S-video to TV problem at DVinfo.net

Donald Blake · October 16th, 2008, 10:56 PM

Hey everyone,

I just bought a new PCI graphic card with dual monitor VGA outputs, I can now use two monitors and I love it. I also have an S-Video ouput on the card wich I would like to plug my big TV screen on, so I bought an S-video to RCA adapter at my local electronic store and pluged everything in... but it dosent seem to work.

Do I have to configure my pc for that option?

Andrew Dean · October 17th, 2008, 01:42 AM

there isnt a composite signal per se within svideo. svideo only uses 4 pins. Many laptops and graphics cards use an additional 1 or 2 pins to also feed a composite signal through the same port. The "adapters" just isolate those pins out to a dedicated rca cable.

Unfortunately, not all svideo connectors have the composite signal embedded. If its not there, it takes more than a cable to "convert" from svideo to composite. Much like converting component or vga to composite.

That said, its entirely possible your card has composite in the svideo plug and you have the correct adapter, but your drivers arent set up to send a signal out of that port.

Probably wasnt very helpful, but maybe it'll help you stumble onto the solution.

cheers

Donald Blake · October 17th, 2008, 07:53 AM

Well I finally got it working,

At first I tought the S-video plug was just a physical/hardware output that would show anything happening on the PC monitor, but you really have to configure it as a second monitor, actually plug everything in and reboot then configure it.

So what I wanna know now is : can i have two pc monitors and add the TV as a third monitor? in other words have them all working at the same time.

Samuel Ko · October 24th, 2008, 03:52 PM

Donald it really depends on your graphics card.

If you take out one of the monitors and then run 1monitor and 1TV
im sure it'll work.

give that a try and let me know what happened.

Donald Blake · October 26th, 2008, 11:06 PM

Samuel, I plugged the two monitors and the TV in my graphic card, and I configured them all, When I choose the option "two monitors" it works great, mostly for video editing. When I choose 1 monitor & 1 TV I can watch a movie while I'm working on the PC. So everything's working great.

One thing I noticed tho, I used to have an onboard 128mb graphic card, now I have a PCI 256mb dual VGA graphic card, I'm not a gamer at all, I only work on my PC, the performance when I'm video editing seems equal to before the change, but the performance in AutoCAD (house plans) is not very good, my cursor is very "Jerky" not fluid at all like before. That's really too bad because I don't want to change anymore, once you've tried dual monitors... you don't go back.

October 16th, 2008, 10:56 PM	#1
Donald Blake Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Montreal, Canada Posts: 142	S-video to TV problem Hey everyone, I just bought a new PCI graphic card with dual monitor VGA outputs, I can now use two monitors and I love it. I also have an S-Video ouput on the card wich I would like to plug my big TV screen on, so I bought an S-video to RCA adapter at my local electronic store and pluged everything in... but it dosent seem to work. Do I have to configure my pc for that option?

October 17th, 2008, 01:42 AM	#2
Andrew Dean Major Player Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Motukarara, New Zealand Posts: 475	there isnt a composite signal per se within svideo. svideo only uses 4 pins. Many laptops and graphics cards use an additional 1 or 2 pins to also feed a composite signal through the same port. The "adapters" just isolate those pins out to a dedicated rca cable. Unfortunately, not all svideo connectors have the composite signal embedded. If its not there, it takes more than a cable to "convert" from svideo to composite. Much like converting component or vga to composite. That said, its entirely possible your card has composite in the svideo plug and you have the correct adapter, but your drivers arent set up to send a signal out of that port. Probably wasnt very helpful, but maybe it'll help you stumble onto the solution. cheers

October 17th, 2008, 07:53 AM	#3
Donald Blake Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Montreal, Canada Posts: 142	Well I finally got it working, At first I tought the S-video plug was just a physical/hardware output that would show anything happening on the PC monitor, but you really have to configure it as a second monitor, actually plug everything in and reboot then configure it. So what I wanna know now is : can i have two pc monitors and add the TV as a third monitor? in other words have them all working at the same time.

October 24th, 2008, 03:52 PM	#4
Samuel Ko Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: New York, NY Posts: 47	Donald it really depends on your graphics card. If you take out one of the monitors and then run 1monitor and 1TV im sure it'll work. give that a try and let me know what happened.

October 26th, 2008, 11:06 PM	#5
Donald Blake Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Montreal, Canada Posts: 142	Samuel, I plugged the two monitors and the TV in my graphic card, and I configured them all, When I choose the option "two monitors" it works great, mostly for video editing. When I choose 1 monitor & 1 TV I can watch a movie while I'm working on the PC. So everything's working great. One thing I noticed tho, I used to have an onboard 128mb graphic card, now I have a PCI 256mb dual VGA graphic card, I'm not a gamer at all, I only work on my PC, the performance when I'm video editing seems equal to before the change, but the performance in AutoCAD (house plans) is not very good, my cursor is very "Jerky" not fluid at all like before. That's really too bad because I don't want to change anymore, once you've tried dual monitors... you don't go back.