The Basics you should know : Ports — Part 2
This is the second part of the previous story “The Basics you should know: Ports — Part 1 (USB)”. In this part, I will cover the other ports — VGA, 3.5 mm Audio Jack, HDMI, RJ45/Ethernet
VGA (Video Graphics Array)
VGA came into the existence from 1987, since then VGA is the most widely used connector used in Television, Computers, Laptops, projectors, and many other display devices. It is a 15 pins connector that is capable of transferring only video signal, hence along with VGA it is mandatory to use another port dedicated to transfer audio signal(e.g. 3.5 mm Audio Jack). VGA is capable of rendering maximum resolution 1920 x 1080 at 60 Hz(refresh rate) above which the quality will start dropping. For greater resolution and a higher refresh rate, HDMI is used. We can still find VGA female ports on many laptops to provide the support for casting on televisions or other display devices. VGA → HDMI and HDMI → VGA connectors are available in the market in case you have only one of these port on your device as high-end gaming laptops and many premium laptops provide only HDMI ports for supporting external display.
3.5 mm Audio Jack
3.5 mm Audio Jacks are universal jack used for audio signals. There are different types of jacks which are:
TS type jacks are called as Mono Audio Jack. It does not support stereo sound (sound reproduction that creates an illusion of a multi-directional audible perspective). That means there is no separate left and right side sound effects, both sides will produce the same sound (in case of headphones or multi-speaker set). TS is generally used in musical equipment (especially electric guitar). TRS supports stereo sound but it doesn’t have a mic, which means you will not be able to record audio or talk over a call. TRRS uses conductors. They have functionalities of stereo as well as microphones. TRRS are widely used in Smartphones, Laptops, Tablets, etc.
You will find these 3 jacks on many motherboards. Here the first lime-green colored jack is the audio output jack where we connect headphones, earphones, or stereo speakers. The blue jacks are the line-in jacks. The core functionality of the line-in jack is to aid in audio recording or manipulate the incoming audio. A microphone, portable music player, or any audio device can be connected to the line-in jack. In some cases, line-in jacks can also perform other functions, such as attaching rear speakers when the motherboard has four or six channels and other jacks are absent (some motherboards have 6 jacks & in laptops, there are at most 2 jacks). The pink jacks are for mic input.
HDMI
HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards (Analog is a continuous waveform (or record) whereas a digital recording is composed of discrete bits of data, usually represented as ones and zeroes.). Unlike VGA & DVI, HDMI is capable of transferring video and audio signals using the same port and cable. Every modern device which has Video and/or audio output capability has an HDMI port. Today, HDMI is the most commonly used port and found with Television, Computers, Laptops, Graphics card, Monitors, Video Cards, Projectors, Set-top box, etc. The main reason behind its popularity is that, HDMI was designed to replace the older connectors like VGA, DVI, etc. to reduce the connector size; improved audio & video quality; performance, resolution, color spaces; newer versions have optional advanced features such as 3D video rendering, Ethernet data connection, CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) extensions, and modern high-resolution video data.
Note: HDMI has backward compatibility, using proper connector we use HDMI → VGA, VGA → HDMI, HDMI → DVI, and DVI → HDMI
RJ45/ Ethernet
Registered Jack (RJ) is another international standard, which is a standardized telecommunication network interface. RJ45 is used for Ethernet connections. RJ45 is just the connector with is used with Ethernet cable (e.g. CAT5, CAT6…). “45” in RJ45 represents the number of interface standards(e.g RJ11 connector is used for telephone communication & RJ45 is used for networking).
In the figure, the male connector is called as the RJ45 connector/LAN connector(Male connector), and female connector is called as the RJ45 Jack/ Ethernet Jack/ LAN port, etc. RJ45 uses 8 colored pins (4 solid colors and 4 striped colors).
Many people are confused with RJ45 and 8P8C. Many experts say that RJ45 is just a standard and 8P6C is an actual connector. If you are interested to know more, have a look at this answer available on Quora……
I hope you have enjoyed this story and found something new. If you have any suggestions or points, do comment below or get in touch.
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