What is the name of the noise that describes horizontal black spikes on bright colors

[BITS]

on a cartoon named "Teen Titans" that i capture, via s-video from my sat box, and some other shows...i am getting black horizontal black spikes on the bright vivid colours.

on "Teen Titans" during the intro, they have the name spelled in brighter colours, and these horizontal black spikes are crawling up and down the letters...looks crappy.

any help on the name of the this problem and/or how to solve it is greatly appreciated.

[jggimi]

Without seeing the image, it sounds like you're seeing interlacing artifacts (combing). Can you include a link to ann image?

[mustardman]

It is a problem that is caused by overdriving the amplifiers - usually it occurs on material you record yourself on VHS or similar. TV stations are usually careful to avoid this problem, but some program material has the brightness/colour/contrast cranked so high (in a lousy attempt to make it look good) that this will occur on broadcast.

Ever noticed how 'government' (or non commercial stations) have a dull looking picture. Commercial stations, and particulary commercials themselves, always seem very "alive". The grass is greener, so to speak!

It is possible you have a bad capture card, but if you see this on your TV as well, then the only way I know of to remove it is with either an AVIsynth or VirtualDub filter. And I don't know of any filters that are written specifically for it either! There are filters for fixing splotches and colour 'spikes' (as you call them). They may work.

MM

[edit] PS: I don't know what it is called, only what causes it.

[lordadmira]

I get this sometimes too and I attribute it to noise in the S-Video cable since it doesn't appear in the TV picture.

[mustardman]

Blimey! Never heard of that happening!

Are you really sure that the S-video cable is to blame (that sounds very suspiciously like the "monster audio cables" line). More like what is driving or receiving the signal!

Is your cable terminated? Is your TV connection viewing the S-video output, or just the composite output?

MM

[lordadmira]

The TV gets an RF feed from the VCR which gets Composite from the Receiver. No streaks there. My TV card (ATI AIW) gets the S-Video directly from the Receiver. The streaks aren't always present but sometimes, mainly on high contrast whites. I blame the cable because, ahem, it's a real hack job and about 50 feet long and unshielded. :D The TV image is way better than what my computer ultimately gets.

LA