Coax audio vs video cable (1 Viewer)

[Ray Gutnick]

A friend just bought a surround receiver. However, he told me that the salesman at A&B sold him a video coaxial cable to be used in place of the audio digital coaxial cable (and said it would function the same). Does this make any sense?

 

[Chriss M]

yes it is the same thing, 75ohm coax cable with rca connectors.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

The salesman is correct and not boosting his commission by selling a special "Coaxial Digital" cable.

The people who wrote the spec (The SPDIF Sony Philips Digital Interface Format) wanted DVD players to become accepted. So instead of specifying a network or some cable with a funny connector, they decided to design around a common-as-dirt Video cable. 75 ohm coax cable with RCA plugs on each end.

Some cable companies made lots of profit by taking their ordinary $20 video cable and putting in packages marked "Digital" with a $50 price tag.

 

[Ray Gutnick]

Excellent! Thanks for the info.

 

[Philip Hamm]

The people who wrote the spec (The SPDIF Sony Philips Digital Interface Format) wanted DVD players to become accepted. So instead of specifying a network or some cable with a funny connector, they decided to design around a common-as-dirt Video cable. 75 ohm coax cable with RCA plugs on each end.

Actually the SPDIF coaxial digital connection standard (and the TosLink as well) predates DVD by many years. DVD just latched onto existing standards, much like the inclusion of S-Video and coaxial video.