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Anyone know where i can get an s-video lead (laptop 4pin) to TV. I.e an s-video connection on both ends of the lead.

Prefer close to our metha (to avoid traffic) but further a field may have to do for now.

Jumbo or Al Ain center will have one for certain. Give them a call or try a Carrefour

Cheers Keith.

I tried carrefour but to no avail.

Where is Jumbo or Al Ain?

Couple of years ago I bought this cable from Carrefour (imported AV accessories section). S-Video to 3 RCA plug. Tried on my HP laptop, but all I could see was only shaky black & white picture with terrible sound. Tried every settings (PAL, NTSC, AUTO) but no help.

Asked HP service center, but all they suggested was to use S-Video to 1 RCA plug. I couldn't find this kind of cable. And I doubt it will work (means it's used only for video signal while the audio is from the laptop?).

My new TV has S-Video port. I'm still looking for S-Video to S-Video cable. Hopefully it will work.

jabbajabba wrote:Cheers Keith.

I tried carrefour but to no avail.

Where is Jumbo or Al Ain?

Jumbo is an electronic store found in most malls. Others are Plug-Ins, Compume and Jackies.

Al Ain Center is a building in Bur Dubai near Musallah Towers off Bank Street. It has plenty of computer shops

KeithL wrote:Jumbo is an electronic store found in most malls. Others are Plug-Ins, Compume and Jackies.

Al Ain Center is a building in Bur Dubai near Musallah Towers off Bank Street. It has plenty of computer shops

I will go and check these out over the weekend - thanks Keith.

xty wrote:Couple of years ago I bought this cable from Carrefour (imported AV accessories section). S-Video to 3 RCA plug. Tried on my HP laptop, but all I could see was only shaky black & white picture with terrible sound. Tried every settings (PAL, NTSC, AUTO) but no help.

Asked HP service center, but all they suggested was to use S-Video to 1 RCA plug. I couldn't find this kind of cable. And I doubt it will work (means it's used only for video signal while the audio is from the laptop?).

My new TV has S-Video port. I'm still looking for S-Video to S-Video cable. Hopefully it will work.

xty - I will try to keep you updated on my progress.

I had the same thing S-Video to 3 RCA but could not get the tv to pick up a signal.

Try Radio Shack at Mall of the Emirates they should have it.

jabbajabba wrote:xty - I will try to keep you updated on my progress.

I had the same thing S-Video to 3 RCA but could not get the tv to pick up a signal.

Thanks. I appreciate it.
Try to do something (signal type, resolution) on your PC/laptop's dual screen settings (PAL/NTSC), the one we use normally for projector presentation (that if your laptop/PC support it). The setting must match the TV settings.

Just some background information:

S-video is video only, audio you will have to take seperate from audio out. If you have a cable from S-video to 3x RCA than you need a tv with 3x video inputs (called component video).
Component video on a TV is not very common, but scart input is found on most TV's. An S-video to Scart can be a good option. But some TV's still cannot handle this because they are not S-video enabled, see quote from the Wikipedia site

S-Video and audio (mono) can be transferred through SCART connections as well. However, it was not part of the original SCART standard, and not every SCART-compatible device supports it for this reason. Also, S-Video and RGB are mutually exclusive through SCART, due to the S-Video implementation using the pins allocated for RGB. Most SCART-equipped televisions or VCRs (and almost all of the older ones) do not actually support S-Video, resulting in a black-and-white picture if such a connection is attempted, as only the luminance signal portion is usable. Generally, a black-and-white picture in itself can also be a sign of incompatible colour encoding--for example NTSC material viewed through a PAL-only device.

There is a solution, adjust the scart, as shown on this homepage from James but that needs some soldering.

Another solution seems to buy a specialized cable, this site guaranteestheir cables will give you a color picture and they ship worldwide.

A S-video cable to 1x RCA (composite) does exist. But the cable should be a little sophisticated inside. Because S-video has 2 signals for video you need a capacitor to convert the signals into 1. If you are a little technical see this site for pinsettings
And again the quality of the cable can make a difference: read this on the Techspot forum

THE FIX! :
I played a good hunch and went to The Source/Circuit City which seems to be the only place I could find a direct S-VIDEO to Composite connector cable 12ft (3.6M)
BRAND NAME :Evolution II Platinum S-Video to Composite shielded cable (approx $30 US )

I went home and unplugged the S-Video to RCA jack adapter dongle and the crappy RCA cable ($5 )

I then plugged the S-Video connector direct to the 7800GT card connector and RCA jack straight into the TV composite plug

Result: OMFG!!! BEA-UTI-FUL crisp quality DVD picture on TV instantly with no settings adjustments and no worries

Conclusion:
It was 99% cheap crappy noisy cable + adapter dongle(?) and 1% Nvidia settings

But then there are also settings that can play a part. See this link for how to activate S-video Output on a computer.

Conclusion, check your settings and be lucky to buy a good cable.

Good luck,


If you are frowning... ok, this comes from a girl....,
but I work at a station's Engineering Department and googling to find detailed explanations is some kind of a hobby.

astridindubai wrote:Just some background information:

S-video is video only, audio you will have to take seperate from audio out. If you have a cable from S-video to 3x RCA than you need a tv with 3x video inputs (called component video).
Component video on a TV is not very common, but scart input is found on most TV's. An S-video to Scart can be a good option. But some TV's still cannot handle this because they are not S-video enabled, see quote from the Wikipedia site

S-Video and audio (mono) can be transferred through SCART connections as well. However, it was not part of the original SCART standard, and not every SCART-compatible device supports it for this reason. Also, S-Video and RGB are mutually exclusive through SCART, due to the S-Video implementation using the pins allocated for RGB. Most SCART-equipped televisions or VCRs (and almost all of the older ones) do not actually support S-Video, resulting in a black-and-white picture if such a connection is attempted, as only the luminance signal portion is usable. Generally, a black-and-white picture in itself can also be a sign of incompatible colour encoding--for example NTSC material viewed through a PAL-only device.

There is a solution, adjust the scart, as shown on this homepage from James but that needs some soldering.

Another solution seems to buy a specialized cable, this site guaranteestheir cables will give you a color picture and they ship worldwide.

A S-video cable to 1x RCA (composite) does exist. But the cable should be a little sophisticated inside. Because S-video has 2 signals for video you need a capacitor to convert the signals into 1. If you are a little technical see this site for pinsettings
And again the quality of the cable can make a difference: read this on the Techspot forum

THE FIX! :
I played a good hunch and went to The Source/Circuit City which seems to be the only place I could find a direct S-VIDEO to Composite connector cable 12ft (3.6M)
BRAND NAME :Evolution II Platinum S-Video to Composite shielded cable (approx $30 US )

I went home and unplugged the S-Video to RCA jack adapter dongle and the crappy RCA cable ($5 )

I then plugged the S-Video connector direct to the 7800GT card connector and RCA jack straight into the TV composite plug

Result: OMFG!!! BEA-UTI-FUL crisp quality DVD picture on TV instantly with no settings adjustments and no worries

Conclusion:
It was 99% cheap crappy noisy cable + adapter dongle(?) and 1% Nvidia settings

But then there are also settings that can play a part. See this link for how to activate S-video Output on a computer.

Conclusion, check your settings and be lucky to buy a good cable.

Good luck,


If you are frowning... ok, this comes from a girl....,
but I work at a station's Engineering Department and googling to find detailed explanations is some kind of a hobby.

Good stuff thanks - also my boss is a female and I work in probably one of the most techy industry's around.

hmmnn,,a lady whose into techie stuff,,my turn on