Do you own a home projector, but have trouble deciphering the cables and connections? Here is a simple breakdown of the necessary cables to make setting up your projector easy.

Composite Cables
Composite cables or RCA cables are the most common cables that are used to connect video and audio equipment to your projector. These cables are color codes for easy connection. Typically there is a red connector for the right audio channel, a white connector for the left audio channel, and a whit connector for the video. Because these cables are so common, most equipment will come with jacks to support composite cables.

BNC Cables
Component video or BNC cables are another form of RCA projector cables. This cable provides better video quality than a standard RCA connection. For this reason, most pieces of professional video equipment will have a BNC jack to connect the projector.

S-Video Connection
S-video or Y/C cables are the best projector cables for video quality. They are superior to composite cables because they divide the video signal into two sections: chrominance and luminance. Most equipment comes with S-video jacks.

Component Cables
Component cables or RGB-HV cables look similar to composite cables but are different colors. Component cables are red, green and blue. These cheap projector cables split the video signal into three components, making it a superior video cable.

VGA Cables
This cable is generally used to connect to a HDTV decoder, or it can be used as a computer to projector cable. This cable has a connection that has three rows with a total of fifteen pins.

Digital Video Interface Cables
Digital Video Interface or DVI cables look like large VCA cables. Ideally DVI cables are intended to support a digital to digital connection.

HDMI Cables
HDMI projector cables are small versions of DVI cables. These cables are fairly new and can be seen primarily in high definition televisions, plasma TVs, and DVD players. This type of cable provides inferior audio signals for projectors and computers.

USB Connection
A universal serial bus or USB cable is used to connect a computer to a projector. There are two types of USB cables. A type a USB cable has a rectangular shape, and a Type B cable has a square shape. Not all projectors are equipped with a USB port, but those that are generally use the Type B cables.

MI Connections
Mi connection cables are multi- purpose interface cables. This single connector is not commonly used, but was designed to replace to DVI, VGA, and USB cables.

PC Audio
This type of connection is used primarily to attach headphones and microphones to a projector.