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Second Video card for S-Video out?

net-cat

net-cat

Infernal Kitty
AshleyAshes said:
My Dell Inspiron does that, it has a Radeon 9000 with a 7 pin S-VIdeo port but 4pin S-video cables work out of the box.
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Runefox said:
@net-cat: Ahh, yeah, my Radeon 9600 Pro was like that. I used to use it for that purpose, though it's surprisingly difficult to get that cable oriented by touch in comparison to PS/2 and other mini-DIN connectors.
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Yeah, the Radeon 7500 in my Latitude C640 was the same way.

AshleyAshes said:
Though not all S-Video->Composite adpators work right on it. Uhh, I had a nividia one which when used on this laptop would only generate black and white. I presume that while using the same pinout, what pins did what were different, so it was only getting the greyscale image and not correctly getting the color data off the pins it wanted so it just did black and white. But in looking, his card has a 9pin port which can do all sorts of things, including I think VIVO. I've really only seen 9pin ports on VIVO cards in my exprience.
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I suspect it was actually a problem with the S-Video/composite adapter. There are two components to a NTSC signal, chroma and luminance. Normally, the two are modulated together in such a way that receivers that don't know about chroma (i/e: black and white) don't need to do anything special to ignore it. (That's why weak analog broadcasts would show up in black and white. Luminance is much stronger that chroma. The modern-day equivalent would be HD-Radio.)

This is all well and good, but it leads to poor color quality. To combat this they came up with S-Video, which separates the luminance and chroma onto different lines. The luminance signal isn't actually changed significantly from OTA and composite. In fact, it's pin compatible with composite. The chroma, however, since it no longer needs to be modulated into luminance, is significantly stronger than it is in composite and requires some special circuitry to modulate it back in.

Therefore, the cheap S-Video/composite adapters would simply hook luminance to the composite signal and call it a day. Good ones would take care of the chroma, as well.

Runefox said:
@Ashes: Yeah, the 4-pin vs 7-pin S-video do carry different signals if I remember correctly.
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It's an S-video port with extra pins. The extra pins carried a composite signal because it was cheaper to do that than it was to give everyone proper S-Video/composite adapters. :p
 
AshleyAshes

AshleyAshes

Arcade Snowmew Of Doom
net-cat said:
It's an S-video port with extra pins. The extra pins carried a composite signal because it was cheaper to do that than it was to give everyone proper S-Video/composite adapters. :p
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You can also get 7pin component video adaptors for ATi cards. :p The ports are multipurpose depending on what's connected to them.
 
xcliber

xcliber

HUGS DAMNIT! U no u want 2!
OK, I managed to get some sort of signal throught the s-video port on my Nvidia card. The computer detects the generic TV as a second display when I plug in the S-video cable, and every 2 seconds, the TV flashes (like it's changing resolution), and from the brief flashes of picture, I can make out my desktop background (via extended desktop) on the TV screen, but I can't get it to stay on.

The video card detects the display and lets me set it up accordingly, (ntsc/pal, resolution, frequency, etc.) but I still can't get the picture to stay. It just flashes.

edit:
Also, I did find the adapters and stuff that came with the card. I have an RGB Component adapter that fits that 7-pin port on the card.
 
Runefox

Runefox

Kitsune of the PC Master Race
Ideally, you should set the TV to NTSC, 640x480 resolution, 30Hz interlace (if that option is available). I'm also reading that some S-Video to Composite converters result in a black/white picture (depending on the graphics card; Your card should have come with a converter). I've also been reading that NVidia's DualView doesn't work with S-Video out for whatever reason; You may need to set the output type to Clone. I've ALSO been reading that if you use the Component video dongle that came with your card, plugging the composite cable into the blue connector on the dongle will result in a working display. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.

Oh, and one more thing - Have you updated your drivers? I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet.

Frankly, I'm rather surprised at NVidia now. I wouldn't think TV out on their hardware/drivers would be this complicated.
 
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xcliber

xcliber

HUGS DAMNIT! U no u want 2!
Runefox said:
Ideally, you should set the TV to NTSC, 640x480 resolution, 30Hz interlace (if that option is available). I'm also reading that some S-Video to Composite converters result in a black/white picture (depending on the graphics card; Your card should have come with a converter). I've also been reading that NVidia's DualView doesn't work with S-Video out for whatever reason; You may need to set the output type to Clone. I've ALSO been reading that if you use the Component video dongle that came with your card, plugging the composite cable into the blue connector on the dongle will result in a working display. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.

Oh, and one more thing - Have you updated your drivers? I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet.
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I've tried forcing 640x480 at 30 Hz interlaced, but got the same results as any other configuration.

Using the blue port of the Component dongle is something I haven't tried yet. I'll give it a shot when I get home from work tonight.

And my video drivers are up to date.

If nothing else works, I think I might just get a scanline converter considering the TV isn't going to be used for any high quality video or text viewing anyway.
 
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Runefox

Runefox

Kitsune of the PC Master Race
Reading around a bit more, I get the feeling that the blue connection might work, as ass-backwards as that sounds. :p Let us know how it goes.
 
AshleyAshes

AshleyAshes

Arcade Snowmew Of Doom
In looking at the pinouts, I don't think Nvidia does any form of composite output. Only S-Video or Component output. Where as ATI on SOME CARDS they do s-video and composite output simultaniously with a pinout that is incompatable with normal s-video cable pinouts and other cards that to s-video only.

So I'm pretty sure you won't get composite output from the component cables on a Nvidia card.

I think this is potentially an issue with the RF Modulator thingy, messing up with the autodetection of load on the TV port. The best way would be to rule it out, use S-Video on something that natively takes s-video or use a simple s-video->composite adaptor.

ANd, on a personal note, for gods sake don't use RF for connections. RF is shit and the larger the TV is the shittier it is. What the hell kinda 24" TV doesn't have at -least- composite? How old is this thing?
 
Runefox

Runefox

Kitsune of the PC Master Race
Actually Ashes, believe it or not, apparently 8800's and above actually do pop composite video over the blue. Apparently.
 
AshleyAshes

AshleyAshes

Arcade Snowmew Of Doom
If the card puts out s-video and composite over more than four pins, then it's quite possible that the pinout also does't match a standard S-VIdeo card and what he needs is an adaptor meant for his card.

...I recall suggesting he needed an adaptor from nvidia pages ago. :/
 
Runefox

Runefox

Kitsune of the PC Master Race
AshleyAshes said:
If the card puts out s-video and composite over more than four pins, then it's quite possible that the pinout also does't match a standard S-VIdeo card and what he needs is an adaptor meant for his card.

...I recall suggesting he needed an adaptor from nvidia pages ago. :/
Click to expand...

... Actually, no, the pinout on the card isn't compatible with S-Video, but the breakout cable for Component actually supposedly also provides Composite on the blue lead. ... For... Some reason.

One particular account of it goes like this.
 
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xcliber

xcliber

HUGS DAMNIT! U no u want 2!
It worked! :3

The blue component out doubles as a composite out. It worked perfectly. Thanks a ton Runefox. I don't think I would ever have come across such an interesting solution.
 
Runefox

Runefox

Kitsune of the PC Master Race
AshleyAshes said:
Now begs the question; Why does he have the component dongle for the card but not the s-video/composite dongle for the card?
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Because there isn't one - As I understand it, the card ships with only the component cable, which doubles as a composite cable on the blue wire.
 
hitokage

hitokage

Acinonyx jubatus
@xcliber - Four words, craigslist free stuff classifieds - see here. If you watch your area (which is where I linked), and some of the surrounding areas you may be able to snag a newer TV that has S-video or even component video inputs that is at least the same size or larger then what you have now.

If you want, I can try to watch and maybe grab something for you. I've managed to get a hold of newer TVs, including one working CRT HDTV. I live a little north of Frederick, and not terribly far from Harrisburg.
 
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xcliber

xcliber

HUGS DAMNIT! U no u want 2!
hitokage said:
@xcliber - Four words, craigslist free stuff classifieds - see here. If you watch your area (which is where I linked), and some of the surrounding areas you may be able to snag a newer TV that has S-video or even component video inputs that is at least the same size or larger then what you have now.

If you want, I can try to watch and maybe grab something for you. I've managed to get a hold of newer TVs, including one working CRT HDTV. I live a little north of Frederick, and not terribly far from Harrisburg.
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It's just a short 1-2 hour trip down I-83 right? :cool:

Thanks for the offer, but the point of connecting my computer to my TV was to be able to watch low resolution video and older games on a screen that has a low native resolution. A good chunk of my anime is recorded at 640x480 and sometimes lower. These low res videos look so much better and clearer on a standard def CRT TV than on an HD LCD screen. The TV itself is from maybe the mid to late '90s, so it's not like it's this old black and white, 13-channel dinosaur from the 50s.

I alread have a 22" 1680x1050 LCD computer monitor for modern games and HD video (and will be upgrading that to a 1920x1080, 24" soon).

Getting an HDTV would sortof defeat the purpose of connecting the computer to a standard def TV.

Edit:
OIC. I forgot that some of the most recent CRTs had HD component inputs for 480P. That would be a nice thing to have. :)
 
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Runefox

Runefox

Kitsune of the PC Master Race
Actually, if your anime is low-resolution, whether or not it looks good on a monitor mainly depends on how well your player handles scaling. KMPlayer in particular has an amazing scaler (not enabled by default) that makes content in around 640x480 look quite good, though of course, it can never look that much better than it originally did - Scaling up basically just makes it smoother and more watchable on a higher-resolution monitor (like my 19" HDTV that runs 1440x900). Add in post-processing and a hint of warpsharp and it actually does start to look better at those higher resolutions.
 
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xcliber

xcliber

HUGS DAMNIT! U no u want 2!
I've tried filters and whatnot, but non of them seem to compare to watching it in its original TV resolution (no strechting, scaling or filtering required to make it look nice on a fullscreen 24"-28" inch [I'm not sure how big exactly, but it's considerably larger than my 22" monitor] display).

Edit:
Actually, nVidia's built-in Purevideo filters make a noticable difference in some cases.
 
hitokage

hitokage

Acinonyx jubatus
Actually I would be coming up 15, and it's just a bit over an hour from what I recall. Although meeting someplace public about half-way would be preferred. Normally when I'm up that way it's to go to the car shows in Carlisle with my father.

What I was suggesting wasn't necessarily a HDTV, as those aren't extremely common, but regular SDTV's with component inputs come up in the DC and Baltimore areas fairly frequently (there was a 34" or 36" Sony yesterday).

You could also watch for a 19"+ CRT computer monitor, and get the real old school effect.

Is your current monitor widescreen or normal 4:3/5:4 (squarish/old style)? If your current monitor is widescreen that would be why it seems so much smaller then the TV, as the size of the screen is measured diagonally and widescreen has more width per inch in height - i.e. for a widescreen monitor for every inch tall it is about 1.6" (for 16:10) or 1.78" (for 16:9) wide. Regular monitors/TVs are 1.33" (for 4:3) wide for every inch tall, although there are some monitors that are 1.25" (5:4) for every inch tall.
 
xcliber

xcliber

HUGS DAMNIT! U no u want 2!
Damn that carshow traffic! :V

Current monitor is a 22"-diagonal, widescreen, 16:10.
TV is 4:3. But it's bigger than my monitor in both width and height by several inches. I'm pretty sure it's a 27", I've just never measured.
The TV I've got is fine. The picture is clear/sharp enough that I can easily read the subtitles on my anime. I don't want a smaller screen either. All I wanted was a large screen to watch low-res video/games on without stretching or noticeable pixelation. (640x480 max resolution video. NES, Genesis, and PS1 emulation. etc.) My TV does it perfectly.
 
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