How great is S-Video inputs?

[TheNemesis]

I'm going to buy one of those 20" Apex "Flatscreen" TV's, and I'm not sure if I should pay quite a bit more ($50) for this which also costs $30 to ship or I can get this for $120 shipped. I'm thinking of doing the second, unless someone can REALLY convince me.

 

[TheNemesis]

I guess one has mono, and one is stereo...Huge difference?

 

[TheNemesis]

Or, a third option would be this for $185 shipped. Still leaning towards the first...

 

[Goosemaster]

s-video is indeed sharper

 

[ufs]

s-video delievers the best quality video, but mind it, it delievers ONLY video. You still need a separate audio cable to get audio.

 

[pulse8]

Originally posted by: ufs
s-video delievers the best quality video, but mind it, it delievers ONLY video. You still need a separate audio cable to get audio.

Isn't component hook-ups higher quality than s-video?

 

[GigaCluster]

RCA is the worst. Then comes S-Video, and it's very decent. The highest quality video nowadays is component video, with a separate cable for red, green, and blue.

 

[Goosemaster]

OF course component is clearer, but it is not available for mediums such as a vcr and Laserdiscs....


COmponent roks...of devices that support it....DVDs basically

 

[Viper GTS]

The difference between composite & s-video is like night & day, the difference between s-video and component is typically only noticeable on larger TV's. I can't see much difference between s-video & component on my 27" Wega, but the difference between s-video & composite is astounding.

Viper GTS

 

[Boogak]

Interesting you asked this today, I just swapped the S-VIDEO cable that goes from my Sony DVD player to my Toshiba 43" rear projection TV with a component video cable because I needed a new S-VIDEO cable to hook up my Dreamcast, so I figured I might as well upgrade my DVD player's connection. And to tell you the truth, I see no difference at all between the S-VIDEO picture and the component video picture.

However, one thing to note is after I switched to the component cable, I popped in my favorite movie of all time (The Matrix) and I immediately noticed the picture was very crappy. The image looked grainy, like enlarging low resolution movie. Stumped, at first I thought I got a defective cable or that I had to configure the component out on my DVD player or my TV. However, it turned out it was because I needed to calibrate my TV's component in setting since it stores component video settings different from antenna and S-VIDEO settings, it was at the TV's default factory settings. So after a quick calibration with Video Essentials, the picture ended up looking the same as before. Just goes to show how much of a difference calibrating your TV correctly makes!