Friday June 13, 2008 Not All DVI Cables Are Created Equal
Earlier in the week, I downloaded the Big Buck Bunny movie onto my wife's new MacBook. We wanted to try the new mini-DVI to DVI adapter cable that we'd bought (via the online Apple store), to hook it up to our TV and watch it on the "big screen".
Wasn't I miffed to find that the female DVI plug on the end of the adapter cable wouldn't connect to the male DVI plug on the end of the cable coming out of the TV. From the blurred pictures above, you can just see that the male DVI cable (first picture) has some extra pins above and below the "bar" pin and the female plug (second picture) doesn't have matching holes for them to go into.
Luckily that cable out of the TV nicely works with the DVI external monitor plug (third picture) on my Powerbook, but we ended up watching a lower-res version of the movie (not that big a deal).
So I have a multiple choice question:
Question: Why didn't this work?
Answer:
- That's a really old cable you've got there (you idiot). The DVI
standard nowadays doesn't have those extra pins around the "bar"
pin on male plugs.
- That's a bad design for the mini-DVI to DVI cable Apple (you idiots).
Didn't you realize that there are male cables out there with pins
on either side of the "bar" pin?
- In order to get this to work with your existing cable, you are
(somehow) going to need to remove those two pins around the "bar"
pin.
- All of the above.
- None of the above.
If the answer is 3 or 4, how can I easily remove those bogus pins? Or should I just go out and buy yet another new cable?
Correct answers very much appreciated.
( Jun 13 2008, 09:50:59 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [16]
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