While many high-end monitors come equipped with BNC outputs, very few consumers ever take advantage of them. Often targeted for imaging professionals, due to expensive costs for a simple monitor cable. With the further advancement of HDTV's, it's not uncommon to find home entertainment equipment equipped with component video. The BNC outputs on a monitor use a similar method of image transfer as component video. Component video is often regarded as the highest quality of image transferring available, even better than the popular S-Video method.

How does it work?

BNC is short for British Naval Connector or Bayonet Nut Connector or Bayonet Neill Concelman. With a BNC monitor cable, instead of the normal HD15, it sends each color to the video card separately in order to avoid any signal digression. This allows the cable to maintain the strongest video signal from the source. With the higher quality signal in each color, the image overall becomes much sharper and more vivid. In order to further maintain color integrity, higher quality BNC cables are equipped with a ferrite core in order to eliminate outside interference between the colors.

Is BNC for me?

BNC cables have always been expensive, and not all monitors have the option of BNC cables. More often you will find the option on more expensive monitors, and the same monitor might cost more just for the BNC outputs. The cables themselves have been known to be up to $100 for one. Fortunately, there are suppliers that have a much more reasonable solution. Symmic offers them for a reasonable $11.95 plus shipping and handling.

Many people claim that in order to see the true benefits of BNC, you need to be running in high resolutions, preferably 1024x960 or higher. Because of this, these cables are unnecessary for monitors that are 17" or smaller in most situations.

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