Is there a difference between RGB and component?

Is there a difference between RGB and component? First let's examine exactly what RGB and component are, what they do, and how they do it.

First we will look at RGB. This is also known as VGA. RGB stands for red, green, blue, and is an existing computer analog video standard that has been around for a while. It can carry computer and standard video at HD resolutions at 100 feet away or more, if a quality cable is used. The numerous RGB analog component video standards generally offer the ultimate analog video signals that are available in consumer electronics. With RGB no compression is ever used and there is no real limit in resolution or in color depth. Numerous televisions in Japan and Europe use RGB by using a SCART connector. All arcade games utilize RGB monitors, except black and white games and some early vector games.

Analog RGB is losing popularity as computers can get better clarity by using Digital Video Interface (DVI) and home theater technology leans toward High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI). Despite all the suitability and quality, because RGB can not simply be applied with Digital Rights Management, it has been mostly ignored in North America, because S-video was considered adequate.

RGB usually requires additional conductors for video display synchronizing. Several techniques are used:

Composite sync is common in the European connection scheme SCART. Sometimes a complete composite video signal can also serve as the sync signal. A full composite sync video signal needs four wires - Red, Green, Blue, and Sync.

Additional types of component analogue video signals do not use Red, Green, Blue components, but rather a component without color, called the luma, combined with one or more components that do carry color, called the chroma, that gives only color information. Both the S-Video component video output, which needs two separate signals, and the Y'PbPr component video output, which needs three separate signals, seen on DVD players are examples of this method. Converting video signals into luma signals and chroma signals allows for subsampling of the chroma, a method that is used by DVD players and JPG images to reduce storage requirements for video and images. When people discuss component video today, the Y'PbPr scheme is usually what is meant by them. Many consumer DVD players, video projectors, plasma displays, and other electronic devices use this color coding form .In component video systems, extra synchronization signals could have to be sent along with the images. The synchronization signals are usually transmitted on one or two separate wires, or the signals embedded in the blanking period of one or more of the components.

S-Video stands for separate, or super, video. This is a technology used for transmitting video signals over a cable by separating the video information into two different signals: one signal for color (chroma) information, and the other signal for brightness (luma) information. So basically one signal, the luma, transmits information in black and white, and the other signal, the chroma, transmits all the color information. When these signals are sent to a television, this results in sharper images than composite video , where video information is transmitted as one signal over one wire. This is because televisions are intended to display separate Luma (Y) and Chroma (C) signals. S-video does this as it was intended.

To answer the question is there a difference between RGB and component, the answer is both yes and no. Yes there is a difference between RGA and certain types of component video. RGB is considered one type of component video, so in that respect RGB and component video are the same with no differences. However, RGB is just one type of component video, and there are differences between RGB and S-video, which is another type of component video. One difference in RGB and S-video is that S-video uses two separate signals and RGB uses three signals. Component video is not the same as RGB. RGB video puts the horizontal/vertical sync information in with the color information. RGB colorspace, even if it is carried only on three cables, is not the same as component video colorspace.