weird video-out problem on 6600gt

[Lummox]

so, i go to connect my msi 6600gt agp card to my tv today via its output dongle. it has connections for component out, composite in/out, and svideo in/out. i connected the composite out to my tv and the picture was black and white!?!?!? i can't figured out how to correct it! can anyone help me?

[ejeffers]

are you using the right Pin-out cable? With that video card, you would probably need an 8-pin video cable.

[Lummox]

hmm, i'm kind of confused. i have the dongle that came with the card connected to it. i'm not sure what you mean, i'm using just a standard composite video cable you'd buy at a local radioshack. it's got one 8 or 10 pin connector on the motherboard, with a cable that connects to it that has all the aforementioned outputs.

[csy]

There is an Nvidia FAQ covering this exact problem:

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidi..._topview=1

In short, the driver is outputing the wrong video format to the TV and the above link explains where in the settings to change the format.

Alternatively, there is a remote posibility is that the video card thinks you are using S-video because the composite out is in parallel with the S-video "Y" signal (black and white), but the card should auto-detect composite/s-video and send signals accordingly. Here is a section of the latest release notes (more pertaining to S-video problems but may apply to you).

NVIDIA drivers differentiate an S-video TV from a composite TV by searching
for 75-Ohm loads on the chrominance and luminance lines. If the driver detects only one such load, it assumes that it has a composite TV and drives both chroma and luma onto that line. This approach allows both types of TV to display in color. Unfortunately, some S-video TVs do not apply the correct load to both lines, causing the driver to detect an S-video TV as a composite. The driver, in turn, sends the lower quality signal to the S-video TV. To work around this problem, use the Control Panel to override the “Auto-select” feature. This can be done following these steps:
1 In the Settings tab of the Display Properties Control Panel, click Advanced.
2 In the nView tab, click Device Settings and click Select Output Device.
3 In the Device Selection tab, click the TV option.
4 Change the “Video output format” to S-video

[ejeffers]

oh woops
i thought you were using an S-video Cable, Sorry. Well I really dont know then, The above post by CSY looks pretty helpful. Its just that I've had the same problem with my TV-out, and I use S-video, so i just assummed...

[dazzyb2k3]

Hi Lummox,

If you decide it's not the driver settings then how old is your TV? I had an old Sony that would only give me B&W from any TV out source. I tried everything you could think of but turned out it was the TV itself. After a bit of research on on the net it seems that it's quite common with TV's more than about 5 years old.

I finally solved it with a cable from these guys:

http://www.svideo.com/svideoscart.html

Another possible fix here but I never tried it

http://camp0s.altervista.org/sVideo/how_to.htm

[ddrawley]

There is an issue with 8x.xx rev drivers and composite out. I had success with 78.01.

Just a word of caution for NVidia 6x00 users.
The 81.95 drivers do not work with component out.
The 78.01 drivers work fine.
It took me a while to sort out but I confirmed this with other forums.