Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iPhone 3gs av cables - component or composite??

T

to1986

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 15, 2009
166
2
I have an iPhone 3GS 16GB with 3.1.2 firmware. I was looking around the apple store for an av cable. I came across two - a composite and a component cable, but I can't see what the difference is... Would someone mind explaining what each of them is?

The second question is that if I am streaming a video off
the Internet will I be able to watch that on the tv using the av cable? For example streaming off the YouTube app, or streaming through the sky mobile tv app?

Thanks
 
A component cable will divide the the different parts of the color signal (from the video) which inevitably allows for a better picture. The different parts of the color signal I believe are chroma and luminance. It is known to be better than composite.

Component cables can carry a HD feed much like HDMI. If you have a choice choose component. Composite is the lowest of low pretty much.

Composite cable is a composite signal (think all in one) of the video signal. There's no division between chroma and luminance. The composite cable will limit you to 480 lines, which is what standard cable (non HD) basically is. Think older TVs that didn't have 720, 1080 etc. The cable is one connection with RCA plugs on the end. Those are the yellow, red, white plugs you see. The three are made up of two audio and one video (yellow).

I am unsure about the second question as it relates to the iPhone.
 
I'm fairly certain that the composite cable won't work with an iPhone and is only designed for older hardware such as a 5th gen iPod.

Absolutely go for the component cable.

I've seen my friend use his component cable with his iPhone 3G and YouTube videos display on the TV. The iPhone display is black while the video is playing.
 
After doing a bit more research i have found out that the component cable have more wires than the usual red, yellow, and white cables. does this mean it wont be compatible with a normal non-hd tv that only has a scart input? is there a way round this?
 
to1986 said:
After doing a bit more research i have found out that the component cable have more wires than the usual red, yellow, and white cables. does this mean it wont be compatible with a normal non-hd tv that only has a scart input? is there a way round this?
Click to expand...

The component cable comes with red and white connectors for audio AND red, green and blue for video. Unless your tv has component inputs (which it sounds like it does not since it isn't HD), do not get the component cables as they will be useless to you. The component cables will give you a much better picture though so if you plan on upgrading your TV in the near future, definitely go with the component cables.

And to bohbot16 - the composite cables will work the iphone (I have both composite and component).
 
psywzrd said:
The component cable comes with red and white connectors for audio AND red, green and blue for video. Unless your tv has component inputs (which it sounds like it does not since it isn't HD), do not get the component cables as they will be useless to you. The component cables will give you a much better picture though so if you plan on upgrading your TV in the near future, definitely go with the component cables.

And to bohbot16 - the composite cables will work the iphone (I have both composite and component).
Click to expand...

The thing is i have a standard tv here with me at uni, which i will hopefully upgrade in the new year, but at home I have an HD tv, so obviously would rather get component cables. Is there no adapter, on which i can use a component cable on my non HDtv for the time being?
 
to1986 said:
The thing is i have a standard tv here with me at uni, which i will hopefully upgrade in the new year, but at home I have an HD tv, so obviously would rather get component cables. Is there no adapter, on which i can use a component cable on my non HDtv for the time being?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if such an adapter exists, but you should definitely do some research to find out. If you cannot find an adapter that will work, I would go with the component cables unless you absolutely need something that will work right now at school. The video quality using the component cables is so much better and if you end up buying the composite ones now, I can guarantee you'll eventually buy the component cables anyway (that's exactly what happened to me).
 
I'm not sure if this is universally true, but I've seen the green component cable used in the yellow composite plug. You may be able to get away with doing this until you upgrade your TV.
 
It's not just HD TV's that have component input. Check to see if yours has it. If not, using composite will be perfectly ok, you probably won't notice the difference using it to view iPhone content, which isn't that great a quality anyway.

Composite will also allow more flexible connection capabilities, after all almost everything will accept composite (Video senders, all TV's buit this side of the stone age, car dvd systems (to view content on in-car screens) etc etc

The content from the iPhone is not at a sufficiently high level that you will notice the dirrerence between using the composite interface or component.
 
Badfoot said:
The content from the iPhone is not at a sufficiently high level that you will notice the dirrerence between using the composite interface or component.
Click to expand...


This is not necessarily true. You are assuming that the content on the iphone is at iphone resolution. There's no reason why someone couldn't have an HD quality video file on their iphone that they want to output to a TV for viewing. If that's the case, you will see a huge difference in quality between component and composite. Even if a file is at iphone resolution, component will still yield a better picture (although it obviously won't be HD quality since the source file is not of HD quality).

I do agree that composite is more prevalent though if you're looking to use something while traveling (hotels, etc.).
 
look at the back of your tv for the kind of inputs


if you have red white and yellow then buy the composite cables ( aka RCA)
if you have red white and red blue and green then buy the component cables

currently the iphone only supports the following video out

iphone videos
iphone photo slides
youtube video


/end thread
 
psywzrd said:
This is not necessarily true. You are assuming that the content on the iphone is at iphone resolution. There's no reason why someone couldn't have an HD quality video file on their iphone that they want to output to a TV for viewing. If that's the case, you will see a huge difference in quality between component and composite. Even if a file is at iphone resolution, component will still yield a better picture (although it obviously won't be HD quality since the source file is not of HD quality).

I do agree that composite is more prevalent though if you're looking to use something while traveling (hotels, etc.).
Click to expand...

That's the theory, but when you actually try it the difference is not that great, especially on normal video content. HD video processing is best done on a dedicated machine, although the iPhone could just about handle it, it won't be the same.
 
Badfoot said:
I believe that refers to outputting using the same connector. I've never seen a component input that could accept a composite signal.
Click to expand...

My Samsung tv allows the 2nd component input in the back to accept composite input. It seems to be because they only offer one true composite input and it's on the side of my tv. to allow the option of composite input on the back of the tv they made the 2nd component stack flexible, and it does in fact allow the composite input which i use for my old school nintendo. So i plug that yellow video cable into one of the orange, green, blue inputs [can't remember which] and viola!
 
Davey782 said:
My Samsung tv allows the 2nd component input in the back to accept composite input. It seems to be because they only offer one true composite input and it's on the side of my tv. to allow the option of composite input on the back of the tv they made the 2nd component stack flexible, and it does in fact allow the composite input which i use for my old school nintendo. So i plug that yellow video cable into one of the orange, green, blue inputs [can't remember which] and viola!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update on composite inputting using the component input on your Samsung TV. That's a good example of flexibility that probably most manufacturers have adopted now. Makes life a little easier.

Standards eh!, aren't we lucky to have so many to choose from.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back