s video

[manodivx]

i have a tv with composite in but i want to use my svideo option on my video card. composite is way to blurry and the picture is just not what i was hoping for. does anyone know of any adapter or anything i can buy for my tv in order to use svideo? if u know plz tell me

[fisix]

sadly, the only way i've seen this done is to get a vcr with svideo in and then connect the tv to the cable out connection. pretty expensive route. if your tv doesn't have anything other than a composit input and a cable input, you are kinda stuck. most of the adapters i've seen used to pump svideo into a composit connection have uttery sucked.

-fisix

[avih]

i'm ignorant in this area, as i always use composite (both tv-out and capture). however, did anyone actually NOTICED a quality improvement when using s-video vs composite, say on a 2m cable???

my hunch tells me that combining the chroma/luma into the same cable (as in composite) will not have such a visible quality degradation, or am i wrong?

thanx
avi.

[fisix]

2m of svideo will almost undoubtedly look much better to anyone than composite. the exceptions are noted below.

a friend had a 0.5m cable he bought from a 99 cents store, and it looked absolutely awful. have to use good cables.

if the hardware that is separating the luma and chroma for the svideo-out is crappy, then there will be no gain in using the svideo. fortunately, most pc video cards start with the video separated, so you don't have to worry about whats generating the signal, just the cable making the connection and what the monitor is doing internally with it.

a vcr with svideo-out has to internally separate the chroma and luma channels from a broadcast (on an ntsc cable channel, lets say) and send it out the svideo-out. if the vcr has a cheap separation scheme, then you might not notice any difference between the svideo out and the composite out. on a mitsubishi HS-U69 you notice the difference.

component gets the job done, especially with a good cable. svideo is much better, and the next step up is svga->component->HDEFTV (my next jump) and is supposed to be spectacular.

i hope i answered this to your satisfaction, i feel like i'm leaving something out.


-fisix

[Zhnujm]

i have to agree with fisix, you will definitley see a BIG difference even if your composite cable is as short as possible.

[avih]

thx for your answers. guess i'll have to start playing with s-video (i'm currently using a 5-6m composite cable, pal analog output from digital sat decoder). i'm satisfied with my caps, but if it can get even better? i'll sure give it a try.

cheers again
avi

[theReal]

from a digital source like a DV camcorder, find a scene with a very clear blue sky (or something like that). Watch it with composite, then with S-Video connection.
S-Video shows monochrome colored areas so much clearer, you'll notice it even on older tv screens (given the tv has been tv relatively good in the first place).

You'll notice an even bigger difference if you are using a really good 100Hz tv as a monitor. With S-Video, you can suddenly read smaller fonts that had been unreadable with composite.

[canadian_fbi]

while looking through the web just now on this subject i found the following page which had some stuff that might be of help. not exactly sure how you would go about buying anything from this site, but here's the link anyway:

http://www.tributariescable.com/VideoElectronics/

by the way, does anyone know about quality differences when working with long cable lengths? i know it's not good, but with the way my room is laid out i have no choice really but to use a 25 ft. cable. i'm using composite right now because that's the only input our tv has, but want to switch to a tv with s-video as soon as possible, and i'm not sure what the quality difference will be.

[TRILIGHT]

I don't know what the specs are exactly but I made a custom 50ft S-Video cable and did not notice any degradation at all. I have always noticed a marked improvement with S-Video over composite. I use it for my DirecTiVo, DVD player, and when capturing via the Pinnacle DVD1000 card. Perhaps there would be a smaller difference if you were using a poorly made S-Video cable vs. high-quality composite cables on a small crappy TV where the difference is hard to tell. However, every application I've ever used it in, the S-Video was obviously better. Unfortunately, I have to buy a new TV before I get to use the component out on my DVD player. :( I'm hoping to see a quality improvement over S-Video. :)