VGA to S-Video adapter

[SwiftWind]

VGA TO S-VIDEO OR RCA ADAPTER

What do you think? Do these adapters really work? any catch?

 

[SwiftWind]

anyone?

I'm probably going to just buy a cheap video card with s-video...but I'm still curious about this thing.

 

[SonicIce]

I think it only works with some laptops that support s-video through the vga port. Or for some projectors that accept s-video thu the vga port. it won't work on most video cards because they output an RGB signal not Y/C which s-video uses. you would need a transcoder and the quality wont be that great. what are you trying to do, hook up your pc to your tv? i think getting a new videocard with s-video out would be the best plan. they're not very expensive.

 

[Peter]

Exactly. These are not converting anything, they're for graphics cards (or notebooks) that are able to output an SVideo signal through the VGA jack.

 

[Lord Banshee]

I think the only way it would work is if the graphics card used the to no connectors on the vga pins for Luminance and Chrominance but i am not sure if any graphics cards would do this and i've never seen it work.

VGA Connector:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VGA_connector

SVideo Connector:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Video

So i guess i am curious on how this cable is built, if anyone buys one see which pins go where to one side to the other.

 

[Peter]

No they don't. What actually happens is the graphics chip detects the presence of a TV (via the specific impedance) on one or two of the RGB signal lines for Composite or SVideo, and then switches to that mode.

This is exactly the same wiring and mechanism as with a separate TV-out plug, by the way.

 

[Lord Banshee]

Interesting, have any links to that? Just wondering as those RGB are output pins and i am wondering how it can detect the impedance of the component? From what you are saying it would have to use the return pin too right? For example,

So it sends a voltage to Pin1(R out) and detects the voltage at Pin6(R return) and from the voltage at Pin6 it can it can figure out what what the loss of voltage is and therefore tell what kind of device it connected. Is this what you are saying?