Newsgroups: sci.engr.television.advanced
Subject: Re: S-video problem
References: <[email protected]>
[email protected] (Andre Silva) writes:

> I've recently bought a notebook from Toshiba with a GeForce 2 GO
> graphics card, a DVD-ROM and a S-Video output. Since my TV only
> accepts RCA or SCART, I bought a S-video -> Scart adapter. But I only
> get black and white image on my TV! Is this a problem of the adapter
> or the TV?

Most propable the TV is the problem. It either does not 
support S-video or it support that but you did not know how
to turn this feature on.

SCART interface on typical TVs and VCRs supports typically composite
video format in all cases. Practically all TVs support RGB in at least
in one of their SCART interfaces. There is a way to carry S-video in
SCART connector (there are connector adapters and cables for this
connection), but not all TVs support this. To be able to use S-video
on TV through SCART you need to make sure that your TV supports
S-video, you use a SCART connector which supports S-video (on some TVs
only one of SCARTS supports this) and you have S-video input mode
enables in the TV. If you have any of those wrong, you easily end up
getting no picture or get just S-video picture. When wveryhting works
and is pupported, you get a nice S-video with all colors and full
details through SCART connector. 

One solution: 
Buy or build an adapter which converts S-video to composite video
and then connect this to your TV using that SCART adapter. This
will give your picture with colors.
You can buy such S-video->composite video adapter from
www.svideo2rca.com or you can find plans how to build your own at
www.epanorama.net circuits section.

> Then, I used a S-VHS video I had, which has S-Video input and output,
> and the image appeared ok in TV with colors. "Great", I thought to
> myself when I saw that,

That VCR did the necessary conversion from S-video to a
video format properly supported by yout TV (most propablt 
composite video)

>  but when I started winDvd to play a DVD movie,
> the image went unstable... the colors were always balancing between
> low contrasts and high contrasts/ saturations, and periodically there
> was a momentary loss of signal.
>
> When I exited winDVD, everything came back to normal. The image became
> stable again. What could this problem be? 

What you just saw was caused by the Macrovision copy protection.
This protection is designed to act this way when you try to
record the video material from the DVD disk to tape on VCR.
On many VCRs this protection also screws up the video material
when it just goes through the VCR (no attempt to record it).

> I just would like to say
> that the notebook was always plugged to the AC power, and the playback
> of DIV-x movies shows no problems. 

DIV-X movides do not have that annoying copy protection system in them.

> A little curiosity is that when
> windvd starts to play a DVD movie, the screen goes blank for a second
> and then shows the unstable image.
> 
> Thanks for your patience to read all this text,

-- 
Tomi Engdahl (http://www.iki.fi/then/)
Take a look at my electronics web links and documents at 
http://www.epanorama.net/