TV Component

[Dustin]

I plan to use a TV for my MAME cab, the TV I plan to buy has S Video, Composite, and Component.
My PC has TV-Out with S Video.

Anyway to get this hooked up to Component TV or should I just be happy with S Video?

[qrz]

in many low end ntsc tvs , the lum and chroma lines were simply tied together at the jack.

defeated the intended purpose of s-vid. but, thats why they were cheap !

http://mcmelectronics.com/product/STELLAR-LABS-24-6500-/24-6500           pricey !
http://mcmelectronics.com/product/DISTRIBUTED-BY-MCM-/24-6535              more like it

both available in various lengths. or, DIY


qrz

[MonMotha]

S-Video and Component look darn near identical in my experience (barring cheap TV as mentioned).  No reason to fret over trying to do any better.  You only really need component for modes higher than standard 480i.  Composite pretty much always looks bad, but S-Video is fine.

Do note that the TV out on most PCs does some pretty awful things to the video.  Most will not accept native timings and instead require 640x480 or 800x600 (or sometimes 1024x768) progressive graphics and scale/mash everything back into a TV compatible signal.  The result is lots of blurriness.  It does what most people need, but is far from ideal for your average MAME user.  However, you will get graphics on your TV if that's all you care about.

[TOK]

S-Video looks way worse than component on my 27" Toshiba, and it wasn't a cheap TV.
The blacks and reds are so much better in component, I wish I had taken pictures to show you a side by side comparison.

Component can be a big pain in the butt to get working right as evidenced by some of the threads here, but if your hardware supports it, its definitely worth a little tweaking to use it.

[MonMotha]

"Cheapness" is not necessarily related to cost, unfortunately.

All I can say is that on my friend's 36" Sony WEGA, S-Video through an RGB to S-Video converter was almost indistinguishable from an actual arcade monitor.  That's a pretty good indication of how good it can be.

Were you using a PC for your testing TOK?  Some PC cards will do native/unscaled output via component, but use a bunch of scalers and crap when running composite and S-Video, which could explain your experience.  Heck, some are like the cheap TVs mentioned and don't actually support S-video out, but rather just dump composite onto an S-Video connector (oops).  You may also have had the S-Video output set to composite mode, which would certainly cause your reds to look bad, though black levels should be fine.

[DJ_Izumi]

S-Video IS pretty good but if you can do component it's better, the red bleeds less I Find.

ANyway, a LOT of graphics cards, their S-Video output ports aren't 4pin but 7 or 9pin.  While standard s-video cables pop right in you can buy component output cables from the OEM to get component output.

[TOK]

Were you using a PC for your testing TOK?  Some PC cards will do native/unscaled output via component, but use a bunch of scalers and crap when running composite and S-Video, which could explain your experience.  Heck, some are like the cheap TVs mentioned and don't actually support S-video out, but rather just dump composite onto an S-Video connector (oops).  You may also have had the S-Video output set to composite mode, which would certainly cause your reds to look bad, though black levels should be fine.

I used my MAME cab computer w/ATI Radeon 9550 to compare S-Video and Component. The card has S-Video and DVI out, and I'm using the DVI to Component converter.

Using S-Video, the reds were a bit washed out, leaning toward pink. The blacks were less dark black, leaning more toward gray. Not sure if it's the S-Video on the card or the TV, but once I saw the component image, I knew I couldn't settle for the S-Video.

[Ummon]

"Cheapness" is not necessarily related to cost, unfortunately.

All I can say is that on my friend's 36" Sony WEGA, S-Video through an RGB to S-Video converter was almost indistinguishable from an actual arcade monitor.  That's a pretty good indication of how good it can be.

I'm guessing you were using a game board there, yes?

[Dustin]

OK, But can I get my PC to output to Component?
I want Component(RGB), not Composite.
If not, S-Video looks ok to me, but the thing that sort of bothers me is how the colors bleed together.
Red is the worst by far. I have tried MAME with our family TV(S-Video) I have tried playing with the settings on my video card, and on my tv with ok results. But I know that it could be so much better with component.
All in all, even with the S-Video setup, to me it looks more arcade than what a PC monitor can display.
Thanks.

-Dustin

[qrz]

component isn't quite the same as RGB

component has luminance /sync on green, then red/blue vid

RGB has luminance in each drive , and seperate sync

[MonMotha]

"Cheapness" is not necessarily related to cost, unfortunately.

All I can say is that on my friend's 36" Sony WEGA, S-Video through an RGB to S-Video converter was almost indistinguishable from an actual arcade monitor.  That's a pretty good indication of how good it can be.

I'm guessing you were using a game board there, yes?

I used a game board RGB output to a home-built RGB to S-Video converter then into a TV.  Looked great.

The issues with composite video quality mostly have to do with the difficulty in separating the chroma (color) portion of the signal from the luma (b&w intensity) part.  That part is difficult.  S-Video carries these signals already separated, so the TV only has to demodulate the QAM chroma signal.  This can be done pretty nicely.  Component simply skips the chroma modulation step and leaves the two color channels at baseband.  This gives more bandwidth for the signals, resulting in smoother chroma edges, but the bandwidth available on s-video is already high enough for a pretty good signal at 480i.  I've actually heard of people running 480p over s-video with reasonable (though not great) results on TVs that support it (somewhat rare).

I wonder if the TVs that exhibit poor S-Video quality simply do what qrz talked about earlier and effectively combine them to composite, but the component inputs are "true".

component isn't quite the same as RGB

component has luminance /sync on green, then red/blue vid

RGB has luminance in each drive , and seperate sync

Eh, "RGB" is a pretty "loose" so-called "standard".  Certainly RGB w/ SoG is out there.   That makes it pretty much identical to YPbPr component aside from the colorspace.  Separate sync is pretty common, though, and of course basically never seen in the A/V component video world.

[Dustin]

Well, this is becoming clear that i have to go with s-video,maybe.?
So, on some cheap TVs, I am to understand that the S-Video is really just what composite does?(combine the signals?)
I thought the job of S-Video was to display the signals from one another?     

Sorry, I am a bit ignorant with this...
I  guess I am being greedy and want my cake and eat it too
Bottom line, I don't want to buy some adapter that wont work$$$$$$
Anyway,
Thanks for the help.
Really, I do appreciate your help!
thanks again.

[Epyx]

@Dustin,

Your video card's port is likely a newer HDTV port which supports Component and S-Video. You will be able to run component to a SDTV using a breakout cable:

http://i4.ebayimg.com/03/i/000/7b/e2/7691_1.JPG

SO while it looks like an S-Video port it actually has more pins and is capable of component as well. However, you didn't mention which card you are using..some older cards with tv out do in fact use S-VIdeo only ports..

[Ummon]

"Cheapness" is not necessarily related to cost, unfortunately.

All I can say is that on my friend's 36" Sony WEGA, S-Video through an RGB to S-Video converter was almost indistinguishable from an actual arcade monitor.  That's a pretty good indication of how good it can be.

I'm guessing you were using a game board there, yes?

I used a game board RGB output to a home-built RGB to S-Video converter then into a TV.  Looked great.

That rings a bell. You're working on producing those, right?

[MonMotha]

"Cheapness" is not necessarily related to cost, unfortunately.

All I can say is that on my friend's 36" Sony WEGA, S-Video through an RGB to S-Video converter was almost indistinguishable from an actual arcade monitor.  That's a pretty good indication of how good it can be.

I'm guessing you were using a game board there, yes?

I used a game board RGB output to a home-built RGB to S-Video converter then into a TV.  Looked great.

That rings a bell. You're working on producing those, right?

I could if you want to.  I can't beat ArcadeMVS's price, though.  Mine would probably be ~$100 due to low volume.  The quality might be a hair better, but I wouldn't think the difference be huge.  The biggest differences are probably not important to you.  Mine had a HD15 input for the RGB (since the cabinet it was being hooked up to has a convenient HD15 RGB output on the back) and high input impedance (so it wouldn't dim the in-cabinet monitor much).