Converting Composite to S-Video?

[Razzie.P]

Anyone have a recommendation (other than "don't") for converting Composite video to S-Video with as little degradation in video quality as possible?

 

I've tried a composite to svid cable and an adapter, but they look awful. I'm not expecting a magical increase in quality, but I need to be able to connect a few gadgets to s-video, and would prefer them at least look close to the original composite quality.

 

Thanks in advance!

[7800fan]

Upscaling from composite to S-Video will always look shit. You need to get native S-Video direct instead of converting. Consoles like Atari 2600 can do S-Video but there's a few that cannot do S-video even with simple mod like NES.

 

Later consoles (16 bits and up) can do S-Video out of the back or (in case of TG-16 and Genesis) with little wiring magic. Or you could tap in RGB or Component and downscale to S-Video. Even many portable systems can be connected to TV. There's McWill mod for GG and Lynx. (there's also older RGB mod for GG but it does not scale GG games to full screen). Turboexpress is basically mini TG-16 and can output with simple mod for composite, S-Video, and RGB. Nomad is the same thing being mini Genesis.

 

There's various convoluted hack for Virtualboy and Gameboy, out of production upgrade for GBA, also mod for DS and 3DS. PSP and Vita already can output to TV.

 

NES, Colecovision, and Intellivisions all need major upgrade to get RGB or other high quality output that can be scaled to nice clean S-Video. I don't know if Odyssey^2 can do anything better than composhit.

 

Vextrex remains the only system that cannot hook up to any conventional TV.

[CatPix]

The colecovision need majoy upgrade? Interesting. I know that the French Colecovision output RGB, thatnks to a different video board. But that might be a component to RGB converting board, as I think the US coleco output component?

Or that might be the same affair than the PAL Intellivision, which received a chip that natively output RGB unlike the US one.

 

I know the Videopac+ (Odyssey 3 output RGB. I can't recall if the Odyssey² can. I know that the Videopac G7200 have a video output, but I never saw any real one, so I can't tell if the output is composite or RGB.

Edited November 13, 2015 by CatPix

[Osgeld]

there is no upscaling from composite to svideo, they are identical signals with the exception of SVIDEO splits the two components of composite (chroma and luma) onto 2 pairs of wires for increased bandwidth thus less signal compression

 

if you have a meter check to see if the chroma and luma pins on the adapter are connected together

\

this is probably how the adapter is wired

 

and that little 470pf cap is going to cause signal issues IMO

Edited November 13, 2015 by Osgeld

[+save2600]

Best composite to "S-Video" adapter I ever used is built into all Sony Trinitron and Wega TV's. Is that just a good comb filter at work or what? Composite into Sony's look excellent.

[Austin]

Composite into Sony's look excellent.

 

Agreed. Some people wonder why I don't mod my consoles for S-Video or RGB, but I don't think they understand how good the composite looks my Sony TVs. I had a Philips television given to me just recently and it was like night and day.. ended up getting rid of that pretty quickly (the picture was awful compared to my Wega sets).

[Tenorman]

I spent a lot of time researching this a couple years ago. The TV I was using would not allow both s-video and composite at the same time, so I needed to convert to an "s-video only" setup.

 

The best I could find were the Monster CSVA-1 converters:

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-Passive-Composite-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00007FS2D

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-S-Video-Adapter-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00003CW95

 

The problem with these is there is a bit of fine checkerboard pattern that shows up large areas of solid color, which can be noticeable in old games. I have not found anything better though.

 

As mentioned before, there is no up-scaling required to go from s-video to composite, but you do have to split out the luma and chroma signals somehow. The cheap adapters don't do this properly and you end up with a black and white picture. For example, this will not work. It will probably convert from s-video to composite, but will not work the other direction:

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SVID2COMPFM-S-Video-Composite-Adapter/dp/B0009EXWQQ/

 

 

[potatohead]

You can try sending the composite signal into both the Y and C inputs. Seems silly, and I think it is, but on some sets this works very well.

 

It shouldn't, but again, sometimes it does.

Edited November 20, 2015 by potatohead

[Osgeld]

that was basically my suggestion, remove the goofy cap if there is one and tie the two together

[potatohead]

Yes. Thought it warranted a more basic and explicit post. A resistor on the C input can be a good thing too.

 

Re: wega. I have one and am going to get rid of it soon. It's too big. But, it is awesome.

 

Old TV studio monitors are more awesome than a wega is, and that is my replacement plan.

 

I got to to play with one a whole back. Seriously bad ass good displays. It is pretty amazing to see what old composite can really do. We should have got better at home long before we did.

Edited November 21, 2015 by potatohead