Typically all the jacks are color-coded. Your standard vga cables that have been used for the last 20ish years are usually blue on the female end.
DVI connections are rectangular like vga, but longer and coded white. Dvi connections usually have a whole lotta pins and a single wide flat pin on one end.
Svga (or s-video) is a smallish round connection that looks like a ps/2 mouse or keyboard port, but its not. Typically not color coded.
Rca connections are usually used on stereo/vcr connections to tvs (playstations, etc). You'll see rca cables in one, two, or three (usually) cables bundled together. Yellow is coded for video, white is the left-channel audio, red is the right-channel audio. The rca cables for some camcorders and likely slightly older equipment may only use two cables coded yellow (for video) and white for a mono-audio signal (no right/left differentiation). On a lot of video cards, I've seen a single yellow rca output for video only.
Hdmi connections aren't usually color-coded, I think. Usually black squarish dvi-sized connections usually with a clip on each end. Newer tvs that support hi def and 1080i/720p signals usually use hdmi.
Video quality from highest to lowest is (in general) hdmi, dvi, vga, svga, rca. I don't think you can convert hdmi to usb directly with a single cable. You'd likely need some kind of signal conversion box to do it, and there'd also likely be a significant hit to video quality. I have an ATI usb tv tuner that takes the cable signal from the wall and into the pc via usb. Not the greatest, but it works well enough for me.
Sent from my blackberry
-----Original Message-----
From: mike havens <
bmike1@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 01:03:28
To: Main PLUG discussion list<
plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
Subject: Re: monitor
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list -
PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
(text/plain)