SCART to S-Video - distorted picture

[dponsford]

Afraid I have a bit of a dumb question, which I think I already know the answer to, having just bought a SCART to S-Video cable (no phono)

I was hoping to use it to connect to my AV Amp, which in turn connects to my TV using Component.

When I do this, the picture is distorted. It's still distorted if I connect directly to the TVs S-Video socket.

Have I been a bit naive and should have bought a SCART to Composite cable to connect to the Amp, or should this work?

Thanks in advance, dp

[katman]

Tivo doesnt output S-Video so you need either an RGB to Svideo converter (www.js-technology.com for the best ones), or A SCART to Phono cable to feed Composite into your AV amp.

The reason the picture is distorted is that you are feeding the Amp Composite Video as the Luma part of an S-Video input but instead of feeding Chroma, you are actually feeding the RED of the RGB signal.

[dponsford]

Many thanks, I thought I was being dumb.

A follow up question, if I may?

Given that I currently output RGB via SCART directly to the TV will I be compromising the quality of my picture if I start to output composite via the Amp instead?

Cheers. dp

PS Anyone need a SCART to S-video (only) interconnect (Profigold 1.5m long) :rolleyes:

[blindlemon]

Given that I currently output RGB via SCART directly to the TV will I be compromising the quality of my picture if I start to output composite via the Amp instead?Yes, but depending on your TV it may actually look better, subjectively speaking.

My Panasonic TV doesn't handle raw RGB very well - I think it just dumps it out to the screen with little or no enhancement, whereas composite, S-video and component sources get the full treatment - so although it's not 100% as sharp as RGB, composite looks nicer, with smoother, richer colours and a more 'cinematic' feel to the picture. However, as I said, it's entirely subjective and there's no doubt that RGB is technically the better option.

If your amp can switch component signals and you don't use the aux or vcr passthrough buttons on your TiVo remote then you might want to check out the component via SCART output (http://archive2.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=230291) hack.

[dponsford]

Yes, but depending on your TV it may actually look better, subjectively speaking.

My Panasonic TV doesn't handle raw RGB very well - I think it just dumps it out to the screen with little or no enhancement, whereas composite, S-video and component sources get the full treatment - so although it's not 100% as sharp as RGB, composite looks nicer, with smoother, richer colours and a more 'cinematic' feel to the picture. However, as I said, it's entirely subjective and there's no doubt that RGB is technically the better option.

If your amp can switch component signals and you don't use the aux or vcr passthrough buttons on your TiVo remote then you might want to check out the component via SCART output (http://archive2.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=230291) hack.

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for your input.

My AV Amp is outputting Component to my Panny TH37PX60 and my plan was to have just the one video cable between TV and Amp, hence SCART to composite or s-video into the Amp, as my Yammy Amp only has 2 Component in sockets, currently taken up with DVD & PS2

I have a mono-directional Composite to SCART cable (the wrong direction) is their anyway I can easily re-wire this to change the direction to be from SCART to Composite, so I can check out the quality difference without buying another cable :)

I guess I could look at a component switch to effectively give me more component sockets, but I was thinking that I probably wouldn't get any great return for the effort.

One last thing, should I go to the effort of setting up Mode 0 on the TiVo? Will I really notice a difference compared to making my recordings in Best quality.

Thanks in advance, dp

[katman]

I have a mono-directional Composite to SCART cable (the wrong direction) is their anyway I can easily re-wire this to change the direction to be from SCART to Composite, so I can check out the quality difference without buying another cable :)

Yes,

Shift the following wires

Right Audio from 2 (right in) to 1 (right out)
Left Audio from 6 (left in) to 3 (left out)
Composite Video from 20 (Video in) to 19 (video out)

No need to move any ground connections.

Full pinouts on my website
http://www.diyha.co.uk/electronics/scart.html

HTH

[dponsford]

Thanks katman, I'll give that a go.

Now where did I leave my soldering iron :rolleyes:

dp

[SteveA]

You may not need a soldering iron! On some SCART plugs you can remove the actual pins with the wires still attached - you'll need a sewing needle or something similar to push the tiny latching peg in on the pin, while carefully pulling it out by the attached wire.

I've swapped many SCART pins around using this method ;)

[dponsford]

Even better!

I shall investigate forthwith

Cheers dp

[TCM2007]

You are very likely to see a noticeable quality degradation going from RGB to composite. I'd be reasonably surprised if the amp upconverted composite to component, but I suppose it might.

[katman]

You are very likely to see a noticeable quality degradation going from RGB to composite. I'd be reasonably surprised if the amp upconverted composite to component, but I suppose it might.

I was looking at the spec of an amp a couple of weeks ago that did just that.

Composite or S-Video >>> Component

It also did

Composite >> S-Video
S-Video >> Composite

Yamaha RX750 or DSP-AX750

[dponsford]

I was looking at the spec of an amp a couple of weeks ago that did just that.

Composite or S-Video >>> Component

It also did

Composite >> S-Video
S-Video >> Composite

Yamaha RX750 or DSP-AX750

I have the Yammy DSP-AX757SE which does exactly this. I'm passing it output from my DVD & PS2 via component, S-Video from my PC & Composite from the TiVo. All are played out to the Panny using a single 3m Component cable.

I have rewired my mono directional SCART to composite, didn't need to solder (Tahnks SteveA) and all now works.

First impressions:

Overall picture quality doesn't seem to have changed (lets face it SD material through TiVo to a 37 inch Plasma isn;t going to be that great ... noticeable though is a difference in the way whites are displayed in the TiVo menu and other areas, such as station logos. They look very sharp, but also seem to have a little 'noise', if that is the right description, certainly not the same as when using RGB SCART directly to the set.