component cables? (1 Viewer)

[Matt Nelson]

i was about to buy some 6' component cables for $40 when i realized it would only cost $20 to buy 3 seperate 6' cables. why are the component cables so much more? they're really just 3 normal cables bundled together right?

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Yes. All video cables are made from 75 ohm coax. And a component set is just 3 video cables bundled together with different color bands on the plugs.

 

[Matt Nelson]

so, is there any reason to not just use 3 seperate cables? other than the mess, but i can always tie them together!

 

[Ron Schildt]

That's what I did. I needed to run about 20-25' with my component cables, since my dvd player was in the entertainment center, but my new RPTV is on the other side of the fireplace. So I found it was cheaper to run three separate RG6 cables with F-pin to RCA adapters on the ends of each of these.

The total cost was:

3 x $12 = $36 for (3)25' RG6 cables

6 x $2 = $12 for (6)F-pin to RCA Adapters

TOTAL $48 plus tax.

Monster 3 Component Cables in a 6m length were ~$120.

All looks good so far.....

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Well "cable clutter" is an issue that is solved by the component set. You also have to be careful to label the cables at each end using individual cables.

But how big is your TV?

The reason I ask is that for tube-type televisions about 35" or smaller, budget cables work fine. People start to see an improvement with name-brand or custom cables when:

- Their display size grows above 50"

- They start shoving HD/Progressive video down the cables

- The run length grows more than about 10 feet

A component video cable could be made with HD/Progressive signals in mind so they use coax that can handle the higher frequencies.

A single video cable for COMPOSITE video may assume interlace video and not work well for HD/Progressive signals.

 

[John P Grosskopf]

Something to remember about component cables:

All need to be of as exactly the same length as possible so that each separate color reaches the monitor at the same time.

I've been told variences between the longest and shortest cable of the three should not be more that 1.5 inches or artifacts show up in the picture.

 

[Greg_R]

I seriously doubt that differing cable lengths would affect the picture. Most displays are refreshed every 1/30th or 1/60th of a second. The time to transmit an electrical signal a couple feet over copper wire is many magnitudes faster than that. If your display refreshed every millionth of a second and if your eye could actually perceive those changes than I'd believe you.

 

[Mark Rich]

Gregg R

With component cables we are talking differential delay between cables and too great a variance between cables length will effect picture quality.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Greg - I'm afraid it is a very visible effect having one component cable even a foot different in length than the others.
Keep in mind that you are trying to keep 3 seprate analog waveforms in sync so that they arrive at the same time for every pixel on your screen. It does not take much shift on one cable before you start getting blur/ghost and color-shifts.
It's bad with ordinary interlace video, it's worse with HD/Progressive because of both the higher information content per time, and you now you have internal scalers/doublers in the TV that convert the signal to digital, manipulate it and then convert it back to analog. Mess with the analog timing up-stream of all of that and ... well it's not a pretty picture - litterally.