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Talk:Audio and video interfaces and connectors

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Justifying the existence of this article

In the process of buying a sound and video card I, John Bentley (talk) 00:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC), was hunting for a short Wikipedia article that would orientate me to all the kinds of connection standards that exist. I could find no satisfactory article.[reply]

I did discover the following article and template:

However, these seemed to increase my confusion. It became apparent that in this article template connectors where conflated with hardware interface standards. Understandably, perhaps, as they are intimately related. However, it is clearer, I'd offer, to make them distinct.

I did find a good article on video connection information that did make some attempts at distinguishing a hardware interface ("interface" for short) from connectors:

However, there where three problems with it:

  • While it correctly differentiates an interface from a connector it mislabels interfaces as a "standard" or "signal standard". Connectors are standardized too. Standard Interfaces define more than the signal.
  • The relationship between the interface and connector standards was not properly expressed. That is, whether it was digital, analog, or both.
  • Audio and Video interfaces and connectors are intimately related. For example, the HDMI interface (and connector) which can handle both audio and video. A sound card may have an HDMI interface and audio only interfaces/connectors, such as the S/PDIF interface using RCA connectors.

I therefore offer this article, "Audio and video interfaces and connectors" to compliment, and potentially compete against, Audio and video connector and List of video connectors.

The template Template:AVconn similarly conflates interfaces with connectors. I therefore created another template to compliment, and potentially compete against, this: Template:Audio_and_video_interfaces_and_connectors.

Issues for this article

Limited list V Comprehensive List

I'm not clear, in creating "Audio and video interfaces and connectors", whether there needs to exist an article that;

  • only lists popular and emerging interfaces and connectors ("a limited list"); or
  • includes all interfaces and connectors ("a comprehensive list").

To start off I have just listed the popular and emerging interfaces and connectors. I have done this, firstly, because it would be a big job to list all. Secondly, because it was useful to have only on the list those interfaces and connectors needed for choosing a sound and video card.

Of course, wikipedia, is not meant to be a how to manual. So I'm inclined to suggest that this article should include all interfaces and connectors. If that list becomes too large for the purposes of choosing a sound or video card (or other practical ends) then at that point a shorter article listing only a subset could be created.

Suggested tasks for this article

  • Include references. Note a great deal of the text in the body is simply copied from the concomitant Wikipedia articles (DVI, RCA Jack, etc).
  • Add more audio and visual interfaces. As many as you can find (see discussion under "Limited list V Comprehensive List"). Suggested rule: If an connector is defined in only one interface (eg HDMI, or DVI) then list this only under the connector section. You can discuss the interface aspect under the connector section if need be. In other words I'm suggesting a connector centric approach to this article.