DVI Cables: What Are They?

What is the best way to define what DVI cables are? Well, the answer to that is to explain what the technology of DVI is in the first place. DVI stands for Digital visual interface. With us so far? Good. Now let’s go ahead with defining the various aspects of this technology and then explain the rest of its varying wonders.

The Digital Visual Interface, which from here on out will be labeled as DVI for purposes of simplicity is a video standard that is intended to get the most out of a display device’s video quality. Such equipment that DVI cables connect to are digital projectors and flat screen monitors probably the hardware that we best know DVI cables for working with.

DVI cable technology was first developed by an organization called the Digital Display Working Group. Its original use was intended for the display of uncompressed digital video data. It shares a limited compatibility with High-Definition Multimedia Interface (a technology found in many of today’s television sets) via the DVI digital mode (DVI-D).

Knowing what sort of DVI cable you need depends greatly on your connections that you will be working on. Fear not though dear reader, we have answers to any questions you have or may have in the future. So let’s take a moment to list each cable and give a very brief description of their use.

• DVI-D Cables – Used if you have one or both connections are digital.
• DVI-A Cables – Used if one of both connections are analog.
• DVI to VGI cable or DVI/VGA adaptor – intended for connections that have DVI analog compatibility and if one connection on one end if DVI and the other is VGA.
• DVI Cable – This is for integrated connections.
• TIP: In the instance of one connection being analog and the other being digital, you can’t connect the both of them with one cable. A converter box will need to be purchased. The converter box is available in either an analog to digital DVI or digital DVI to analog VGA.

That runs the gamut on what cables you will need. Another important thing though is to be able to identify a DVI cable when you see one. Since there are different versions of the cable there are little things that will set one apart from the other. Depending on what your requirements and equipment are you may need a DVI cable that’s different from what the other guy might need.

Using the list above you have a good idea where to start but keep in mind that you have to know what architecture your equipment uses before you go and purchase a DVI cable. After all you want to be able to enjoy the full use of your computer monitor even though many of today’s models look beautiful enough without even displaying a picture! Be that as it may it’s still important to make sure you know full well what a DVI cable is and how they work and which one you’ll require.

Hopefully we’ve got you ready to run out the starting gate with the knowledge of what you’re going to need in order to get that true to life high quality display that only a DVI signal can put out.