Video Asylum

Posted by Tom §. (B) on September 24, 2002 at 11:06:24

In Reply to: Is this better? posted by Ed Sommer on September 24, 2002 at 09:50:25:

You make a sweeping generalization based on a singular event and you think I'm rude and impatient?

With audio cables I can hear differences, but I cannot see differences with video cables. Can you?

Correction: you didn't see a difference with one cable in one system. That's super that you didn't see any differences *in your system*. Just don't go off and proclaim that it's a universal truth. People who use larger screen setups (front projection, rear projection, plasma) can see a *shitload* more than what they can see on a CRT (even 32"). Would you make the same proclamation on audio cables if you evaluated the cables using small boom box speakers?

The electrical parameters of cabling and more importantly the connectors in video applications have a measureable and significant effect on video quality. Pay close attention when I mention *connectors*. Most of the RCA connectors on consumer equipment are substandard and cause image degrading impedance mismatch signal reflections. There are even some video cables that are intentionally designed to alter the chroma signal delay in order to compensate for the poor performance of connectors and cheap color decoders (which are quite common even in the expensive televisions).

Keep in mind that I'm not advocating expensive=better for cables. You can put together some superior video cables for under $50 using belden 8281B cable and 75-ohm RCA's (which may take some effort to find) or BNC connectors (which are quite common and inexpensive).

There's a lot more to this than just slapping in a monster cable between a cable box and an unnamed 32" CRT.

Tom §.