Page 1 of S-Video

Hi all, Could someone tell me what a S-Video lead is for? I have a hole for it on my tv, an hole on my video and on my DVD i think there is one on my amp too.

Everythin I buy has this yellow lead yet i dont actually know what it does!!
Could someone enlighten me!?
I have always connected through Scart for TV and DVD and Digital for amp!

Thanks

Jon

s-video is arguably the best connection for watching your dvds. its beteween that and RGB scart. everyone will have their preferences and often it depends on your tv too with some supporting one better than the other.
the yellow lead is part of a composite connection, basically a crap connection that i doubt many people use. why it comes as standard is beyond me!

S-Video is a video-only signal (i.e not audio) transferred via a 4-din plug.

Generally, if your TV supports RGB via SCART (i.e. including audio) that is the best route to take, although "beauty" (i.e. the picture) is in the eye of the beholder : you could always give it a whirl.

S-Video basically splits the video signal into brightness and colour (luminance and chrominance), resulting in less interference when hooking up to a TV set. RGB, however, splits the signal into Red, Green and Blue video signals, and is (supposedly) the better of the two.

And as for video-switching via your amp : don`t bother : the best route to take is always direct from video source to video display. Adding an extra dimension (plumbing it thru an amplifier) just adds further possible interruptions and distortions to the video signal.

EDITED (posted same time as Stoney !) : just goes to prove that everyone has their own opinion over which is best : RGB and S-Video. It`s one of the longest running arguments in home cinema, along with which is best : optical or coaxial digital cable.

This item was edited on Friday, 14th June 2002, 17:41

There are various ways of shifting a video signal around from one place to another. In rough order of ascending quality:

Composite - a yellow phono (RCA) connector
SVideo - looks almost like a keyboard or mouse connector
RGB - Signal seperated into red, green and blue
Component - again split into 3, but differently (can`t remember off hand what they are, and can`t be bothered to find out at the mo` - sorry!) - only top end tellys have this one,

Often TVs will have 3 phono inputs - red and white for audio right and left, plus yellow for composite video. They may also have the svideo connection.

The scart makes most of this redundant, really, as composite, svid and rgb can all be passed through by scart (as long as you have a fully wired scart cable).

I think you`d only need to use them if your dvd player didn`t have scart out, or for camcorder input (hence these connectors are often on the front of the tv, so you can plug your camcorder in).



EDIT > post begun before the others, so sorry about the semi duplication.

This item was edited on Friday, 14th June 2002, 17:54

It`s like waiting for a bus around here. Nothing for ages and then three come along at once :-)