Choosing Between S Video, Composite or RF For the Job.

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Connections Tips by Noel Lee

These articles are an excellent read for Home AV enthusiasts who want to take their system to the next level. Written by the Head Monster - Noel Lee.
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Choosing Between S Video, Composite or RF For the Job.

Not too long ago, there was only one way to hook up your video equipment: the RF (radio-frequency) cable, which you can see hanging from the back of any cable box. Today, we have more and better choices: S-video cables, which carry the brightness and color signals separately; and composite video cables, which carry the signals together. And there's still good old RF cable, which carries a composite video and audio signal that's converted (or modulated) to the same high radio frequencies used by TV stations when they transmit.

Even the most sophisticated home theater enthusiasts often have misconceptions about the differences between these cables. Unfortunately, there's a good chance you could be seriously degrading the picture of your home theater system by using the wrong video cable. Choosing the wrong video cable can even degrade the sound. You might be surprised to find out that if you're using only RF cable to connect your VCR to your TV, you're only getting mono sound when you watch tapes!

The differences in performance you get with different types of video cables will depend on the equipment you own, but you can generally consider S-video cable your best option, composite video cable a good option, and RF cable the option of last resort. (With S-video and composite video cables, you need to use stereo audio cables, too, because the video cables don't carry sound.)

RF: A Necessary EvilIn general, avoid RF cable because it can seriously degrade sound and picture quality. No matter where you live, stray RF signals of all sorts - TV, FM radio, fluorescent lights, and others - bombard your video cables. These signals interact with the RF video carried in the cable. RF video occupies very high (VHF) and ultra-high (UHF) frequencies, which start in the 50-megahertz range and go up from there. All but extremely high-frequency radio waves can interact with RF video signals. This interaction can produce ghosting, and stripe and herringbone interference patterns. Also, RF video signals carry at most 330 lines of horizontal resolution, so you lose the high resolution available from laserdisc players and S-VHS VCRs.

If you do have to run RF cable, using a top-quality cable like Monster can make a big difference. Our video cable is double-shielded, with a sturdy 95-percent-coverage copper-braid shield and a 100-percent-coverage foil shield, to effectively block stray RF signals.

Composite: The All-Around Choice
Chances are, you should probably use composite video cable throughout most of your home theater. All VCRs and laserdisc players have RCA composite video jacks, as do most of today's TVs and receivers. Composite baseband video suffers from RF interference to a lesser degree than RF video. At baseband video's typical maximum frequency of about 5 megahertz, only low-frequency radio waves can interfere with it. Still, this interference can cause problems similar to those you experience with RF video cables, so Monster also double-shields its composite video cables to prevent interference through the cable. Again, we use only copper conductors for maximum bandwidth. Many competing video cables - even expensive high-end models - suffer from reduced bandwidth. This reduced bandwidth diminishes the high frequencies in the video signal, and robs you of the detail in your picture.

S-Video: Potential PerfectionS-video cable differs from composite in that it carries the brightness (luminance, or Y) and color (chrominance, or C) signals on separate lines within the same cable. You can find S-video connections on S-VHS and Hi8 camcorders and VCRs, on better laserdisc players, on satellite receivers, and on better TV sets.

Like Monster's other video cables, our S-video cables all feature top-quality shielding to minimize interference. With inferior S-video cables, the Y and C signals can be thrown out of sync or partially mixed together in runs longer than 25 feet.