Speaker 1: electronics up in arms. They disagree with it. They want
Speaker 1: to have a device where they can do whatever they
Speaker 1: want with it, especially if it means something like burning
Speaker 1: a copy of a a movie you own, or a
Speaker 1: music disc you own, whatever it may be, in order
Speaker 1: for you to have a backup for your own purposes.
Speaker 1: We have in the United States established that personal backups
Speaker 1: are not a copyright violation. You can do that. However,
Speaker 1: this is the sort of technology that prevents people from
Speaker 1: doing it. So while it's not illegal for you to
Speaker 1: make a backup copy, it is it can be illegal
Speaker 1: for you to circumvent the technology that prevents you from
Speaker 1: doing that, which is kind of crazy. And that's why
Speaker 1: a lot of home theater enthusiasts prefer the analog set
Speaker 1: up where you don't have this DRM issue. Then with
Speaker 1: things like hd M I, which i'll talk about in
Speaker 1: a second. That being said, we're seeing that a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of systems, a lot of peripherals, a
Speaker 1: lot of television sets don't necessarily support these methods anymore,
Speaker 1: and you have to use things like hd M I.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of being pushed into that world whether
Speaker 1: we want it or not. And then go figure. We've
Speaker 1: got a bit more to say about TV connectors before
Speaker 1: we wrap up, But first let's take another quick break,
Speaker 1: all right, So there are other things that can limit
Speaker 1: your ability to use your devices. If you're using something
Speaker 1: like a connector that has hd c P on it
Speaker 1: sub sort of HDCP protection associated with it, for example,
Speaker 1: a limit on how many devices you might be able
Speaker 1: to hook up two, or how many displays you might
Speaker 1: be able to hook up to a single device. And
Speaker 1: this might not sound like it's a big deal, and
Speaker 1: for most consumers it probably isn't. But imagine that you
Speaker 1: own a sports bar and as part of the sports
Speaker 1: bar experience, you want to have televisions up all around
Speaker 1: the bar that are tuned to different channels to show
Speaker 1: the various sporting events that are going on at any
Speaker 1: given time, and you have them all connected to a
Speaker 1: satellite receiver. Well, if you're using something that has HDCP
Speaker 1: protection on it, which is sort of like saying a
Speaker 1: t M machine, uh, you are limited to how many
Speaker 1: of those devices you might be able to hook up
Speaker 1: to that satellite box. For example, a lot of the
Speaker 1: really popular ones have a limit of sixteen displays, which
Speaker 1: is a lot. I mean, if you were a regular consumer,
Speaker 1: that would be probably more than enough. I don't know
Speaker 1: anyone personally who owns more than sixteen televisions, but if
Speaker 1: you have a large restaurant, that might not be enough.
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of people who have said you
Speaker 1: could be doing everything legally. You know, you could be
Speaker 1: following all the rules, but the technology itself has artificial
Speaker 1: limitations put into place to protect against copyright violations, and
Speaker 1: it's affecting people who aren't even committing any sort of
Speaker 1: copyright violation. Okay, so that was a long preamble to
Speaker 1: get into the digital side, but it was important. And
Speaker 1: I should also say that while I prefer analog for
Speaker 1: those purposes, my own home system uses h d M
Speaker 1: I because I've got everything running to a centralized receiver
Speaker 1: to control things, and h d M I was just
Speaker 1: easier than having all these other analog cables that could
Speaker 1: get tangled up with each other. So maybe I'm a hypocrite,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm lazy. I'm probably both. Let's look at digital
Speaker 1: connectors and cables. First. There's display port, which is gonna
Speaker 1: sound weird to anyone who is pretty familiar with televisions
Speaker 1: because there are very few TVs that actually have a
Speaker 1: display port connector. In fact, the only one I am
Speaker 1: personally aware of is the Panasonic t C L six
Speaker 1: five W T six hundred and yes I did read
Speaker 1: that off because I can't just rattle it off from
Speaker 1: the top of my head. There may be others out there,
Speaker 1: but that's the only one I'm familiar with anyway. DisplayPort
Speaker 1: connectors are usually meant to connect various components to computer monitors,
Speaker 1: not to televisions. The display board cable can carry audio
Speaker 1: as well as video, which means it is useful for TVs.
Speaker 1: Your typical computer monitor doesn't have audio associated with it.
Speaker 1: Some do, but the typical ones don't. It also has
Speaker 1: the optional implementation of h d c P and includes
Speaker 1: dp CP also known as display Port Content Protection, which
Speaker 1: was designed by Phillips, so it has a greater bandwidth
Speaker 1: than hd M I could actually move more data in
Speaker 1: the same amount of time as an hd um I
Speaker 1: cable could or HDMI connector could, and it's also royalty free,
Speaker 1: which is unlike hd M I. There is a hefty
Speaker 1: fee in using h d m I. If you're a
Speaker 1: manufacturer and you want to incorporate it, you've got to
Speaker 1: pay the price in order to do it, whereas display
Speaker 1: port you don't. Strangely enough, though, DisplayPort is not the
Speaker 1: common connector that you find on televisions. That could change
Speaker 1: in the future, but hd m I has such a
Speaker 1: strong presence in the market right now it would really
Speaker 1: surprise me if that did happen. Next, you have d
Speaker 1: v I or Digital Visual Interface. Now, this is our
Speaker 1: hybrid entry. Technically, depending upon the connector and the cable,
Speaker 1: it can carry both analog and digital signals. It doesn't
Speaker 1: carry audio typically, although I've heard there are variations on this.
Speaker 1: It's a common standard in computer displays, but it can
Speaker 1: also be found on many televisions, and it can carry
Speaker 1: uncompressed digital video. HDCP integration is optional on d v I. Finally,
Speaker 1: we've got h d m I High Definition Multimedia Interface. UH.
Speaker 1: This also can transmit uncompressed video data, but it has
Speaker 1: the ability to include compressed or uncompressed digital audio as well.
Speaker 1: Hd M I can carry signals electrically identical to d
Speaker 1: v I, so you can have an adapter to switch
Speaker 1: from d v I to h d M I without
Speaker 1: loss and signal quality, which is useful if your television
Speaker 1: doesn't have a d v I input, but you're using
Speaker 1: equipment has a d v I output but no h
Speaker 1: d M I. So let's say I've got a DVD
Speaker 1: player and there's a d v I output that's an option,
Speaker 1: but I don't have an h d M I output.
Speaker 1: My television, however, only has hd MY inputs but no
Speaker 1: dv I input. I could use an adapter and it
Speaker 1: because the they're running on electrically identical signals, I could
Speaker 1: use this without any worry about signal loss or any
Speaker 1: conversion issues. Hd MY two point oh is capable of
Speaker 1: transmitting up to four K video at six D frames
Speaker 1: per second. And one cool thing. If you have hd
Speaker 1: MY cables that are high speed, that's that is they're
Speaker 1: called Category two cables. Your future proof for u h D.
Speaker 1: You don't have to purchase four K hd MY cables.
Speaker 1: Category two cables will be completely capable of carrying that signal.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there will be companies that market for k
Speaker 1: hd MY cable saying you want to have the best
Speaker 1: experience possible, don't buy into that. Category two will suit
Speaker 1: you just fine. Hd CP is mandatory and official hd
Speaker 1: MY technology. And finally, I wanted to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about other audio ports that you might see on
Speaker 1: the back of a television. So there are two typical
Speaker 1: digital audio ports that you can find on TVs. One
Speaker 1: is the digital audio r c A port, which is
Speaker 1: typically orange. Now the it's gonna look a lot like
Speaker 1: those other r c A connectors. I was talking about
Speaker 1: the UH, the yellow, red, and white ones that you
Speaker 1: would associate with composite video. And then the two audio channels.
Speaker 1: In this case, it's a single channel, or not a
Speaker 1: single channel, but a single connector, and it's digital audio,
Speaker 1: so it would be a higher quality. You probably want
Speaker 1: to use that if you have the option. UH. But
Speaker 1: there are also are another type of audio port that's
Speaker 1: digital that you can use, and that would be the
Speaker 1: optical digital audio port. So that requires a special optic
Speaker 1: fiber cable that sends audio signals through pulses of light.
Speaker 1: The exact same information is being sent with either type
Speaker 1: of cable. It's just in one it's electrical impulses and
Speaker 1: the other it's UH it's photons. It's essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: light pulses, but it's the same information, it's just transmitted
Speaker 1: in a different way. Optical cables have some advantages over
Speaker 1: the UH, the the r c A connectors type being
Speaker 1: that you don't have to worry about outside interference radio interference,
Speaker 1: although again unless you're talking about a super long cable
Speaker 1: that has really poor shielding. You're probably not going to
Speaker 1: suffer any signal loss with your digital audio. Uh So
Speaker 1: it's not like it's a measurable advantage with optical fiber
Speaker 1: unless again, and you're talking about huge distances, because optic
Speaker 1: fiber doesn't have any loss over distance. However, if you
Speaker 1: do bend an optic fiber cable, you can end up
Speaker 1: damaging it and that could cause some issues. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I wouldn't necessarily say one has advantages
Speaker 1: over the other. I would say it all depends on
Speaker 1: what your equipment can use. So if all of your
Speaker 1: equipment just has optical ports and no digital co exports
Speaker 1: for your audio, then obviously you need to go optical.
Speaker 1: You don't have any choice in the matter. So that's
Speaker 1: that's the range of the various types of connectors you're
Speaker 1: going to find on your typical televisions. There are some
Speaker 1: others that can pop up now and again. There are
Speaker 1: some things that you might find like a USB port,
Speaker 1: which I think Daniel mentioned at in his email. USB
Speaker 1: obviously is the universal serial bus. That's the the one
Speaker 1: that we're all familiar with. It's on all our computer RS.
Speaker 1: It's on lots of various mobile devices, though we tend
Speaker 1: to use different connectors for that, like micro or mini USB.
Speaker 1: But that's something that can carry both power and and
Speaker 1: data U two. So it's a useful system, but it's
Speaker 1: not one that I think most people associate with televisions.
Speaker 1: It can be if you have images on a thumb drive,
Speaker 1: you might be able to display it on your television.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of thumb drive like devices that
Speaker 1: can plug into USB ports on a television that give
Speaker 1: it extra capabilities, like Roku. They have a stick that
Speaker 1: you can plug in through the USB port that gives
Speaker 1: your television roku uh capabilities. It's pretty cool, but I
Speaker 1: don't often think of that as a connector, and that
Speaker 1: might just be my bias and play because I don't
Speaker 1: tend to use it. I use hd m I almost
Speaker 1: exclusively because it's the easiest. I hope you enjoyed that
Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff looking at TV connectors. If
Speaker 1: you have suggestions for topics I should cover on future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me. The
Speaker 1: best way to do that is on Twitter handle for
Speaker 1: the show is text stuff H s W and I'll
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