Composite
Video: The most basic video connection is composite video,
composite video has been around since the days of videotape & gives
a fairly poor performance, but it is usually the default configuration
on most equipment making it easy to setup.
S-Video: S-Video gives a superior performance to composite
video
but there is still no audio support. TV's will often need special
configuration to accept an s-video signal & will display black
& white images when incorrectly configured.
Scart: Contrary to popular belief, s-video is not
necessarily superior to scart. Scart has 21 contacts making it a
flexible connection that can carry either composite video, s-video or
RGB with audio support built in. All scart equipment defaults to
composite video so it is important that you re-configure your scart
equipment to either s-video or RGB for best performance.
Component Video: Component video is the USA & Japanese equivalent
of
RGB. Performance has little to offer over RGB & there is no
audio support. It will carry un-encrypted High Definition but as almost
all High Definition sources are encrypted it is rapidly becoming
obsolete.
HDMI: HDMI differs from all of the above connections in
one
critical aspect, HDMI is a digital video connection while the above
connections are all analogue. With satellite TV, terestrial TV,
DVD, BluRay & flatscreen televisions now all driven by digital
technology it simply doesn't make sense to convert the digital signal
to analogue, pass it through an analogue connection, then convert it
back to digital again at the TV. All this processing degrades the
picture & sound quality & can be bypassed with a single HDMI
connection. With built in encryption protocols &
multi-channel audio support HDMI is the connection of choice for the HD
generation.
