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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As I understand it (and verified : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface )
There are several different standards of DVI Connector, your wifes MacBook is outputting DVI-D whereas your monitor is looking for DVI-I. THe main difference being that DVI-I transmits an integrated analogue and digital signal whereas DVI-D is digital only.
I'm not sure what the benefits of one over the other are and tbh I'm not very interested, but the differing adapters has bitten me in the past.
hope this helps somewhat.
Posted by Matt House on June 13, 2008 at 10:07 AM PDT #
Hi Rich,
The prior comment is on the right track.
The first cable is a DVI-I cable ("I" is for "Integrated" which is Analog+Digital -- sorry for the US spelling :-)
The adapter from Apple is DVI-D ("D" is digital-only). This is the first time I have seen a DVI-D cable that has no cut-out for the analog, but it is within spec.
You can see the whole story via Wikipedia in this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface
About half-way down is a view of the connector showing the pinouts.
Hope this helps!
Ken
Posted by Ken on June 13, 2008 at 10:11 AM PDT #
Monoprice to the rescue!
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10209
Posted by 67.111.14.156 on June 13, 2008 at 10:28 AM PDT #
Ow yeah... don't pull out any pins! analog won't work on digital, just buy the cable.
Posted by Mark Czubin on June 13, 2008 at 10:46 AM PDT #
Thanks all! I think I've been thoughly
educated on this now.
I'll buy another new cable.
Posted by Rich Burridge on June 13, 2008 at 10:51 AM PDT #
The above comments are correct.
You can still use a DVI-I cable, but you'll have to snip the extra pins. You'll just lose analog capability with the cables, but you're doing all digital anyway.
Posted by EW on June 13, 2008 at 10:57 AM PDT #
> You can still use a DVI-I cable, but you'll have
> to snip the extra pins. You'll just lose analog
> capability with the cables, but you're doing all
> digital anyway.
I don't think I am. The other end of that TV cable
(i.e. the plug that plugs into the back on the
TV), is VGA.
Posted by Rich Burridge on June 13, 2008 at 11:54 AM PDT #
My ( rather old - 2006 ) MacBook came with a VGA connector for the mini DVI port. If you TV has VGA, then I think you can just use this connector?
Posted by Arne on June 13, 2008 at 12:51 PM PDT #
I've got one of those too.
The problem is that it has a male DVI plug with
those extra pins so that end won't connect to
the new mini-DVI to DVD cable that we bought.
It's also ridiculously short. Even if I didn't
have problem #1, I wouldn't be able to plug
the VGA end into the TV and the other end into
the cable out of the Macbook.
I've no idea why Apple thinks 4 inch cables
are a good idea.
Posted by Rich Burridge on June 13, 2008 at 12:56 PM PDT #
If your television only has a VGA connector, then what you need is Apple's miniDVI-to-VGA adapter and a male-to-male VGA cable.
If the television has a DVI-I or DVI-D connector, then what you need is the Apple miniDVI-to-DVI-D adapter you already have and a DVI-D-to-DVI-D cable.
Posted by rwg on June 13, 2008 at 12:58 PM PDT #
I should correct my last comment. My Powerbook
came with a DVI-I (with those extra pins) to VGA
adapter cable. Not a mini-DVI to VGA cable.
Posted by Rich Burridge on June 13, 2008 at 12:58 PM PDT #
> If your television only has a VGA connector,
> then what you need is Apple's miniDVI-to-VGA
> adapter and a male-to-male VGA cable.
Thanks rwg. Yup. That's the way we should have gone.
I was just trying to incorporate the VGA->DVI
cable that I'd already got (and had previously
got working with my Powerbook).
Posted by Rich Burridge on June 13, 2008 at 01:01 PM PDT #
If your tv has a spare hdmi input you could alternatively get a dvi->hdmi cable that should work fine with the adapter you already got from apple and be digital rather than analog
Posted by Not Applicable on June 13, 2008 at 01:49 PM PDT #
You can try a "home-made" adapter made with cupper cable that connects the pins. I think that you can use some kind of glue to make a part with the short pieces of cable that join the male-female.
Posted by Pedro Martínez Juliá on June 13, 2008 at 04:07 PM PDT #
would you like a free cable? i've got tons around here somewhere
Posted by Justin Sunseri on June 13, 2008 at 11:22 PM PDT #
Thanks Justin, but that's okay. There's a
bunch in one of the labs at work too. I'll
grab one of those.
Posted by Rich Burridge on June 14, 2008 at 07:54 AM PDT #