Next, the jagon buster!
We touched upon resolution rates already - 720p. That is only one part of the HD "range". The other is 1080 - 1080 lines of pixels. These come in tow flavours - p (progressive) and i (interlaced). As before, p is better than i.
Remember tho, a 1080p set (the highest resolution you can get) will still have to upscale a 576line standard TV picture, which isn't gonna lok the dogs bollocks! And an NTSC picture (american standard) is only 480 lines, so even more space to fill!
If you want future proof (at least for the forseable future that is) then a 1080p set is the one to go for. More DVD's and games (like on the PS2 etc) are coming out in 1080p, and the quality is INSANE.
As for inputs - scarts only transmit 576 PAL pictures (most players are compatible with 480 NTSC wo will adjust to suit the scart/svideo/composit outputs)
S-Video is the round black plug, usually with 4 pins. This transmits colour and lumience over two wires within one cable, and is a step down from scart
Composite is the single yellow RCA/phono that carries colour and luminence in one cable is is a step down from s-vid. It's not great and really, next to RF, the lowest quality video signal.
Component (as previously mentioned) is three phono's/RCA's that are reg green and blue. Commonly, but incorrectly, referred to as RGB, these send colour over three cables, with the "sync" (what puts them together) in the green cable.
Scarts come in two flavours - CvBS (which is s-vid and composite compatible quality) and RGB Scart - out of the analogue sources this is the best carrier of quality. Mainly because it carries the colours in three "pins" (r,g+b) and the sync on a seperate pin, with luminence on another. It also carries sound (stereo only) which one of the above can do.
Next are digital interfaces;
VGA - the standard (blue) 15pin D-Sub that most computer PC's use. This is also RGB, or actually (look at me the nerd
) RGBHv. That means Red, Green Blue, sync'd both horizontally AND vertically. They are like RGB scarts, but can carry more info and higher resolutions.
DVI - Digital Video Interface. Many PC's have this now and is basically a digital version of VGA. Again, higher resolutions, used more for HD stuff or graphics intensive games.
HDMI - High Definition Multimedia Interface. The DADDY of digital cables. HDMI is like a digital scart in as far as it can carry video and audio, but unlike scart it does a SHIT load of forms. Version 1.3 can carry full HD pictures with completely uncompressed video streams in loads of resolutions : 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p and can also carry 1440p which we don't even have yet!!!! Audio wise it does LOADS. Up to 8 channels (thats 7.1 surround sound) of uncompressed WAV audio, in many formats including PCM, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio and more.
Confused tou enough yet?