From Issue #1 , Page #40 | By Rachel Cericola

Confused about your connections? We fill in the holes behind your A/V equipment.

You've bought a new DVD player. The box opens to reveal a new shiny, sleek device that your home entertainment center is just screaming for. With manual in hand, you squeeze behind your equipment rack to hook up the latest addition—only to find out that you're one jack short.

While some may be satisfied switching back and forth, destined to crouch behind the cabinet every time the family wants to watch a movie, there is a way to avoid this disaster that so many of us have already endured.

All of your digital dreams can come true if you know what you're buying. "The types and numbers of jacks affect your ability to connect your present and future home theater products," says Marty Zanfino, director of product development at Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc. But with the ever-changing standards for both audio and video, it's getting harder to keep up.

"You need multiple inputs and outputs, preferably as many as you have sources," says Dan Fulmer, president of FulTech Solutions in Jacksonville, Florida. In other words, our audio and video equipment has become something that resembles Swiss cheese. Super sound and other technological advances aside, it won't take too much time before you find yourself longing for the good old days of the coaxial cable jack.

Component, composite, optical, coaxial and now something called HDMI—when exactly does the madness stop? The bad news is, it never does. The good news is that you may be able to buy equipment that will help you save your system from near extinction.

Audio Basics

Stereo RCA Jacks
This is one familiar site: Take a look at the back of any audio or video device and you'll see at least two RCA jacks, which are designated for analog line-level audio signals. Typically, one jack is red and the other is white or black. Use basic RCA cables (like the kind you buy from RadioShack, Best Buy, Circuit City or just about anywhere else), match up the colors, and soon you'll be rocking out to 5.1-channel audio, Super Audio CD (SACD) or DVD-Audio (DVD-A). Remember that the quality of cables will affect your system's performance, but $2 or $3 should at least get you hooked up and running.

Where You Find It: Receivers, CD players, turntables, DVD players, VCRs and pretty much all other A/V equipment.

Bonus Track: Don't get confused if you see a yellow one in there; that's for composite video (which we'll talk more about later).

Optical & Coaxial Digital Audio
If you're an A/V nut, you probably already know where these jacks are on your equipment. This is where a lot of the musical magic is made. An optical digital jack, better known as Toslink, is an optical connector for digital audio. It uses pulses of light to carry audio data over either plastic or glass fibers.

Coaxial digital audio looks like an RCA jack, but typically comes in orange or black. It also handles a much wider frequency of audio signals—sharp digital audio signals.

Where You Find It: A/V receivers, satellite receivers, DVD players, CD players, and it's sometimes found on higher-end PC cards as well.

Bonus Track: Toslink got its name from the company that developed it—Toshiba.

XLR
A type of connector used for "balanced" audio lines. Often, electrical "noise" will interfere with your sound quality. A balanced design reduces that interference. The XLR cable uses three wires: one for positive signals, one for negative and one for ground.

Where You Find It: Microphones and balanced audio components.

Bonus Track: You can only use an XLR terminated cable with an XLR jack.

Video Basics

Radio Frequency
This is that little F-style connector that you slip or screw your cable connection or antenna onto. You're going to want to hook your TV up to cable or a satellite receiver, aren't you? Even if you don't want to, too bad—RF connectors are on almost every working TV on the planet today.

Where You Find It: TVs.

Bonus Track: If you want to go for the gusto, it's best not to use this connector for external equipment such as DVD players and stereo equipment.

Composite Video
Like its audio brothers, this is another RCA-style connection point. While you won't exactly be setting the home theater world on fire, this little yellow jack is actually the preferred hookup over the standard RF jack. They're on a lot of components, and the more jacks, the more external devices you can hook up. Videophiles might pooh-pooh this type of connection since it mixes color and black-and-white signals together along a single cable. They claim that doesn't always make for the best picture; if you've never experienced anything different, you probably won't notice.

Where You Find It: TVs, DVD players, VCR and DBS systems.

Bonus Track: Where there's composite, you will usually find component.

Component Video
This is a series of three jacks similar to a stoplight (but with different colors). Often you'll see the letters Y, Pb, and Pr accompany the various jacks. Having three different jacks allows for different portions of the video signal to be processed separately. Many think component provides some of the best picture quality, but it also might need a little TV tweaking that won't look good when using other external video devices. Also, the bandwidth can vary on this type of unit, so make sure you get one with at least 12 MHz or higher; otherwise, you may get a "soft" picture from progressive scan DVD—a feature that is becoming standard on many new players. For high-definition, you'll need at least 30 MHz.

Where You Find It: TVs, A/V receivers, DVD players and HDTV tuners.

Bonus Track: The color has been known to blow away that of S-Video.

S-Video
The S stands for separate, although many think it's just super. This hookup method has become very popular, and is included on a lot of the video equipment available today. The small 4-pin video connector may look simple, but it packs a wallop when it comes to image quality. It processes video information in two different signals: one for color (chrominance) and one for brightness (luminance)—just like component video.

Where You Find It: DVD players, TVs, satellite TV and Super-VHS.

Bonus Track: Look for a unit with multiple S-Video jacks—you can add more video sources that way!

RGB
"Up until recently, RGB was the highest quality video signal," says John Clancy, VP of Audio Command Systems in Westbury, New York. Believe it or not, you can get a lot of colors if you just mix three together: red, green and blue. When you mix these colors just right, it creates white light, which is perfect for displaying on a black screen. A lot of digital video devices, gaming devices and HD content are broadcast over a VGA-type, 15-pin connector. RGB typically looks best when displayed on a computer monitor.

Where You Find It: HDTVs, HDTV tuners and computer monitors.

Added Bonus: An RGB encoder can change RGB signals to composite signals.

BNC
Named after its inventors, the bayonet neill concelman (BNC) sounds like some sort of weapon, but it will actually arm you with high-quality digital goodness. Typically on professional video equipment, this type of coaxial cable connector can carry high-frequency signals and locks perfectly into place for a secure connection.

Where You Find It: HD set-top boxes, plasmas, front projectors and advanced video processors.

Bonus Track: This format can be easily adapted to standard RCA- style plugs or jacks.

FireWire
This type of connection also goes by the name i.LINK, IEEE 1394 or Lynx, depending on which manufacturer you are talking to. Boasting up to 30 times the bandwidth of USB, Firewire is a very fast plug-and-play way to transfer data, at up to 400 (1394a) and even 800 megabits per second (1394b) with no signal degradation. It can also power those devices. This two-way digital connection is typically used to hook external devices, such as an MP3 player or camcorder, up to computers. "It also allows for networking the digital audio/video signal to other rooms," Zanfino says.

Where You Find It: Computers, digital camcorders, high-speed peripherals, and other A/V devices.

Bonus Track: A single Firewire port can be used to connect up to 63 external devices.

Ethernet
Ethernet is the most popular form of network interface card (NIC) available; it uses a 10/100 Ethernet network cable to connect any PC to a home network. In our case, it's used for audio distribution, hooking your A/V receiver into your home's wired or wireless network, and allowing for access to Internet radio or music stored on your PC or other hard drive. Ethernet can transfer data at rates of 10 Mbps.

Where You Find It: A/V receivers and computers.

Bonus Track: Ethernet has a wide variety of connection options, and can adjust itself to the proper speed.

DVI
DVI, or digital video interface, is a multipin jack that looks like the one on the back of your computer's hard drive. This enables uncompressed, standard and high-definition video signals to be sent from a variety of newer video devices. These signals transfer in pure digital form, which is perfect for plasmas, LCDs or a DLP displays. DVI-D carries digital signals, while DVI-I can pass digital and analog video signals. "The problem with DVI right now is the distance to which that signal can be sent," Clancy says. "Currently you can only send DVI about 30 feet (some say 50) on pre-terminated cables, which is not good for a company like ours who prewire everything and want a cable that we can terminate to exact lengths."

Where You Find It: Satellite receivers, DVD players, computers, digital cable boxes, TVs, and more.

Added Bonus: The signals are encrypted with HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) to prevent recording. "Without the proper equipment with HDCP, consumers will only be able to watch these encrypted programs via lower-quality analog connections," says David Fink, director of training at Fujistu General America, "or not watch the program at all."

The average consumer may not care whether they have copy protection, but it's not for them to decide. "You have no choice," says Norm Steinke, VP of sales for Meridian. "Video will not come out in a raw format where it can be copied and distributed. It's not for the consumer making a copy for themselves; the issue is worldwide."

HDMI
High-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) is the latest in digital transmission and connectivity. But DVI isn't out of date yet; Steinke says it's just in a "transition phase." This new connection allows HD video and multichannel audio to be sent digitally over a single connection. The basis for this new connection is HDCP and DVI. It also supports standard, enhanced or HD content plus standard to multichannel surround-sound audio, at a bandwidth of up to five gigabytes per second. "The issue here is that it is still not available on all equipment," says Fulmer. "Although there are converters available."

Where You Find It: DVD players, DTV players, set-top boxes, and other A/V devices.

Bonus Track: The HDMI Working Group includes consumer bigwigs such as Sony, Philips, Toshiba, and many more.

"Unfortunately things are confusing," says Steve Mullen, spokesperson for Circuit City. "We try to explain it to people, find out what they are going to use their equipment for and pad in some expandability." Whatever style of jacks you prefer, plan for plenty of them in case you want to add new components to your setup.

While it's important to know what each connection means, how do you decide which one is right for you? Zanfino says at the very minimum, you should have two sets of standard A/V jacks, including S-Video, on the back panel and it wouldn't hurt to have another set on the front panel. "The front jacks make it easy to connect camcorders and video games," he says. He also recommends two sets of component video jacks and a DVI or HDMI jack.

Finally, while it's important to understand your equipment, what you use to hook everything up is equally as important. Just because you already have a bunch of tangled cables you can use, that doesn't mean you should actually use them. After all, your equipment can only go so far if you don't use quality cable—but that's for another article.

Top 5 Installation Mistakes

So now you know about jacks, but the rest of an A/V installation takes a little more than plugging cable A into slot B. Here are a few things for your checklist. No drumroll is needed—but how about a first aid kit and some duct tape? We asked Dave Tovissi, director of in-home installation for Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, what some of the worst slip-ups are when consumers try to install their own products. See anything familiar?

#1: Label Wires
If something isn't working, it makes it a lot easier to troubleshootif you know what's what. Most people don't label wires before plugging them in; you could shave hours off of your troubleshooting time. A professional installer will probably label wires on the head end, and may even use a different color of wire to distinguish what type of component is attached to it.

#2: Stacking Components
You may think you are saving space by stacking components, but really you could be damaging some expensive equipment. That's not just something that they put in the manual—when you stack components, it can lead to overheating or malfunctioning due to the microprocessors getting stressed by heat. Most products are designed as stand-alone items and have heatemitting slots cut into them. A rack or some type of shelving will ease some of that heat, and it wouldn't hurt to add a cooling fan if the products are going behind doors.

#3: Wire Lengths Whether troubleshooting or adding in new components, you don't want your existing wires to go flying when you go to turn the devices around. And if you haven't labeled them, get comfortable because you may have to start from square one. The ones that don't get yanked out can get bent, causing damage to the wire's performance. Leave plenty of wire; don't go for the shortest cable run. A professional installer will leave a minimum of 12 inches of wire in case the products need to be serviced.

#4: Electrical Connections
Many people don't plan for electrical connections. Whether it's for a flat-panel television on the wall or a stack of components in a cabinet, most of us don't think about where the power will come from. Instead, we run extension cords through walls or plug multiple items into multiple cords. An installer will arrange for an outlet to be placed where the equipment is to be used and will integrate power centers for convenience, performance and surge protection.

#5: Wrong Tools
You may not have the right tools to do a specific job, but something like it—that's probably not such a great idea. Using a pair of pliers to affix an RF connector to a piece of coax will damage the fitting, and the ground will not be in place. This will lead to unusual interference problems like horizontal bars rolling on the screen, sparkles or grainy pictures. Whether its crimping RF connectors or cutting in speakers, a professional installer will have the right tools to make the job easier and safer.