Tempest Posted January 26, 2003 Share Posted January 26, 2003 Ok I've been trying to follow the instructions for making an S-Video cable for my Atari XE, but I can't figure out how to hook up the wires. http://www.geocities.com/atarimods/svideo.html The problem is I have one of those generic all-in-one S-video cables with the three RCA jacks (yellow, red, white) and the S-Video cable. I cut the end off the cable and there are four wires. Three of the wires hook up to the three RCA jacks and the fourth wire (black) hooks to one of the pins in the S-Video cable. What wires do I connect to the pins in the DIN connector? HELP! Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 26, 2003 Share Posted January 26, 2003 Do you know which wire is for the composite connection? That's the one you don't need. If you have an old Commodore monitor to test with that would be ideal. You would just plug in the various cords until you figured out which was which. Since you've already cut the RCA ends off of the cables you will need to use a continuity tester to see which wire goes to which pin on the 5 pin din. After you know that, then you can use the chart, on the page you refrenced, to hook the wires up to the S-Video 4 pin mini din connector. Also, don't forget that there is an audio connector on the 5 pin din as well. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 27, 2003 Author Share Posted January 27, 2003 I didn't cut off the RCA connectors, just the put that goes into the machine (where I'm putting my DIN plug). Using a tester I figured out that each of the wires seems to correspond to one of the RCA plugs (White to White, Yellow to Yellow, and Red to Red). The Black wire seems to connect to PIN 4 of the S-Video connector (Color). I can't find any that correspond to PIN 3 (Luma). Any ideas? Also when I need to connect one of the sound plugs which one do I use (Red or White)? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 OK, you have me confused now. I just reread your original message and I'm still not sure what you're talking about. Is the cable you are cutting up one of those Atari to Commodore monitor cables, with a 5 pin din on one end and three or four RCA plugs at the other, or something totally different? Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 27, 2003 Author Share Posted January 27, 2003 No no, I'm trying to splice a 5 DIN plug onto a S-Video cable for a modern game system. So basically I cut off the plug that would go into Gamecube/PS2/X-Box and now I'm trying to hook in a 5 DIN plug. When I cut the cable it had four wires inside. Three went to the RCA plugs (Red, White, Yellow), and the back one went to PIN 4 of the S-Video connector (Color). I'm following the instructions exactly and I understand them, but I can't seem to find the wire that goes to the LUMA of the S-video plug. Does this make any sense? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Ah, I've got it now. It sounds like the cable you have is supposed to output S-Video, composite and stereo audio. Check the wire that goes to the yellow (composite) RCA jack to see if it is luma as well. They could have been cheap and used the wire for both of them. If that's not it then I'm not sure what to tell you. It would definitely need the luma line to display S-Video. I assume you have stripped the outer casing back far enough to make sure there isn't another wire? Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 27, 2003 Author Share Posted January 27, 2003 Nope the yellow wire doesn't go to anything but the yellow plug. I don't know what the heck is going on, but the none of the other pins correspond to any of the other wires. There's gotta be a Luma signal somewhere. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Strange. On the wire that goes to the croma pin, is it a thicker cable than the others? Sometimes they bundle two in one for the s-video cable. You might check that. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 27, 2003 Author Share Posted January 27, 2003 Yeah I was thinking that too, but it doesn't seem to be. It's really odd. Maybe if I scan the damn cable you can see what I'm talking about. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrizzLee Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Slightly off-topic here.... Is the pin-out for the XEGS the same as with the Atari XE line of computers? I'd be interested in making an S-Video cable for my XEGS if this would work. I have my 800 hooked up to S-Video, but would rather use my XEGS. If I can, I am interested in seeing how Tempest resolves his problem. I'd be doing the same thing. I can pick up these A/V-S-Video cables from Target for a few bucks. It is so eay lop off the end and re-wire them. Thanks for any help. -Lee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 27, 2003 Author Share Posted January 27, 2003 Ok I've been talking things over with my friend and I think my problem is that I'm missing a wire somehow. When I cut the cable open there were four wires: Three corresponded to the three RCA composite video jacks (Yellow, Red, White) and one corresponded to the Chroma signal on the S-Video jack. Now all I can guess is that: 1. I'm missing a wire for the Luma pin on the S-Video jack -or- 2. The Luma signal is being carried by the yellow RCA composite video wire. Now 2 doesn't make alot of sense and it doesn't test that way with my meter and unless I'm blind there isn't an extra wire hiding somewhere in the cable. So now I'm completely confused. Just in case I ever do get this figured out, there's one other question I have: Does it matter which audio wire I use (Red or White) when I hook it to the DIN plug? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 uhmm...composite video only takes one wire, yellow. S-video takes two wires chroma and luma. the others are generally audio (of course there is the + and - inside those wire cases-outer and inner...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Ok, I see, your icluding in the "composite" RCA the left and right audio. Then there should be the two wires for S-video, your missing one? If that chord works properly with the original equipment that it was designed for, then they must be using the composite wire for the other S-video wire, doubling it's use. In other words, a very cheaply made cable. The white audio wire is generally set up for mono if the red wire is not plugged in (the white gets both left and right channels pumped into it in this instance), if you use the red wire, you'll only be getting half the sound from stereo sources, although with the 8-bit, this probably doesn't matter since it's mono to begin with...which brings up another question; since the 8-bit only has one mono channel, what do you have the other stereo channel plugged into? could this be your missing Luma wire that your mistaking for a non-existant audio wire? Maybe the cable you have only has one mono audio channel... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Ok I've been talking things over with my friend and I think my problem is that I'm missing a wire somehow. When I cut the cable open there were four wires: Three corresponded to the three RCA composite video jacks (Yellow, Red, White) and one corresponded to the Chroma signal on the S-Video jack. Now all I can guess is that: 1. I'm missing a wire for the Luma pin on the S-Video jack -or- 2. The Luma signal is being carried by the yellow RCA composite video wire. Now 2 doesn't make alot of sense and it doesn't test that way with my meter and unless I'm blind there isn't an extra wire hiding somewhere in the cable. So now I'm completely confused. Just in case I ever do get this figured out, there's one other question I have: Does it matter which audio wire I use (Red or White) when I hook it to the DIN plug? Tempest I would agree, unless you can find the luma wire, you're stuck. No, the audio wire doesn't really matter but the standard convention is Red = Right, White = Left. The easy way to remember is that red and right both start with R. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Slightly off-topic here.... Is the pin-out for the XEGS the same as with the Atari XE line of computers? I'd be interested in making an S-Video cable for my XEGS if this would work. I have my 800 hooked up to S-Video, but would rather use my XEGS. If I can, I am interested in seeing how Tempest resolves his problem. I'd be doing the same thing. I can pick up these A/V-S-Video cables from Target for a few bucks. It is so eay lop off the end and re-wire them. Thanks for any help. -Lee Doesn't the XEGS only have an RCA composite out instead of the 5 pin din? You would probably have to open it up and find the proper connections to solder a connection to if you wanted it to output S-Video. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 27, 2003 Author Share Posted January 27, 2003 I have something that kind of looks like this: http://www.saitekusa.com/usa/prod/gcsvideo.htm I think what I need to do is get a plain S-Video cable without the damn composite video jack and hopefully it will work right. There are only four wires inside that cable and only one goes to the S-Video jack. Where's the Luma? Damned if I know or care anymore! Just out of curiosity, is there a way to tell if the composite video wire is doubling for the Luma? If it was shouldn't it correspond to the Luma pin on the S-Video jack? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 I have something that kind of looks like this: http://www.saitekusa.com/usa/prod/gcsvideo.htm Just out of curiosity, is there a way to tell if the composite video wire is doubling for the Luma? If it was shouldn't it correspond to the Luma pin on the S-Video jack? Tempest Yeah, sure there's a way...hook it up to the luma and see if it works! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 Ok I've got the right kind of cable now (a normal Audio/S-Video cable), but the instructions I was using don't mention what to do with the audio wire. I assume it goes to one of the other pins, but which? Speaking of pins, if there's two video wires, one audio, and a ground, what's the other pin used for? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted January 28, 2003 Share Posted January 28, 2003 Doing a quick search on google, I found this, maybe it helps. 3 1 5 4 2 1. Composite Luminance 2. Ground 3. Audio Output 4. Composite Video 5. Composite Chroma (not on 800XL,1200XL; grounded on 600XL) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted January 28, 2003 Share Posted January 28, 2003 Speaking of pins, if there's two video wires, one audio, and a ground, what's the other pin used for? Tempest Composite out. Mitch http://atari7800.atari.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 Ok now I'm all confused again. According to the instructions that I was looking at I connect the two S-Video signals (Chroma and Luma), Ground, and one audio wire. Now I have three wires on my cable: two S-Video, and one audio. How do I hook up the other two pins? If the one is composite out I don't need that right? How do I ground the other pin? Sorry if this all sounds really stupid, but I'm new to this. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted January 28, 2003 Share Posted January 28, 2003 You can leave the composite floating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 You can leave the composite floating. Gotcha. How do I ground the other pin? Incidentally this site offers a good description on how to do this: http://www.howell1964.freeserve.co.uk/Atar...800XL_Video.htm Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted January 28, 2003 Share Posted January 28, 2003 That looks like the way to do it, just follow those instructions and you should be golden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 Ok this may sound stupid, but is there a ground wire I have to connect to pin 2 or what? How do I ground it? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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