Understanding RCA cables and connectors

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BEFORE YOU START

There are often two or more different ways to connect audio-video devices. All work but some provide better sound or image quality.
The below information is kept simple on purpose for everyone to understand what these RCA cables are used for.
Modern audio-video systems could have no RCA connections at all and use instead HDMI and optical ports.
If you're curious about the meaning of RCA, it stands for the company that invented this particular type of connector, back in the 1930's: the Radio Corporation of America or RCA.

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Identifying RCA cables

Most time the below RCA cables are supplied with any audio or video device you buy. The RCA connector is a coaxial connector that is simply pushed into its socket with your bare hand.

The Red and White colors are associated to Audio while the Yellow is used for Video. There are no physical differences between the different colors, this is only to allow users plug the wires correctly.

The below RCA cable is for audio and video. The Red and White connectors are for audio signal and the Yellow one for video signal.

This is an audio stereo RCA cable. The Red is used for the signal that goes to the Right speaker and the White to the Left speaker.

Buy your A/V RCA cable here:

Component video cables

Some devices, DVD readers in particular could have a component video output made of three RCA connector, Red, Green and Blue.
These are only for transmitting the image but not the sound for which a Red/White cable has to be used along with the component cable.

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RCA connectors color codes

The connecting set on the left below shows a classic Video (Yellow) + Stereo Sound (Red/White) input while the picture on the right shows that this device can be either connected via its Component video (Green/Blue/Red) + Stereo Sound (Red/White) or Video (Yellow) + Stereo Sound (Red/White).

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Converting RCA to HDMI

You can convert RCA to HDMI or HDMI to RCA using specific conversion devices or cables, as per the below diagrams:

You can buy your HDMI to RCA conversion devices here:

RCA to 3.5 mm jack converter

Portable devices are small and cannot accommodate the RCA connectors. They are therefore provided with a 3.5mm diameter compact jack connector that connects audio only (picture on the left) or audio and video (picture on the right).

Note well that for audio the jack has three segments against four for a combined audio/video.

RECAP: RCA cables color code chart:

This table gives you a recap of all colors found on RCA cables:

WHITE	AUDIO
RED	AUDIO (within Red/White or Red/White/Yellow cables)
YELLOW	VIDEO
RED	VIDEO (within Red/Green/Blue cables)
GREEN	VIDEO
BLUE	VIDEO