S-Video to composite not looking so good

[WerewolfTA]

Hi. I got my PVR box up and working. Looks great on a monitor. However, my TV only has coax/RF and composite inputs. My nvida mx4400 only has DB-15 and s-video outputs. So, I got this s-video to RCA converter (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002KR...09?ie=UTF8) because it was cheap and got good reviews, which produces a picture, but not a very good one. I spent an entire evening trying to dial-in a picture and eventually got a passable, though not great, one, using my TV as a secondary monitor. Then, I unplugged the monitor and pushed the PC into my entertainment center, only to see the TV become the primary monitor and all that tweaking out the window, a nice duh moment for me.

So, I could go back and spend hours working on the picture to get something that's only passable. Or I could get a more expensive cable or converter, but I wonder if I'm just wasting my time. Has anybody had any luck with this, or should I just wait until I can afford a new tv that has s-video in?

[Koenie]

I do not think your s-video to converter is to blame here. I dont know about the composite cable though. In my setup i use the same combination with a near perfect picture.

Set the TV as the primary display (this is an often seen remark, I only have the TV connected anyway) and set the resolution to the native resolution of the TV (PAL or NTSC). If you can not do this then 800x600 is the highest resolution you should use simply because this is already more than any TV can do. On the ATI drivers I simply set the overscan which gives practically the same overscan as a standar TV does, I dont know for the nvidia.

Maybe it is also a good idea to search the forums to find out whether your video card has a good enough TV-out.

[csy]

My ATI 9550 has an extra pin on the S-video connector which is a dedicated composite output, which is broken-out to an RCA plug using a genuine ATI S-video to composite adapter. This produces acceptable picture quality, in-line with what you would expect from composte signal.

As an experiment, I had the opertunity to try an after-market S-video to composite adapter (Dick Smith brand) which simply combined the S-video Y and C lines, and it produced a very poor picture.

[nitrogen_widget]

I have a similiar s-video to rca convertor coming in the mail for a g-force card that only has s-video out & a TV with only RCA in. So I don't know how it will perform.

However, I have used one of those s-video/rca RF convertors to get a signal to an older TV that only has a coax input.

The picture is about as good as anything else I plug into it.

[Koenie]

It is correct that the s-video to composite adapters are simple however the should have the 75 OHM RESISTOR which is needed for the composite connection (composite is actually not much more than a standard antenna cable). If the resistor is not there than the cable is very susceptible to noise.

The setup I have is an ATI 7500 with s-video out with such an adapter to composite. This way the picture quality is slightly better than the genuine composite out directly from the video card itself. This is probably due to the fact that in the direct case the resistor sits on the video card and the cable still picks up some noise from inside the computer case. Theoretically it would be te best to run the svideo cable to your TV set and have the conversion to composite over there but therefore you need the oposite (male-female) adapter.

[nitrogen_widget]

I thought it was a capacitor inside the conector.
The schematics i've seen online for making a convertor show a capacitor.

The adaptor I ordered just came in.
It plugs into the back of the tv into the raca jack & then I run a s-video cable from that to the video out on the card.

Once my cpu comes in i'll try it out.

[WerewolfTA]

Thanks for all your replies. I'm glad to hear it's not hopeless. As discretionary funds permit, I'll try some better cabling. Cheers!

Maybe it is also a good idea to search the forums to find out whether your video card has a good enough TV-out.

Somewhere on here I had read a discussion on whether the 440MX could cut the mustard. I remember it being powerful enough, although I don't specifically remember what was said about the quality. I'll take a look.

[WerewolfTA]

Wow. I knew cables could make a difference, but I didn't expect that much of one. I got some decent cables and swapped out, and it's like night and day. The video and sound through the pvr are as good as the coax going right into the TV. I also got a variable-gain RF amplifier, and that helped offset the additional split and even stopped the rolling on my weakest channel.

gbpvr is awesome! I set up the postprocessing.bat to retime and comskip, and was pleasantly surprised when the commercials were automatically skipped with no further effort on my part. The guys at work with their tivo's and comcast dvr's are jealous.

Thanks for your feedback. I wouldn't have thought there would have been that big of a difference just with better cables, and had resigned myself to waiting until I could afford a new TV. I'm glad I asked.

[stefan]

Congratulations