CET Digital Television Guide
Making Connections
... so you want to plug it in...

Some new DTV TV sets will NOT have built in DTV over-the-air tuners. Similar to high-end audio equipment, which is often sold as components (e.g., receiver, CD and tape decks, speakers etc.) this new generation DTV equipment is also component based. There are exceptions. Nevertheless, even if your new DTV monitor has a tuner built in you will want to have the capability to plug other devices into it. (e.g. a DVD player.)

Here are the connections/inputs you should be sure to ask for:

Antenna
This is usually the input to the analog and/or digital tuner. If you have "picture in picture" you will have two different tuners and antenna inputs. The audio and video both flow into the set on the same cable.

Line Input
This allows you to connect a variety of analog devices. It is also called a "composite" video input. The audio uses a separate cable.

S-Video
Many new analog devices use this method of connection, which provides a superior picture over RF and Line inputs. Again, audio is handled by a separate cable.

RGB (Red Green Blue)
You will need this input to connect to most DTV tuners. It allows the highest quality picture. The audio uses a separate cable. It is also called a "component" video input.

Audio
Some high-end DTV displays do not have speakers built in and rely on a separate audio system. Most, however, do have audio built-in so you will want to have audio inputs that parallel the video inputs. Some very high-end systems use a fiber optic audio connection.

SVGA
This allows you to use the display as a large computer monitor. This is great for watching material on CETconnect.org.

Fire Wire
(IEEE-1394 standard) You will find this on many high end devices and it is a standard way of interconnecting various digital devices (audio and video) using a single wire.