What are component cables for?

[wiicanada]

My family recently bought a sony flatscreen tube tv, not plasma or anything by any means. It's a nice unit, but I'm wondering if the component cables would make my wii games look better. What are these things and what do they do for the quality??

 

[White-Wolf]

they let you play the wii in progressive mode rather then interlaced.

Progressive is more like celluloid film and interlaced is when two fields phase in and out. Progressive looks better but your tv has to support it. Interlaced was use to save broadcast bandwidth when tv first came out. It has only now within the last few years been updated to be more like film.