Why are RCA Cables Necessary in The Wireless Age?

Wireless headphones, wireless chargers, wireless speakers and a whole bunch of other wireless things are here to stay now. ‘Cutting the cord’ is the trend.

However, certain products are simply not there yet.

If we talk about televisions, even modern day ones that literally roll out of sight, they have to use cables for power, for additional I/O needs, etc.

The new age televisions that roll out of sight, or stick to walls like posters, still have to have some way of connecting other devices to them. So, we are nowhere near getting rid of cables altogether yet. The cables themselves have evolved over the years. There are of course cables that are simply audio, like the much controversial 3.5 mm headphone cable. Then there are also solutions for managing both the audio and video, together.

So, if we have come this far, why do televisions still have the dated red, yellow and white ports? What is the use of them?

Well, those are RCA ports, to which RCA cables connect for audio and video. The yellow connector at the end of the cable is for composite video, the red one, for the right audio channel, and lastly the white one for the left audio channel of stereo sound.

The main purpose of these audio video cables in terms of a traditional television set is to connect a video input device, making the TV itself the audio output device. So if you were to connect a video game console to a standard TV, the console would be the input for the video, the TV would display it, and the TV speakers would provide the sound.

But this is the most basic setup, and standard RCA audio video cables are not as updated as one may need them to be. They cannot provide the display in extremely high resolution, which we have come to expect nowadays. RCA audio cables are, however, the analog solution you need if your display lacks the fancy multi-channel HDMI port. You will always find RCA ports saving the day.

RCA cables cannot combine multi-channel audio in one cable. Therefore, there is one cable for each channel you may want to add to your set up, including a certain number of subwoofers if that’s your requirement. Anything over four channels and a subwoofer might be too overwhelming for a home setup. However, audio feedback largely depends on the size of the room, the materials it has and how the sound absorption is.

One of the requirements of this is when you have limited HDMI ports on your display. The things that you need to connect to a display have increased over time. You probably have a satellite DTH box, a gaming console, a DVD player, a variety of speakers, and lastly a streaming box or stick. When all put together, it requires a minimum of two HDMI ports, a few audio video ports, of various kinds and perhaps even some spare USB ports for a flash drive or an external hard drive.

Another requirement that you might have is to set up a high-end home theatre in your house. And here’s how you can do it:

• The main element of a home theatre setup isn’t just a large screen. Proper surround sound is an essential part of the whole experience. You can add multiple speakers, via RCA cables, connect an array of subwoofers and enhance the sound.
• Adding speakers to a display also has another advantage. If one speaker were to malfunction, you can simply replace that particular channel without having to replace your whole setup. This increases the longevity of a very expensive home theatre system.

RCA Cables were first seen in the 1940s which were introduced by Radio Corporation of America. They didn’t have the idea that their product would last till date.

They might not be the best but they do the work.

And in case you were wondering how to connect the RCA cables to HDMI or vice versa, then we have covered that in the next section.

HDMI is used for digital signal whereas RCA cables are for analog signaling. To convert the RCA signal to HDMI or vice versa, there needs to be an active signal converter.

How to convert or connect HDMI to RCA?

• You can find HDMI cable with RCA connectors on the other end. These look pretty and seems like a perfect solution for a complicated problem, but these cables don’t work at all.
• There are companies selling HDMI to RCA converters which will do the work you want them to but only if the HDMI signal isn’t encrypted.
• Then you can also go with HDMI to RCA converters which come with built-in decryption. With these, the problem of HDMI signal encryption goes out of the question.