Yep, some of the crappier TVs over the last 15 years just made using S-Video worse. Seen it, didn't bother to explain it. I've even changed out the less expensive S for the oxi free, shielded, xignifin coated, chrome plated stuff and no luck.

Just try 'em both, that's all I'm saying.

Hey dude, you got an LCD TV? Sounds like it just fell out of a new box. Let's try the component first. S-Video? Kinda like comparing a chihuahua bite with that of a T-rex. Well, you know, sortof...

Buy a new DVD player. Fromyour other thread you bought this tv online without the first clue what to do with it. This is why saving a few hundred bucks for a no warranty high end tv isn't the wisest thing to do.

Get a newer DVD player with at least component video out. They are really expensive though, like 75 bucks so search online for the best price.

S-Video is a superior connection, period.
LD is the exception, not the rule.

Sources that maintain seperate signal paths for Luminance and chrominance include DSS (including NTSC only systems), DVD, and HDTV.
DVD and HDTV take that one step farther and store as color difference, aka Component, aka Y, Pr, Pb.

Component is NOT red, blue, and green.
That is yet another format altogether, RGB, which is something entirely different and pretty much a dying format as CRT technology fades into obscurity.

Component is Y (luminence), Pb (chrominance minus blue), and Pr (chrominance minus red).

The difference between NTSC component and S-Video is actually pretty slight, the color decoders in the sources and in the sets combine the differentiated signals back into a unified chrominance signal. This is why NTSC channels on certain HD-DSS systems look BETTER on the S-Video output than on the Component output...

The largest difference is seperating the luminence and chrominance, which S-Video does just as well as Component.

If you have an old DSS box on a bedroom set that had S-Video inputs, use them, you can get a picture nearly as good as a component signal without spending any more money.

I have an old 26" Mits monitor in the office here, and an even older NEC 26" monitor in the bedroom that have S-Video inputs ad I have Dish Network receivers and a DVD player on each set.
It looks great, and the PQ is nearly as good as today's tube sets, and the PQ easily outclasses a composite feed on a new TV.

The easiest way to discern S-Video's dominance over composite is to look at black & white text, video game and DVD credits are a great place to see this...

Many TVs, even TVs with digital comb filters, create a bizarre artifact where you will see pink or reddish anomolies around the text. We KNOW that this is a B&W image, yet we see color. With the Y/C seperation from source to picture from either S-Video or Component, we will not.

This message was edited by 2nd rick on 05/31/05 09:35 ET.

Actually, RGB is three analog signals, one for each color. Component uses a luminance signal (the 'Y' component) like S-video, but the other two lines carry 'color difference' signals, which mathematically derive the colors. 'B-Y' is Blue minus luminance, and R-Y is Red minus luminance. The green is derived from these same equations.

For more reading, do a search for "component video". Here's a site: [Link: projectorcentral.com]

This is still the best and shortest comment in this thread.

Non-component video must be separated into chroma and luma to be displayed; that's just a fact. And it takes a filter to do it. Laser and VCR signals are recorded as composite, so the s-video outputs depend on using a separating filter in the player.

By the way, I have NEVER seen anybody with an SVHS machine who had S-only sources. They had to record from composite sources, such as a TV tuner (which, if it had an s output, had a filter inside of it). Only the signals from prerecorded SVHS tapes and home made tapes recorded on an SVHS video camera were s video "all the way," meaning never combined, never reseparated. The rarity of this might be why s video was not appreciated more widely.

"Whose filter is superior?" If you have (had) an older analog TV tuner, which was receiving a regular NTSC signal, and an SVHS machine, the filter that was used to separate Y and C would be one of these three.

You could have taken s out of the tuner, using its filter, or

you could record NTSC, then use the VCR's filter and s video output, or

you could record NTSC, play back NTSC, then use the TV's filter.

And you would have to set up three different wiring configurations to actually see which one looked best.

As for never having seen NTSC look better than s video, well, I was surprised once or twice to see the Channel 3 signal look better than the NTSC!

Actually Ernie, the comment I made above regarding the seperated sources was that the DSS systems were S-Video "all the way". DVDs are as well.

As you said S-VHS (and Super Beta for that matter) are true seperated Y/C sources, but only if the tape is a "native" S-VHS recording or a recording made from a "native" source. S-VHS recordings from DSS receivers look great, and when played back though S-Video connection are as good as it could be until DSS-Tivo came about, where the DVR actually recoded the bitstream and sent it back through the same decoders the system would have used in real time.

I still have some S-VHS copies of movies I taped from HBO and Showtime that look better than LaserDiscs...
Sound was another matter, but the PQ was good!!


This was a big toss up....
TV tuners, big dish receivers, Laser Disc, VHS, and Beta are all composite sources, and comb filters are required to seperate the luma from the chroma.
Generally, I used the composite connections on these sources except for the aforementioned Pioneer Elite LD players and the nicer sat receivers...
Chapparal receivers looked REALLY good on S-Video.

We also sold a few of the Faroudja VP-100 boxes...
They were like $250 and they were strictly outboard comb filters, but they had adjustments.

Most people used composite all the way through for ease of switching. Switching inputs on the audio equipment and the video equipment got to be a little coumbersome for all but the most ardent enthusiasts, and macros were hard to come by back then.

Well Beck,
You got us into another war of semantics.

You got some very technically oriented responses, but what you should really take from this is that using the best connection for the application is really the most important thing here...

What sources are you running to the TV??

I thought a typical composite signal was only giving us about 240 lines. In practice, when you see bright text, or a referee's black and white uniform flickering with composite, then switch to a decent S feed... I think there is more than a 40 line improvement in the detail.

Digital cable is coming into it through a HD DVR Cable box. When i run a video cable (composite I'm guessing - yellow/white/red) I get a picture, but it's only Black & White... So when i saw the jack for S-Video in both the DVD player and the TV thats when i thought i would ask the question... i'm (obviously) not an audio/videophile butwas hoping that if i ran out and bought and S-Video cable that i would get a color picture from my DVD player... true?

beck

PS... the TV is new, the DVD player is a few years old now.

You should be getting color if the black-&-white image is clear. I'll bet there is an output setting that you need to make in the player, TV, or both. Read the manuals!

Beck, the red and white are the stereo audio signals; only the yellow connectors matter here (for video). You should try another cable first, to rule out the R/W/Y cable being bad.

You should be getting color if the black-&-white image is clear. I'll bet there is an output setting that you need to make in the player, TV, or both. Read the manuals!

You can use the red or white (turn stuff off when changing cables) as a test. The S-video cable can replace the yellow for video, but you'll still need the red and white (unless you use digital (optical or coax) for audio).

However, for best image, consider component, which both player and TV should have if they're hi-def. This can also be tried with the existing R/W/Y cable, but for long-term, you'll want a decent R/G/B (or Y/Y-B/Y-R) cable

there is no reason composite should be B&W. If it is the problem is either in the TV or the DVD player. One thing to make sure (don't know about LCD TVs, but the function exists in most projectors) that if you can pick the type of signal (NTSC, SECAM, PAL....) to pick the same one as outputted by the DVD player.

That 400 vs.440 lines of resolution comes from my days selling VCR's years and years ago (that old friction based technology). I'm just trying to sound intelligent.

We used to use "lines of resolution" so we didn't have to explain the real reason why the picture was better (or actually know why for ourselves).

Now after all the years of hype and jargon, I spend more time looking at the TV picture to determine if it looks great. After all, who wouldn't disagree that the first several years of HDTV could have been renamed "the emporer and his new clothes"?
(there was really no HD and SD on an HDTV looked worse than the cheapest SD TV)


This message was edited by Steve Garn on 06/02/05 04:34 ET.

I have run into this a couple of times with customers on lcd tvs. The jacks are spaced so close together on some of these tvs that customers inadvertently plug(are just aren't paying attention) them composite into component. This could also explain why you are getting black and white off of dvd. If you are getting sound, then I am wrong, but if you have yellow plugged into green, then you would be getting black and white.

Tom & Steve,
We were fed that line of crap from the video manufacturers.
They used marketing BS instead of real scientific terms back then.

Remember Hitachi, Mistubishi and others touting 800 and 1000 lines of resolution from an NTSC big screen in the 80s and 90s?? It was a BS rating on one portion of the system, like the maximum line resolution of the lens assembly or something.

VHS vs. Beta was the first time I remember lines of resolution being brought up a lot, and then with the introductions of S-VHS and Super Beta it reached a high point of BS.

The actual capacity of the tape to record and playback the information was always the limitation, not the connection. This is why SP was better than EP, but who ever used SP or a regular VHS recorder??
It's like the FPS speed control on a reel to reel recorder set the sound quality on that format.

S-VHS and Super Beta tapes are more dense and record the luma seperate from the chroma, S-Video cable just enables that to happen without the losses and damage from a comb filter, it's not the cable that raises the resolution capability, it's the tape itself.

Many of us were taught to recognize the difference in resolution by the connection, and not the tape/recorder, which is why a lot of old timers call S-Video cables "S-VHS cables" or "Super VHS cables".

NTSC is 480 lines/interlaced. Sometimes you will see 525 lines/interlaced used, but this is before overscan. 480 lines/interlaced is universally recognized term for the resolution of NTSC. I have seen breakdowns that show the resolution capacity of the various transmission/delivery methods (broadcast TV, analog cable, VHS, Beta, LD, etc.) but I don't put a lot of faith in those as accurate, especially in regard to broadcast.

Technically, a composite cable brings in the same 480i NTSC source signal that the S-Video cable brings in, it's just in better condition and doesn't have to go through a lossy filter at both the source and display end.

I have seen broadcasts that looked as sharp and crisp as S-VHS or even better, when some of these experts claim that broadcast has a considerably lower capability of resolution. The combination of source material, cameras, etc. being manioulated by the broadcasting equipment and sent to the transmitters and then to your TV's tuner are what really set the level of actual resolution.

The "garbage in, garbage out" rule applies here, as well as the "weakest link in the chain" law.

What strikes me is how much better standard NTSC broadcasts are now that they are downconverted from ATSC (HDTV).

As I said, I have an old Mits 26" monitor in the office here.
When I am watching off air, I am floored at how good the Cubs games are on the plain old tuner. (my partners don't read/post here as much, so they don't know I regularly write myself on home office duty during afternoon games)

Tochigi's detailed post about spatial and temporal nature of digital camb filters and the ability to better deal with dot crawl and overlap errors is very impressive and about as in-depth as any I have seen.
I knew what to look for as far as overlap error and dot crawl, but I didn't really know what processes made digital comb filters superior to analog in seperating or combining the color from the b&w.
I just knew enough to bypass the comb filter altogether if I could.

Thankfully most companies talk in real terms these days. 720P, 1080I, etc.
Although I am not sure that I like it that a tweak-o enthusiast that spends 8 hrs. per night on AVS has better info than I do about the gear I am selling to him.

Oh well, we always said an educated customer was our best customer... now we need to teach them to read between the (scan) lines.

S-video and composite video. questions. Depending on the age of your TV.
I would use component video for the DVD. .....please treat yourself to great video imaging. good luck