RCA Y-Splitters?

Question

I am currently in the process of purchasing a capture card for my computer to record games I play on Xbox 360. I'm pretty sure on everything I need to get, but was wondering about the RCA Y-splitters. What I'm looking at is a 1 male to 2 female cable.

If I hook the male end into the capture card, and the cable coming from my xbox into one female end, and a seperate RCA cable into the other female end, and then attach the seperate cable into my tv, will the signal from the Xbox display on the TV?

Consider this: The male end is signal 1, and a the female ends are 2 and 3.

Basically, what I'm wondering is if the splitters work not only by converting signal 1 into signal 2 and 3 and signal 2 and 3 into signal 1, but also by converting signal 2 into signal 1 and 3. (Hope you understood that, it's kind of confusing)

Answer 1

You probably wouldn't be having any doubts if you were connecting the male to the XBox and one female to the TV and one to the capture card. In other words, one in and two outs.

Well, the splitter does the same thing, you are just using the right connector type (male/female), but the signal doesn't care if it is (technically) coming "out" of an "in".

It should work fine unless it is some type of one way splitter (I doubt it for a simple RCA splitter, but I have a coax splitter that I use to split the signal to two subwoofers ... and it is marked as unidirectional).

Answer 2

More than likely you will cause damage to the devices in question since you will lower the overall impedance and potentially damage the input buffer.This will occur over time.  If you intend to do this for long periods of time your best bet is to use a dedicated video distribution amp, which will impedance "match" for you.

A video connection was designed for 75Ω nominal impedance.