A Look at LCD Projector Video Cables: What Options are Available?
What are the video cables that could be used with an LCD projector? Basically you would want to use a video projector with video equipment like a television, VCR player or DVD player or even a media player. Other than that, you could want to use it to project images on a computer.
The following are the LCD projector video cables that can commonly be used for LCD projectors. You may or may not have connectivity for these cables depending on the LCD video projector model you own.
Composite (RCA) Cables
These are cables that could be used with analog or digital video equipment. You can find RCA ports in old VCR players to the latest DVD players. The cables come in three colors.
The yellow is used to carry the video signal, whereas the red and white are used for the right and left audio channels. Video signal quality carried by a composite cable is not impressive by modern day standards. However, they come useful when you need to connect your projector to an old VCR or laser disc player.
S-Video or Y/C Cable
Referred to as a Super Video cable, it offers video signal of superior quality compared to the composite cable. An S-Video port could be found in high-end AV equipment like television sets, VCRs, DVD players, laser disc players and even digital cable and satellite set top boxes. The superior video quality is made possible by the ability of the S-Video cable to split a video signal into luminance (Y) and chrominance (C).
S-Video cables could also be used to connect computers especially laptops to projectors.
Component Video Cables
Component video cables look very much like composite cables. If you’re buying dedicated component cables, you’ll find them shipped in three color codes: red, green, and blue. The three cables are needed to support the transmission of the video signal which is split into the three colors mentioned above.
Component Video Cables offer video quality superior to S-Video cables and are far superior to composite cables. You should ideally connect your DVD player to the projector with these cables.
HDMI Cables
High-Definition Multimedia Interface cables (HDMI) do a good job in carrying uncompressed video and audio signals. These cables could be used with AV equipment and also computers. You may not find HDMI connectivity if you don’t own a latest high-end projector.
VGA Cables
If you plan on connecting your computer to your projector, you would want to use a VGA (Video Graphics Array) cable. It’s usually a male to male cable with three rows of 15 pins. All computers come with VGA connectivity.
DVI cables
Newer computers come with DVI (Digital Visual Interface) connectivity. There are three types of DVI cables: DVI analog, DVI digital, and DVI integrated (can be used for both analog and digital connectivity). Chances are your projector would have a DVI digital port and you should get a DVI-D cable if you’re connecting from a DVD, TV or computer with DVI-D connectivity.
