I’m an idiot. Here I am, purporting to be a geek, a gadgetophile, a nerd, and I didn’t know the difference between composite, S-Video and component video. Oh don’t get me wrong: I was always well aware of the mechanical differences, and the proliferation of plugs and connections in the back of the television. Heck, I was even dimly aware of some vodoo involving the separation of chrominance and luminance, although that was as far as my knowledge spanned.
I suppose I can retrieve a semblance of geekitude from the fact that in an idle moment during the weekend, I cobbled together 2 and a half standard RCA stereo cables, and MacGyvered the component video connections from the DVD player into the component input on the television. Oh. My. Gods. Component video, my dearest love, where have you been all my life? Suddenly I was able to actually read the “don’t be a naughty little pirate” text. The colours on Pingu’s chest were subtly different to the faux-ice background. The text on the DVD menu page was solid, not some sort of seizure-inducing jagged scripture.
So yes, it pains me to admit to my failings, and bow my head in shame at the fact I have been blindly plugging in the dirty yellow composite signal for years. But now I can hold my head up and say yeah verily, I have seen the light, and that light is made up of three separate channels of information, and It Is Good.
Mad.
Haven’t you discovered this a bit late though? Aren’t we all going to HDTV by the end of this decade?
You have a good point, but the difference between composite and component is big enough that I’d still make the change even if a new HDTV and bluray DVD were a week away.
Mad.
Haven’t you discovered this a bit late though? Aren’t we all going to HDTV by the end of this decade?