Your rooms are painted, decorated and arranged. Keep those sleeves rolled up…you’ve still got to hook up your new plasma. In the following pages, you’ll not only find information on how and what to hook up to your plasma, but all the various connections your new plasma is capable of making with different devices. Also, a detailed description of HDTV will explain this technology that will help you get the most out of your plasma.

Composite Video

This video connector is the most common video connection found on display and source devices. It usually consists of one RCA connector that is colored yellow. This one wire solution consists of all the analog video components: luminance (black and white), chrominance (color), blanking pulses, sync pulses (horizontal and vertical) and color burst. Since everything is carried along one wire, composite video provides the poorest picture quality among the connections mentioned here. The maximum resolution capable when using this connector is 480 interlaced lines.

S-video

This video connector is housed in a 4-pin DIN. This connector provides the same analog video signal at 480 interlaced lines as the composite video connector but improves overall picture quality. Since this connection type uses a 4-pin din, luminance (black and white) and chrominance (color) are able to be separated creating an image with improved color reproduction and less screen jitter.

RGB

RGB typically uses a 15-pin connector that is the same as what most computer monitors have. This connector is an analog signal and typically connects computers to the display. Most displays that incorporate RGB connectors are capable of handling resolutions similar to component video along with typical PC resolution support (e.g. VGA, SVGA, XGA and SXGA).

Component

This video connector uses three wires. Like Composite Video and S-Video this signal is analog. Component Video differs from S-Video and Composite Video in its picture quality and resolution. Component Video offers the best picture quality of the three analog video formats by splitting up the signal into three parts. “Y” is the luminance signal which carries all of the black and white information. The color is split into two components blue “B-Y” and red “R-Y”. Component video supports a wide variety of resolutions ranging from standard definition 480 interlaced lines through high definition 720 progressive lines or 1080 interlaced lines.

DVI (digital visual interface)

While the name states that this connector is digital, this is not necessarily true all the time. DVI connectors can either be digital, analog or both. In the analog realm DVI acts like an RGB connector. Digital transmission of signals along DVI provides a true digital path from source to display resulting in better picture quality over an analog signal. Some set-top boxes, video processors/scalers, DVD players and PCs may incorporate a DVI connection.

Line level RCA audio

These are the most widely used audio connections on electronic equipment that have audio capability. These audio connections consist of analog stereo audio.

HDMI (high definition multimedia interface)

HDMI is an all digital video/audio connection that provides the same quality as DVI with the same resolution support. HDMI is also backwards compatible with DVI providing compatibility with sources that only have DVI outputs. The main benefit of HDMI is the transmission of video and audio in a single connection over the other connections which require separate video and audio connections. Set-top boxes, video processors/scalers and DVD players are examples of source equipment which may incorporate HDMI connection.