Color Coding in Consumer Equipment
Plugs and sockets on consumer equipment are conventionally color-coded to aid correct connections. The standard colors for the various signals are shown below; however, beyond 7.1 audio, there are no standardized colors as of yet.
In stereo audio applications there are combinations of either Black+Red,Grey+Red or White+Red RCA connectors; in both cases, Red denotes Right. White or Purple may also be replaced by Black. This is however not true in tape recorder applications with four connectors cables where white is always left channel recording and black or sometimes blue is always left channel playback. Four connector tape recorder cables is mainly used in adaptors between RCA connectors and 5-pin DIN connectors.
While these are the standard colors found on commercially made products, same-colored cables may also be used. For example, a red cable may be used instead of a yellow one, as there is no other difference between them. There are generally two kinds of cables, for video (composite, component YPbPr and RGB) and digital audio 75 ohm impedance coax cable is recommended, for analog audio high impedance cable is recommended. Using high impedance cable for video and digital audio signals degrades signal quality, more noticeable with longer cables and with higher video resolutions. Using a 75 ohm impedance coax cable for analog audio is usually technically not a problem (but those cables are usually more expensive than high impedance cables)
| Composite analog video | Composite | Yellow | |
| Analog audio | Left/Mono (record if 4 connector tape cable) | White | |
| Right (record if 4 connector tape cable) | Red | ||
| Left tape play if 4 connector tape cable | Black | ||
| Right tape play if 4 connector tape cable | Yellow | ||
| Center | Green | ||
| Left surround | Blue | ||
| Right surround | Gray | ||
| Left back surround | Brown | ||
| Right back surround | Tan | ||
| Subwoofer | Purple | ||
| Digital audio | S/PDIF | Orange | |
| Component analog video (YPbPr) | Y | Green | |
| PB | Blue | ||
| PR | Red | ||
| Component analog video/VGA (RGB/HV) | R | Red | |
| G | Green | ||
| B | Blue | ||
| H(Horizontal sync)/S(Composite Sync) | Yellow | ||
| V(Vertical sync) | White |
Read more about this topic: RCA Connector
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