Brad Boutwell wrote:
 > I just got a 21" monitor with BNC inputs and have received
 > advice telling me I should use a BNC cable with it for
 > optimum performance. I don't quite understand how using a
 > cable that goes from a standard 15-pin DSUB (vga) connector
 > on my video card (Matrox G400 MAX) to the BNC connectors on
 > the monitor could INCREASE the quality. If it is still going
 > through the DSUB at the card, how can coming out the BNC
 > connecters improve the quality?

Hi Brad

You can get a high quality 6 foot video cable with a 15 pin
high density D-sub connector at one end and 5 BNC connectors
coming out the other end (for red, blue, green, vertical sync
and horizontal sync) from B.G. Micro <http://www.bgmicro.com/>
The part number for this $15.95 cable is CAB1076 at
<http://www.bgmicro.com/pdf/page10.pdf>.

I bought three of these a few months ago and am very pleased
with their quality and with B.G. Micro. in general.

Of the 15 lines from the 15 pin HD mini D-sub connector,
7 are ground lines, 2 are for VESA DDC use only, and one
line is for bi-directional data.

Using a cable with only the five lines works fine for me.
Obviously the shielding in my cable is good enough to make up
for the missing 7 ground lines, and the two VESA DDC lines are
not missed.

Not having the line for bi-directional data means that the
monitor will not be plug and play with Win9X. But you can
identify your monitor when Win9X asks you, so I don't feel
that there is any loss here.

I do feel that the picture is a bit brighter and sharper with
the BNC ended cable...but it's a close call. More importantly
perhaps, you can connect two computers to the monitor by using
both BNC and D-sub inputs on the back of the monitor. You
switch between the two computers using the monitor's controls.

Regards,
Bill

         PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download
                     visit our download web page at:
                     http://nospin.com/pc/files.html