PC-CRT Monitor Cable VGA=5xBNC

Factual Questions
1

Hello,

I have a Phillips Brilliance 109p4 CRT-Monitor, it has one VGA socket and five BNC sockets, what is the difference if i connect with a cable from my Grafikadapter card
with VGA plug on the PC side and 5xBNC to the monitor, compared to VGA to VGA?

Thanks

2

Probably none.

3

I would go with VGA because it has more pins and info. the five BNC will probably be: red, green, blue, horizontal sync, vertical sync. VGA allows the monitor to exchange info with the computer:
http://www.theavguide.co.uk/view_page.php?page=18

4

According to this the 5 BNC cables are R, G, B, HSync and VSync - all of which are carried in the 15 pin D-sub VGA connector.

So I would say apart from cable quality there should be no difference. I do know that in the old days (about 10~15 years back) most large 17" or greater CRT monitors used the BNC connectors (usually with D-sub to BNC adaptors) so the monitor might just have them for backward compatibility.

5

Except that the VGA connector carries other signals which are lost if you use only the BNC. By using the VGA the monitor can communicate with the computer which it cannot do if using the BNC.

As I said in my earlier post.

6

The other signals carry no video information, though. If you don’t care that the monitor will show up in your graphics settings as “generic monitor” rather than being identified by model number, you’re not going to be missing anything.

I would go with the VGA port just because a VGA to VGA cable is likely the one that’s available. VGA to 5 BNC is a bit obscure.

7

I would say that since your source is a 15-pin VGA connector then it matters not. Normally, a BNC connection would yield a better signal and possibly a better picture since you’d have five individually shielded and properly terminated mini coax cables. There are mini coax cables within the VGA cable however they terminate to pins on the 15-pin VGA connector. The integrity of the individual shielded cables is no longer maintained at the connection as both the shield and the center conductor have to be removed from each other and then terminated into pins. The entire cable itself is still shielded though.

8

Well, except for the computer being able to automatically identify the monitor and load and use the correct drivers and configuration as opposed to having to do it manually.

9

In my experience, most monitors need very little configuration and work fine with the default drivers. The main problem, I think, would be if it is an EnergyStar monitor, you will not be able to set it to automatically shut off when not in use.

But even if that isn’t a problem, there is no reason not to use a VGA-VGA connection. The other connection will not be any better for reasons mentioned upthread.

10

I recently had a thread about a computer which for some strange reason was not detecting the monitor and it took some time to get it to work. Monitors come in different aspect ratios, resolutions, scan frequancies, etc. Windows can only assume one and that may not be correct. Of course, if you are like the user of the computer in question you won’t even notice the image is distorted.

In other words, I disagree that most monitors need very little configuration. While maybe you can see the image, having the correct settings assures the best possible result.

that too.