NVIDIA GeForce4 and GeForce FX Personal Cinema Breakout Design
Both the GeForce4 and GeForce FX based Personal Cinema cards use the same 40-pin breakout design, though it is implemented differently on the newer GeForce FX based cards. The difference is the use of male and female connectors and the orientation of the security tab. GeForce4 based cards use a male connector on the card and the GeForce FX, a female connector. The change is due to cost of service support. If pins were to break off the card, the card would naturally need to be replaced. Since the male connector is now on the breakout cable, the cable can be easily swapped out for a new one if damage occurs to the pins. This helps bring the cost of service down, since the card costs a lot more to replace than the breakout cable.
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The other change is to the method of securing the breakout cable to the card. The GeForce4 based Personal Cinema cards have a divot on the bottom side of the 40-pin connector housing that allows the breakout connector to be fastened securely to the card. This was necessary because the loss of signal due to a loose cable during a recording would just be unacceptable. The problem with the orientation of this was that users need to twist their thumb to hold down the security tab to release the cable (on tower systems). Ergonomically speaking, the tab should be on the top side of the cable due to the way things are naturally held in our hands. This has been since corrected for the GeForce FX based Personal Cinema cards. Personally, we prefer the security screw pins that the ATI uses on their breakout cable for the All-in-Wonder 9600 Pro. This is a much simpler and user-friendly method to secure the cable.
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The breakout cable features a second VGA output for dual monitor support because the TV tuner takes up a considerable amount of space. The breakout box on the cable houses composite video input/output, s-video input/output, and composite audio input/output. It would have been preferable to have the video/audio out and in divided into two separate breakout connectors because the video/audio in isn't going to be as common a task as video/audio out, which will always be needed for TV audio. This separation will help save on clutter, should video/audio in not be used.
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