Topic: Why is the "Digital A/V Port" called the "Digital A/V Port"???

[NintendosRevenge]

Well aside from the fact that the "Digital A/V Port" will no longer be on newly manufactured Gamecubes starting in Summer '04/from now on (see my other post for info); I do have a small beef with the label Nintendo put on the port.

Really the port should NOT be labelled as such.  Really it should have been called something like "Component Video Port"...

First of all, AFAIK, the port does not output "digital" information at all--I'm pretty sure component video, interlaced or progressive scan is still analog information.  Secondly there is no audio available from the port at all!   Nevermind it being digital audio or not--the term "A/V" means "Audio/Video" but the so-called "Digital AV Port" on the GC has no audio output to speak of, not even analog!  (When connecting the component cable for the GC, audio still must come through the analog RCA portion of the A/V Multi-Out using the composite or S-Video A/V cables.)

So is Nintendo retarded or were they just trying to put "buzzwords" on the GC when it came out?  "Digital A/V" port my a$$! LOL.

The only way the name could be warranted was if there is/was any further functionality of the port.  For example, are there other "pins" in the port that could actually transmit digital data, or something other than component video at least?  It would be cool if you could get digital audio in the S/PDIF format from that port or something.  Does anyone know if there is actually anything else the port can do?  (I know there are no cables to enable any other functionality but I wonder if there is anything there that is not used currently?).

[anubis6789]

I don't know much about the pins in the port, but there is a chip inside the component cable jack that converts the signal into analog has the normal video and voltage pins ( RGB+HV) as well as some unuesd pins that many guess were to be used for audio.

Of coarse no one knows for sure because there is not any signals that come from said unused pins.

I read about this at a great technical website called GameSX, you should go there if your into A/V pinouts and stuff.

[Renny]

The "Digital" port can actually output RGB. There's a 3rd-party cable available somewhere-or-other that uses the RGB signal.

[anubis6789]

The port itself does not send out an RGB signal. The VGA cables you speak of is just a modified official Nintendo component or D terminal cable, they still need the DAC chip present. The chip is the reason why there are no third party component cables available for the GCN.