S-Video Problems

[tommyb]

Not sure if this is the right forum.

I Have a Sony PCV RZ504 PC. I Use it to record sky via the Giga-Pocket software & hardware. I have been using a composite video lead to record the video and it's been working a treat.

However, the PC also has (2) S-Video ports that are allocated to Giga Pcket also. I tried hoking up an svideo lead to see if the picture quality improved but it juat cam through as black and white!

I am using a standard sky box. When I hook the lead up to a regular lcd screen via svideo the picture is fine so I'm thinking it's a setting within the pc that I'm missing - but I can't find one anywhere.

Any help would be truly appreciated

Many thanks

 

[Andrew Everard]

Is the computer expecting NTSC via s-video and getting PAL? Or indeed only getting composite video via the S-video input? They'd be my favourite explanations.

 

[tommyb]

Cheers Andrew.

I think it may be the cable.

I'm not sure what brand it is - but it's a scart to phono and s-video lead. It has a switch on the scart to switch the direction of the signal.

it has this printed on the cable:

"digital fully shielded high definition pc-ofc interconnect cable for home theatre and digital stereo and hi fi systems"

It works fine when I connect from sky/dvd to my lcd s-video port. When I connect to my pc's s-video or, my media streamer s-video out - the picture is black and white.

Is it possible it's just not compatible with PC/Sony Vaio hardware? I thought s-video is svideo?

Many thanks

 

[Andrew Everard]

Just because a cable can carry S-video, doesn't mean it is carrying it. Check what your source is outputting - video (meaning composite), S-video or RGB. If it's not pure S-video it may flummox your PC input, whereas the TV may be designed to automatically select the video input mode according to the source input.