The component system comes in several different varieties. The red, green, and blue signals determine the brightness of their respective colors, and the sync signal determines where on the screen the colors exist. This is the system used in the SGIs and the Macs.
Component is very high quality, but is very awkward to deal with outside the computer.
By heavily processing the RGBS signals in a color encoder, one single, complex video signal may be produced with most of the information in the original RGBS picture. This composite signal, even though quite a bit lower in quality than the original RGBS, has certain attractions. It travels down a single wire, it can be recorded on a video tape machine, and it can be broadcast. This is the system used in the BetaCam edit room and much of Video Village. An electron beam is directed across the face of the tube, scanning from left to right, top to bottom, much like one reads a book.