S-video (TV) vs CRT VGA display: examples

[Gray_Area]

I've seen S-video on some of my own monitors, but was curious whether the effect was similar elsewhere - because I've been confounded when people on here have thought their S-video looked so darn good!

Recently, someone sent me some pictures of their monitor displayed via S-video. Finally, hard evidence! Then I took pictures of the same sequences for contrast. Both monitors shown are 27".

S-video:



Notice how it looked like the image is inside some fishbowl with pink water.



VGA monitor (a little dark because of my camera, but you can see the 'contrast' of colors) :




S-video:




VGA monitor:

[matsadona]

You are perfectly correct when noticing that s-video will never be as good as a true RGB signal.
Usually the colors are faded, there is bleeding and less contrast and sharpness.
However some TV sets do a pretty good job with s-video too, and it can be playable. But me personally wouldn't do that since the RGB option will kick ass every day IMHO

Maybe a comparison between a PC monitor and a TV isn't really fair, but it should still be be easy to see the difference when feeding the same TV with different signals...

[bkenobi]

I don't think anyone here has ever said S-video is BETTER than VGA.  I can say that on a decent TV, S-video is noticeably better than RCA.  I can also say that if the monitor supports RGB signals natively, a VGA signal should look much better than S-video.  I have a set that includes RCA, S-video, and component (Y-Pb-Pr).  I've tried all 3 and on my set there is definitely a difference between RCA and S-video, but the difference between S-video and component is negligible.  I believe my set simply down-converts the HD signal down to a SD that's essentially equivalent to S-video.

If you want to know more details, I would think the monitor forum would be a great place to peruse!

[Malenko]

are those the same tube? same lighting? same camera?
not a fair comparison.

look at my KI2MAME project, the earlier pix are component , the later are SVideo, there isnt a HUGE difference, especially in MAME

component:


svideo:


Now I can say that VGA is always gonna look better but to say SVideo looks like crap is an overstatement, its not like we're using composite

[ahofle]

are those the same tube? same lighting? same camera?
not a fair comparison.

+1
The S-Video photos were taken with a flash (which makes the colors appear washed out) and the VGA photos weren't

Here are some S-Video vs RGB (arcade monitor) comparison pics I took a while back (be sure to zoom in)...
TV/S-video

Arcade monitor

[honkey]

are those the same tube? same lighting? same camera?
not a fair comparison.

+1
The S-Video photos were taken with a flash (which makes the colors appear washed out) and the VGA photos weren't

Here are some S-Video vs RGB (arcade monitor) comparison pics I took a while back (be sure to zoom in)...
TV/S-video

Arcade monitor

I am a little ignorant when it comes to this type of thing... Why are the colors completely different? A while ago I was hoping that some people would post a few pictures of S-Video vs. Component on the same TV to show what difference it is. I have a chance to use an arcade monitor, but I am not sure I want to spend so much money on an Arcade VGA video card when I could use a TV with component and spend a quarter of the price on the video card, but if the difference is really that great, than I might reconsider and use the arcade monitor.

[Malenko]

honkey, click on the KI2MAME link in my sig, you really cant tell when I switched from component to svideo

[ahofle]

I am a little ignorant when it comes to this type of thing... Why are the colors completely different? A while ago I was hoping that some people would post a few pictures of S-Video vs. Component on the same TV to show what difference it is. I have a chance to use an arcade monitor, but I am not sure I want to spend so much money on an Arcade VGA video card when I could use a TV with component and spend a quarter of the price on the video card, but if the difference is really that great, than I might reconsider and use the arcade monitor.

Honestly there are probably a few factors in play here.  The TV was a pretty crappy off brand and the brightness looks a little too high to me.  I really took the pics to illustrate the difference in clarity.  The S-Video out on most video cards is pretty bad and things bleed together quite a bit.  How much of that is a result of the crappy TV-out circuitry vs the actual S-Video signal is debatable, but I think most of it is due to the TV-out.

[honkey]

honkey, click on the KI2MAME link in my sig, you really cant tell when I switched from component to svideo

To me, those pictures all look great. If you were to go play one of those games on the original arcade machine, do you think there would be a big difference in color like in the pictures ahofle posted? Did you change some settings to get it to look that good?

[Malenko]

nope it was just a good tube

[RandyT]

+1 to all of the comments here.

It's never going to have the precision of true RGB, that's true.  But, S-video isn't as bad as shown in the photos.  The S-video screen is obviously not adjusted properly, and if that's the best that can be achieved, then the TV-out of the graphics card is suspect.  The S-video out on name-brand ATI cards used to be oft recommended, but I am sure there are others now with similarly decent output.

The biggest complaint I had was some color "fringing", and red on black was the biggest offender in that regard.  Otherwise, it was a very acceptable, but definitely not perfect, image.

RandyT

[kowal]

your s - video is disastrous but for me is the fault of your card or TV, not s-video

composite<s-video<RGB=<component<vga

my experiences with original PCB and converters
vogatec on s-video get very pretty clean image, only colours is differ but is normal (true RGB is best option), but after adjusting contrast it looks good how RGB on my philips CRT - sharp and stable.
vogatec have sync cleaner LM1881, for corect RGB to tv conversion is necessary. my MAK JP also get pretty image  on s - video but composite is offend than vogatec (composite on vogatec is amazing).  component and s-video on standart RGB to tv converter how jrok, GBS8108 have very bad image without sync cleaner

[AlienInferno]

I use s-video to output to the tv in my cab.  It looks great IMO when playing games or in the front end.  The only complaint I have is when it's a solid black screen the black appears to be a reddish color.  I think a little bit of tinted plexi on top will help take care of that.

[leapinlew]

The problem I have with S-video is clipping of some games.

[RandyT]

The problem I have with S-video is clipping of some games.

Some video cards have an overscan option you can disable.  You might want to see if yours does, if you haven't already.

[amendonz]

I believe you can access screen adjustments in the hidden test menu on most tvs. although not the best solution as you will need to access it every time you change game.

[leapinlew]

I've done both, tried to adjust the size on the video card. It doesn't appear to have that functionality, and I wonder if it did, how it would respond in each game and while my TV did have a hidden service menu, I wasn't able to figure out how to adjust it.

There is probably a fair dose of user error involved, but the point was, S-video out of the box for me with this particular TV had a few issues. I wanted to try a different TV, but never got a different 32" television.

The only clipping that caused issues was Crazy Climber. It cut off the map on the side of the screen.

[TOK]

S-Video looks like crap compared to component in on my TV. The blacks aren't as dark and the red is much less vivid.
It was so worth the little bit of extra tweaking required to get it working right with a component out video card.

[MonMotha]

S-Video itself is a very capable format at 480i/240p (or 576i/288p in 50Hz land), but it's not compatible with anything above that due to the placement of the chroma carrier at standard NTSC/PAL frequency.  A quality television is required to demodulate the color QAM (note to people who have seen this elsewhere: this is analog QAM and not particularly related to the format used for cable modems and digital cable) well, but most TVs got really good at it by about 2000 or so other than the bottom-of-the-barrel bargain basement models.

HOWEVER...

Many cheap TV sets don't actually have an S-Video input!  Instead, they just internally re-combine the s-video into composite much like those adapter dongles do.  The result is actually WORSE than composite due to some technical subtleties.  On these televisions, there's no reason to use S-Video as it won't look any better than composite, and the connector sucks

Many TV sets also have grossly incorrect default settings on the composite/s-video inputs since they fool people into thinking that photo-realistic TV looks "better", but for some reason the component inputs seem to have slightly more correct default settings.  "Black looking gray" is a common result of this.  Just turn the brightness control down.  Dodgy red is more related to the quality of the chroma demod and may be impossible to correct, but some TVs have some settings that can help.

ALSO...

Most PC s-video outputs are total garbage.  They smash and crush the signal so that it "fits".  If you "disable overscan", the result is even worse since that works by simply scaling down the picture and putting black bars around it.  They're simply awful.  The component outputs on video cards so equipped are generally much cleaner.  They're also usually capable of arbitrary resolutions whereas the s-video outputs are usually limited to mashing a couple standard PC modes into whatever it deems "compatible with a TV".

I've had VERY good luck using quality RGB to S-Video converters with quality televisions (set correctly!) and various sources.  The results are often nearly indistinguishable in anything but a side-by-side comparison.

Now, component YPbPr video is functionally identical to RGB.  The conversion can actually be performed losslessly, though most digital converters will downsample the color 2:1 horizontally (4:2:2 subsampling) which is almost impossible to see on photorealistic images but fairly evident on sharp computer/game graphics.  Aside from that, any remaining appearance differences between these two connection formats are simply due to your TV being set incorrectly (or sucking).

Properly adjusting a CRT monitor is a little tricky, and most TVs are grossly mis-set since it makes normal television look "better" to most people, even though it's totally wrong and looks awful in monitor applications.  Sadly, setting many of them correctly requires messing around in a poorly documented service mode.

Also remember that the settings on a TV will drift with age.  If you're trying to compare a 10 year old second hand TV that has never been serviced to a brand new arcade monitor, of course the monitor is going to look better.  Not only is it (possibly) a better set to begin with, it's probably set (more) correctly.

FWIW, aside from the flash, the monitor shown in the pictures in the OP is grossly miscalibrated.  At minimum, turn the brightness control WAAAAY down.  Also, if that's from a real DL cabinet, it's actually just being fed composite video from the LD player.

[Gray_Area]

First off, besides being RGB, the only difference between my monitor and the S-video TV is that mine is at a higher resolution. A 27" PC monitor is the same tube technology.

Second, I said I was baffled by those who thought S-video was any good, implying they didn't know any better. Now.....

Uhm, correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't Dragon's Lair, the actual cabinet, spit out a composite signal that's converted to RGB via separate PCB?  

Point being - your VGA signal is obviously nicer looking, but that's now how it looked in an arcade.

You know, looking more at the S-video images seemed to trigger the images in my memory of the game back then, and then my memory of the format....and you're probably right; laser disc games probably did look more like the S-video above. (Note that all four images above were displayed via Daphne.)

However, regular video games did not look like that, and there's plenty of opportunity physically and online to see that....that noobs or the uninitiated or whatever may not be aware of or able to dig up....

Which brings me to the point of the post: these images are for you. Study them. All your game belong to this.



**What I see in the S-video images above is exactly what I've seen in my own efforts. So, I call hogwash on the lighting and camera/flash comment. I'd call hogwash on it anyways, because I know what I see.

@ Malenko: my images are closely the same perspective; yours aren't.

Lastly, If standard hardware is the culprit, I'm saying S-video isn't going to be a viable alternative to anyone who knows better.

But, taking into account MonMotha's expert knowledge (and minus the brightness part; the brightness is up because otherwise the whole thing looks too dim), you have to balance how much effort it may take to fulfill those conditions, versus finding an RGB monitor.

If the monitor options I do have failed, I would be between the rock of the work a TV requires, and the hard place of an LCD. I might give up and choose neither.

[MonMotha]

the brightness is up because otherwise the whole thing looks too dim

If the display is overall "dim", the control you want to adjust is *contrast* not brightness.  Contrast actually controls "how bright things get", which you might call "intensity".  Brightness actually adjusts the "black level" i.e. the signal level at which the signal is considered "totally black".  Turning this up won't actually make the image brighter, it'll just make black look gray.  Turning up contrast will make the picture "brighter", but how high you can turn it up is limited by several things, especially the condition of the tube.  If the tube is old and worn out, then it will start to "bloom" and saturate if you try to make it too bright.

The reason for the oddball terminology is historic.  Just remember: contrast is "how bright it gets", and brightness is "how dark it gets".  BOTH settings are important.


To be clear, I think that your s-video picture looks AWFUL; I'm just saying it doesn't have to be that way.  Are you using the s-video output on a PC for this?  If so, well, your PC's s-video output probably sucks (which is normal).  Your TV, while using the "same tube technology" is probably not built to nearly the same quality that your monitor is: it's probably got cheaper signal processing, and the tube is probably of poorer quality (and older / more worn).  The fact that you claim you need to turn up the brightness because the monitor is "dim" suggests at least the latter.  An interesting comparison would be to find a TV that features both inputs and compare them.

An RGB connection will always look at least a little better than s-video, but outside Europe, it's hard to find a CRT television with RGB inputs that will accept standard res (arcade) video, while s-video is common.  That's the motivation for using it.  It can be quite serviceable, but it's only really compelling due to it's availability, not because it's particularly good.

Also, your S-video picture DOES look more like a DL arcade (I have a friend with one) than your RGB picture does.  I won't say it looks BETTER (it definitely doesn't), but it is actually more authentic in this case due to the limitations of the original arcade setup.  Your Daphne video is probably ripped from the Blu-Ray or at least a VERY good LD player on a good condition disc, which the arcade didn't have.

[leapinlew]

**What I see in the S-video images above is exactly what I've seen in my own efforts. So, I call hogwash on the lighting and camera/flash comment. I'd call hogwash on it anyways, because I know what I see.

I have built several video games using TV's, Arcade monitors, LCD's and computer monitors. Yes, there is a difference in both the tube and the connectivity, but those S-video pictures you posted are just terrible and don't represent anything I've seen . All my S-video tv connects look great, minus the clipping issues. They don't look anything like those crappy pictures you posted.

I call hogwash on your hogwash.

[RandyT]

Many cheap TV sets don't actually have an S-Video input!  Instead, they just internally re-combine the s-video into composite much like those adapter dongles do.  The result is actually WORSE than composite due to some technical subtleties.  On these televisions, there's no reason to use S-Video as it won't look any better than composite, and the connector sucks

I'm not one to purchase overly cheap TV's, so I've never come across one like this.  That being said, they probably do exist, but if this were the case, it should be very simple to discern if the end result is worse than composite.  But, I am unconvinced that the result would necessarily be so.  If the TV had superior circuitry to combine the luma and chroma signals than the source device using those same signals to create it's composite output, it would stand to reason that the result would still be better.

Most PC s-video outputs are total garbage.  They smash and crush the signal so that it "fits".

I'm a bit stymied by this statement.  The PC handles the "smashing and crushing" in the digital realm, not the analog.  It will do a digital scaling of the image (i.e. de-interlacing, some loss of detail, optional addition of anti-aliasing and whatnot), but the "signals" sent to the TV can still be quite clean.  

If you "disable overscan", the result is even worse since that works by simply scaling down the picture and putting black bars around it.  They're simply awful.

Well, awful, possibly, but not nearly as awful as having an important part of the playfield in a game hidden from view.  Lesser of two evils, etc....

Now, component YPbPr video is functionally identical to RGB.  The conversion can actually be performed losslessly, though most digital converters will downsample the color 2:1 horizontally (4:2:2 subsampling) which is almost impossible to see on photorealistic images but fairly evident on sharp computer/game graphics.  Aside from that, any remaining appearance differences between these two connection formats are simply due to your TV being set incorrectly (or sucking).

Component is definitely good (better than S-Video), but to say that it "functionally identical" is a little misleading.  The quality of the result is still heavily based on the quality of the circuitry which disassembles the R, G, B and Sync components from the combined signals output by the device.  True RGBS is not reliant upon this type of processing circuitry, so the result is still going to be considerably better in almost all practical cases.  RGBS from component still needs to be derived, while RGBS simply is.

First off, besides being RGB, the only difference between my monitor and the S-video TV is that mine is at a higher resolution. A 27" PC monitor is the same tube technology.

No, it's not.  This is akin to stating that the only difference between a '75 Chevette and '12 Porsche is that the Porsche goes faster.  There are many other things in the design of the PC monitor which allow it to be good at what it was designed to do, that just aren't required and are therefore omitted from the S-Video TV.  To do a true comparison of the two inputs types, you would need to use a true Multi-Sync monitor with video capability, with a quality S-Video signal source.  There are far too many variables in displays across different manufacturers and price ranges to come to a definitive conclusion in any other way.   The folks who have been doing this since the early days understood that not all televisions and graphics cards are created equal, and put a good deal of effort into finding the ones which would do well in this application.

RandyT

[MonMotha]

Many cheap TV sets don't actually have an S-Video input!  Instead, they just internally re-combine the s-video into composite much like those adapter dongles do.  The result is actually WORSE than composite due to some technical subtleties.  On these televisions, there's no reason to use S-Video as it won't look any better than composite, and the connector sucks

I'm not one to purchase overly cheap TV's, so I've never come across one like this.  That being said, they probably do exist, but if this were the case, it should be very simple to discern if the end result is worse than composite.  But, I am unconvinced that the result would necessarily be so.  If the TV had superior circuitry to combine the luma and chroma signals than the source device using those same signals to create it's composite output, it would stand to reason that the result would still be better.

I've not personally witnessed one, but I've heard from a few TV techs that this is the case on some really cheap sets (I think qrz mentioned it once on here, for example), and some really cheap TVs seem so poorly made that I believe them.  Apparently the method of combining the two s-video components is just a simple capacitor which acts as a high-pass filter on the chroma - same as those passive dongles.  There are certainly better ways to do it, but the objective is to be cheap in this case, after all.  They just want a bullet point ("Supports S-Video!"); they don't care if it works well.

The result is comparable to a badly/naively generated composite signal (no trap or chroma comb); it's not much worse than a "properly" generated composite signal, but most PC cards seem to offer a "composite" setting that MAY do a little better than such a simplistic conversion.  It certainly won't be comparable to a real s-video signal.

Most PC s-video outputs are total garbage.  They smash and crush the signal so that it "fits".

I'm a bit stymied by this statement.  The PC handles the "smashing and crushing" in the digital realm, not the analog.  It will do a digital scaling of the image (i.e. de-interlacing, some loss of detail, optional addition of anti-aliasing and whatnot), but the "signals" sent to the TV can still be quite clean.

The issue isn't necessarily that the scaler is particularly bad (they're usually "OK", but I wouldn't call the ones I've seen "good"), but that it will usually scale EVERYTHING you feed it, even if it doesn't really have to.  Basically, the s-video outputs don't usually support "native" resolution passthrough.  They will take all your carefully set video timings and mash them to some fixed mode, even if what you're generating is actually TV compatible to start with.  This doesn't necessarily "destroy" the image completely, but it will certainly soften it quite a bit, as the scalers are usually just a bilinear type or something similar.  SOME s-video outputs (some old ATi cards, I'm told) will pass through compatible resolutions with no scaling (just a colorspace conversion and chroma modulation - ala the outboard "RGB to S-Video converter" boards).  This can look pretty darned good, but it seems the exception, not the norm.  The "component" (YPbPr) outputs on most cards seem to pass everything through without scaling, relying on the system to configure a compatible resolution, which is much nicer.

I also think some bad PC cards may just output composite whether you ask for s-video or composite.  This one I have no evidence whatsoever on, but given how bad some people's results are and the cost pressures on commodity PC hardware, I'd believe it.  This would be easily fixed by getting a better video card, at least.

If you "disable overscan", the result is even worse since that works by simply scaling down the picture and putting black bars around it.  They're simply awful.

Well, awful, possibly, but not nearly as awful as having an important part of the playfield in a game hidden from view.  Lesser of two evils, etc....

That's true.  The result is basically the same as the initial scaling described above with the added detriment that there's a loss of (at least vertical) resolution.  Some systems also seem to perform the two steps separately, resulting in double-scaling artifacts like moire patterns and extra soft edges, but I can't confirm that this is the case.  In any case, I would certainly agree that it's certainly better to display everything needed rather than cut it off.

The ideal solution would be to adjust the television's geometry in service mode to effectively remove the overscan, but this is difficult or impossible in some cases.

Now, component YPbPr video is functionally identical to RGB.  The conversion can actually be performed losslessly, though most digital converters will downsample the color 2:1 horizontally (4:2:2 subsampling) which is almost impossible to see on photorealistic images but fairly evident on sharp computer/game graphics.  Aside from that, any remaining appearance differences between these two connection formats are simply due to your TV being set incorrectly (or sucking).

Component is definitely good (better than S-Video), but to say that it "functionally identical" is a little misleading.  The quality of the result is still heavily based on the quality of the circuitry which disassembles the R, G, B and Sync components from the combined signals output by the device.  True RGBS is not reliant upon this type of processing circuitry, so the result is still going to be considerably better in almost all practical cases.  RGBS from component still needs to be derived, while RGBS simply is.

My bad.  My comment was limited to the signal itself, assuming a "perfect" monitor.  Basically, it's possible to create a YPbPr signal that's equivalent to the RGB signal from a mathematical point of view and would display identically on a perfect monitor.  Obviously most TVs are far from perfect - they're designed to be cheap, not good - so you're right, there is a real world loss in quality as a result.  Most RGB to YPbPr conversions also involve a loss of color resolution (2:1 horizontally as described) since that just seems to be how everybody does it, so from a practical point of view, RGB would still be better.  You can get around the latter by doubling the horizontal pixel count in software and making sure the converter handles this double res, but you're still limited by the quality of the TV in the conversion back to RGB.  Most pictures I've seen of people using YPbPr component look decent except for a severe need to tweak the settings, which can be painstaking for an experienced monitor tech, let alone someone who doesn't deal with it frequently.

I've done most of my TV testing using a friend's 2000-era Sony WEGA and custom-built "no compromises" (and therefore rather expensive) conversion hardware.  This is a rather high end model TV, so that in combination with the high end conversion hardware may explain my better than normal results.  I've had much less positive results when using PC s-video outputs, as one might gather from my comments.

TL;DR: If you've got an RGB capable monitor/TV, use it.  Otherwise, YMMV when using YPbPr component or S-Video.

[Malenko]

@ Malenko: my images are closely the same perspective; yours aren't.

There are more in the thread, I didn't wanna bombard this thread with pix. The PolePosition cab I jammed a 27" TV in is currently using SVideo and it doesn't look as bad as the pink dragons lair picture above. Maybe I'll download and run Dragon's Lair and take a pic. I'll have to do Dragon's Lair 2 though, cause I have the DVD for that one.

Ive seen composite feeds look better than that.

[Xiaou2]

I agree that a decent svideo signal can be attained.  Most modern video cards have good svideo out, and most decent modern tvs will have a good svideo input, most especially if the tv has component as well.

I used to have an older Ati pci video card, and the svideo out is completely different from the newer cards. They now have the option to sort of interlace the output, to create a higher definition of quality, albeit with some flicker.(Even without that, the output seemed a lot more clean)  Personally, I kinda liked the more blended look of the older card... even if it wasnt as accurate. Basically, it looks like mame on a pc monitior, and not an actual arcade monitor

Which brings me to the other point...

While hooking up a SNES to my Sony XBR 34" 1080i 16:9 TUBE TV (ohh yes, its Sweet  , but Big & Heavy!), with both composite and svideo, I literally have to use the composite input because the svideo is too clean for those games. The edges and lack of blending is just way too harsh.  The more muddied up svideo signal is pretty much how these games were designed to be seen / displayed.  I found this also to be the case on many PS1 games as well.  They looked wretched on the better quality svideo, but acceptable on the lower quality composite signal.

 Also, as stated, Dragons Lair is a terrible example.  The laserdisc player is a lowly composite signal, getting converted to RBG, and it wasnt exactly defined or sharp. Definite blur and losses visible.  

 AND, taking a picture of a monitor with and without flash is a HUGE difference.  I know, because Ive done the same thing, and the resulting images were completely different.  It effects the color and clarity, much more so than an LCD or modern high def pc monitor, because the way the thing is designed. (larger pixel triads, larger shadowmask lines, and phosphor visible when drowning the tube with flash of light - grayish look)

 Edit:

 Finally, many TVs have indivdual setting configurations for the various inputs, and or you Need to adjust them to compensate for the differences in signal types.   Boosting the contrast alone would probably do the trick to matching the two output images.  (Possibly lowering the brightness, and boosting color output as well)

 Some TVs also have enhancement options which may also be altering image differences too.

[leapinlew]

You guys done screwed up now...

[Jack Burton]

My own two cents:

You guys know that my personal arcade display is a Mitsubishi AM-3501R presentation monitor.  

This monitor is great because it has a fairly rough dot pitch, and uses chroma clear technology so it's extremely similar to a classics arcade monitor.  It's probably made up of much finer components, and is possibly slightly finer pitched, but it's very close.  Much closer than many arcade monitors you can buy today, and miles ahead of using a desktop PC CRT.  


So, this monitor has both S-video, and RGB inputs on BNC connectors.  So it's very easy to compare S-video vs RGB.



A while back I got involved in a score competition here on the forum.  It was for a game called Twin Cobra, an old school shmup.  Now, I played mostly on MAME, but I also became aware of another version of the game that is out there.  It's available on the playstation as part of a compilation called Toaplan Shooting Battle.  




The cool thing about the games that are available on Toaplan shooting battle is that they are in native resolution.  They display the games in 320x240 just like a real PCB.  

So, by connecting my playstation via S-video to my monitor and my computer via the RGB inputs I was able to compare the video quality from both of them on my Mitus monitor.

A word about that monitor.  It doesn't very much, if any at all filtering applied to the video.  There is no comb filter, and there is a button on the front that is labeled as "notch" that simply blurs the screen when it's pressed in.  I believe it's a type of noise reduction filter.  

The result of this is that when you display composite or S-video sources on this monitor as compared to my 36" toshiba CRT tv next to it the Mitsu screen will display much more color bleeding, artifacts, fringing, etc.  It's showing the raw video signal with very little video processing going on.  Of course I also turn the sharpness setting all the way down.  

So how did the 240p S-video compare to the 240p RGB?

Extremely favorably.  It was easy to tell the difference between the two of course, but the S-video trh still looked awesome.  Very clean lines, almost no color bleed, and good blacks and whites.  The only real thing that was noticeable was a bit of fringing around all the objects on screen.  And the screen was much brighter and contrasty.  Overall the image was quite a bit softer than the RGB, and some very bright color gradients were lost.

The RGB image was of course razor sharp, but actually looked a bit "flat" compared to the S-video.  The color gradients were completely defined and could reach levels the S-video couldn't without causing blooming.  And black was black

The key thing to take away from this though is that the S-video coming from the playstation was still A+ in quality.  It would still beat 90% of arcade monitors I've seen in the wild.  

I think as long as you have a display with the right dot pitch, color temp, and you can preserve native resolution/levels you're always going to have a very nice accurate arcade image no matter the video source is s-vid/component/rgb

You know I also have an RCA lyceum TV that I fooled around with and re-calibrated for fun.  Just for kicks I hooked the psx up to it via the BNC composite video port.  


The image on it looked really f'ing good too.  Maybe even composite isn't so bad after all in the right situation....

But I guess that's a discussion for another thread >

[Gray_Area]

I have compared RBG to S-video on the same monitor. My Monivision. And S-video looked like what I posted above. And I'll re-state, both sets of images (his and mine) were of Daphne - not DVD, let alone Blue-Ray source, if you're familiar.

And, Randy, my monitor is '06. I think his TV may be at most two or three years older. On that note, my monivision I think is '99.....

As for 'monitors I've seen in the wild', I will return perhaps in a few weeks with some images to address that.

[leapinlew]

I have compared RBG to S-video on the same monitor. My Monivision. And S-video looked like what I posted above.

Try a different s-video cable...

[404]

nfgworld.com has a nice beginners primer on the subject of LCDs vs CRT

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660

[Jack Burton]

nfgworld.com has a nice beginners primer on the subject of LCDs vs CRT

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660

Good article and good reference point, though I wish the author had went into a little bit more in depth and added couple more subjects such as composite vs s-video vs RGB and the notion of how NTSC and various encoders may change the quality of the video signal.  I've never seen a good explanation of the NES's colors.  

Who wrote that article?  Bleargh = BLARRG?

[404]

nfgworld.com has a nice beginners primer on the subject of LCDs vs CRT

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/660

Good article and good reference point, though I wish the author had went into a little bit more in depth and added couple more subjects such as composite vs s-video vs RGB and the notion of how NTSC and various encoders may change the quality of the video signal.  I've never seen a good explanation of the NES's colors.  

Who wrote that article?  Bleargh = BLARRG?

there are a few more primers created back when the site's owner ran the new defunct atarilabs

RGB Primer
http://nfggames.com/atarilabs/meat/2000/1201_rgbprimer.shtml

VGA Primer
http://nfggames.com/atarilabs/meat/2000/1201_videoprimer.shtml

Pretty good links on the standard nes pallete and PPU
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=215169&view=findpost&p=2949145

Unfortunately finding more info on the Nes colors and how they are generated in the PPU would likely involve some digging into emulator documentation. That's beyond my pay grade so to speak. 

[Gray_Area]

My own two cents:

You guys know that my personal arcade display is a Mitsubishi AM-3501R presentation monitor...I think as long as you have a display with the right dot pitch, color temp, and you can preserve native resolution/levels you're always going to have a very nice accurate arcade image no matter the video source is s-vid/component/rgb

I finally got around to looking over this post. Well, that would fit with what MonMotha said about colorspace and stuff.

[Gray_Area]

I finally got some pictures of some 'monitors in the wild'.