The complete guide to Audio, Video and Data cables

2.5mm Stereo: 2.5mm audio plugs are not very common, used in devices where like landline telephone instruments or cellphones with mono output.

3.5mm Stereo: This has become the standard for consumer grade audio input/output. You’ll find it is most portable music players, cellphones and speakers.

6.3mm Stereo: Mostly used for amplifiers or musical instruments, the 6.3mm stereo jack is just larger than the usual 3.5mm. Adapters are easily available.

Audio cable: The red and black cable is used to connect speakers with receivers or home theatre systems and comes in copper or aluminium variants.

Coaxial: Coaxial uses a digital standard invented by Sony & Philips (S/PDIF). Mostly found on DVD/CD players, set top boxes and home theatre components.

Optical (Toslink): Optical is used to transfer digital multi-channel audio. The main advantage is that it is not affected by electromagnetic interferance.

Express Card Slots: The express card slot in laptops is a versatile port that deserves a special mention. It allows you to update your existing notebook with an e-Sata port or USB 3.0 port with the help of various adapters available in the market, thus providing ease of connectivity.

Apple 30-pin: Found on all iPods, iPhones and iPads, the 30-pin dock connector transfers data, audio and video — also used to connect accessories.

Ethernet: The ethernet cable (Cat-5 or RJ45) is used for network connectivity between computers and a modem/router with speeds upto 10Gb/s.

E-Sata: E-sata is used for data transfer. It is approximately four times faster than USB 2.0. You’ll find it mostly on external drives.

FireWire (IEEE1394): Available in 4 pin/6 pin variants, FireWire provides high speed data transfers. You’ll mostly find it on digital video cameras.

Thunderbolt: Found in newer MACs, Thunderbolt uses the Mini DisplayPort shape — but is faster and can be used for both data & video.

All the USBs: Everyone knows USB. But there are so many different connectors for USB now.

Apart from the bogstandard USB (top left), you also get micro USB and mini USB — these find place in external hard drives, digital cameras, cellphones, digital voice recorders and almost any portable gadget that needs to exchange data with other devices.

Also coming in are the much faster USB 3.0 ports & cables (blue in colour, but completely backwards compatible). USB 3.0 devices are more expensive at the moment, but prices will fall soon.

Component: An analog format, it splits up the video signals into 3 cables (red, blue, green) — capable of carrying 1080p full HD video.

Composite: Also analog, composite is a basic connection with a single cable for video (yellow) and two for stereo audio (red, white).

DisplayPort: Usually found on MACs, some high-end desktop graphics cards and professional monitors, DisplayPort offers similar funtionality to HDMI.

DVI: Short for Digital Visual Interface, DVI is found on many laptops and graphics cards — it is interchangeable with HDMI.

HDMI: High Definition Multimedia Interface — it is the standard for uncompressed digital audio and HD video.

HDMI - Micro: Micro HDMI caters to the HD video output requirements in smaller devices like smartphones. Easily converted to full size HDMI.

HDMI - Mini: Mini HDMI caters to small size requirements of digital cameras and certain smartphones. Easily converted to full size HDMI.

S-Video: An older and common analog format, S-Video is similar to a component connection, but is poorer quality and not preferred.

VGA (D-Sub): Short for Video Graphics Array, it is found universally on laptops and projectors, this is the most basic video connection.