Is It Worth Getting BNC Cables?

[DJediMaster]

I was wondering if the BNC cables for the monitor are worth getting. I mean would they improve the image quality for my 900NF monitor?...or would the difference be negligible. I run my desktop at 1280x1024 and play games at 800x600. The cables aren't cheap coming in at 40$....canadian that is. Thnx.

 

[rominl]

unless you go for 1800 or higher, you don't need BNC. you won't notice anything

 

[cockeyed]

It all depends on the degree of perfection you want. It seems to be the most common belief, that BNC cables are most beneficial when running in high screen formats. I use a Monster BNC cable on my sytem, a 17" Diamondtron based monitor at 1024 x 768 format. Originally it was teamed with a Voodoo3 and now a Voodoo4. I like high quality 2D and the BNC gave it to me. Without the BNC cable, I could detect a slight shadow in text. The BNC cable got rid of it completely. I strive for perfection in picture quality and I find that using a magnifying glass is beneficial when checking quality, especially convergence. Will it help you? It's hard to say. The only sure way to know, is to make a critical quality check with and without a BNC cable. Use a test pattern program for your tests and monitor setup. The freeware program from Nokia is a good one.

 

[mylam]

dont reALLY MATTER I THINK

 

[Biggs]

When you talk of BNC, d'you mean this type?

 

[bacillus]

additionally,when using BNC cable,you would loose any PnP/DDC communications to the monitor (not a big deal really)!

 

[AndrewR]

<< unless you go for 1800 or higher, you don't need BNC. you won't notice anything >>


Tell me: Have you ever actually USED one?

I bought a cheapie BNC cable ($20 US), and it made a VERY noticeable improvement in picture quality. Sharpness increased, color depth/contrast improved, and brightness improved by a LARGE margin. Do a search in this forum, probably in the archives, and there's a thread where people report their findings.

From what I read there, if you have a Voodoo3 card, don't bother (nearly everyone who had a V3 reported no improvement). If you have a Radeon, any Matrox card, and any of the latest Nvidia cards, you are likely to see an improvement if you have a decent monitor. There's a chance you won't, but most people did report an improvement.

For me, it was one of the best upgrades I've ever made given the price.

 

[Biggs]

I'm awaiting the results of this thread. Seems like the guy who was supposed to get one and test it has forgotten.

 

[SonicFlux]

I paid $60 for a high quality, heavily shielded BNC cable, and I was pleased with the result. Colors were more vivid, and text was crisp.

 

[skull]

I have a Voodoo 3 and noticed some improvements with a $20 cable. The shadow behind icons on my desktop went away and text is sharper. I'm running 1024 x 768 on a samsung syncmaster 700IFT.

 

[JackMDS]

The ?BNC? (actually BNC is only the name of the lock type connector that goes with some coax cables), provides better shielding of noise from the video output to the input of the monitor.

If the original video cable is ?noisy? (poor shielding), or there is a lot of electrical noise around the system, the ?BNC? will help.

In otherworld there is no one ?Quickie? answer, every one mileage may vary.

 

[AndrewR]

Jack, from what I know, your description of BNC is incomplete. BNC not only provides better shielding, it separates the video signal into (typically) five separate channels. While a regular video signal travels in one cord from card to monitor, the BNC takes the signal from the card and divides into multiple cables which maintains the integrity of the signal better. It's much the same as an RCA connector vs. S-video or component video for TV/DVD signals.

 

[Gosharkss]

The shield on a coaxial cable is designed to reduce the emissions from the video signal running inside the cable itself not the other way around. In fact the 15-pin to 15-pin video cables most manufactures supply use the same mini-coax cable as the 5BNC to 15-Pin cables use, so in fact the shielding is the same. And yes the 15-pin to 15-pin cables use separate coax cables one for each of the three-video and sync signals 5 total plus wires to support the low bandwidth plug and play signals. The VGA standard interface requires three-video signals on separate channels not on one cable as the previous post indicates. The VGA interface does not work like composite video or TV.

Look at the following link for details.
http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/faq/vga2rgb/index.html

Jim Witkowski
Chief Hardware Engineer
Cornerstone / Monitorsdirect.com

 

[Radboy]

I noticed better color saturation .. yellows became more yellow .. blues more blue. Text became cripser/sharper, but I'm not into text very much.

Iiyama Vision Master Pro 450 .. 1280x1024x32. Radeon DDR 32MB.

 

[Shagga]

I have an Iiyama VMPro 450 19&quot; monitor so the quality is quite good. my graphics card is a Creative Labs GeForce GTS and using the Iiyama BNC cable showed no noticeable difference whatsoever.

Personally, I would not buy a BNC cable. Unless you buy mine off me.

 

[Radboy]

When I was shopping for one, everyone said to make sure I bought a *quality* cable .. as some BNC cables were worse than some std VGA cables.

 

[JackMDS]

AndrewR, you are right but that exactly what I referred to.

Topic of this nature can benefit if we had the capacity to post small pictures.

The so called ?BNC cable?, puts a better shielding around the signal wires that are usually are packed, and ?lightly? shielded in a regular Video cable (that is why a video cable uses DB15 plug). The splitting into 5 visually noticeable wires is done because you can not fit the size of the five coax cables into one cable, and one plug in a home computer, (it is done in big commercial installation, and it is very expensive).


In theory, using the better-shielded cables will benefit every one.

 

[LuNoTiCK]

Whats a nice BNC cable that is also nice on da wallet?