SNES/SFC video cable with S-video + composite

Edit history:

yggdrizzle: 2013-05-10 03:35:15 pm

2013-02-26 10:15:33 pm

solved kind of, read final post in thread.

With my current setup, I have a TV that only takes composite -- but I want to record in S-video. So, I'm looking for a cord that has both.

I know that quite a few of the super-cheap S-video cables floating around are pretty bad. Since sellers shift suppliers and parts around often, I'm hoping to find someone who has bought a cable recently, and can recommend a place or 'brand'.

I'm aiming for around $10 all said and done. The cheapest cables seem to be around $6-7 but I'd rather not double dip for this.

Thread title:

UraniumAnchor

2013-02-27 12:19:59 am

Not a walrus

Any decent powered splitter will take the s-video signal and let you hook up a composite cable on one of the outputs and display it on your TV that way, you'll probably have better luck with that.

yggdrizzle

2013-02-27 11:44:38 pm

Most decent powered splitters don't do this, and that would look terrible anyway, but that's not what I'm looking for.

UraniumAnchor

Edit history:

UraniumAnchor: 2013-02-28 01:11:00 am

2013-02-28 01:10:51 am

Not a walrus

Every splitter we used at AGDQ did exactly that, but maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're asking for.

yggdrizzle

Edit history:

yggdrizzle: 2013-05-10 03:36:30 pm

yggdrizzle: 2013-02-28 05:53:18 am

2013-02-28 05:52:47 am

From some research on decent (and affordable) powered splitters most of them in my price range don't do this. I have one that does (which is the radioshack one you have, that you mentioned in a post on SA) and it does that, but very badly, aside from being a not-so-good amp. It has a bleeding effect (like a dying CRT) which varies from console to console.

To put this in perspective: my powered s-vid/composite splitter was about ~$60. I'm looking for a $7 cable.

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2013-02-28 07:16:53 am

2013-02-28 07:16:24 am

All the things

I would actually give what UA suggested a try with your current amp. It works fine for my distribution amps whenever I needed to do it, and it should still be the same core signal.

Otherwise, for the cable itself I purchased a couple off of ebay and I've been satisfied with them. I can't speak to branding, but I think you're overestimating the prevalence of bad quality products. Several of the top results fit what you want for pretty cheap.

sledge

2013-02-28 10:05:38 am

You could buy from Ebay a cheap s-video to composite converter such as the Extron YCS Transcoder or YCV 100, preventing you from dealing with this using another console.

yggdrizzle

2013-03-01 03:30:43 am

I don't mean to be rude but I'm not really asking for a discussion, just a simple recommendation from someone who might have purchased this kind of cable recently.

My amp routes a 1:1 signal from S-video to S-video and composite to composite. Others I've looked into when purchasing did the same. My cheaper dist. amp (mentioned above) does it but it's noticeably worse than composite. A converter is more than I'm really looking to put into this, and I'd rather go with the straight composite signal.

As for bad cables, I'm going off what I've read on other forums. Wouldn't be surprised if a $6 cable was bad.

DJS

2013-03-01 06:09:36 am

torch slug since 2006

i have a 3rd party cable for this. not sure which brand, or anything, but i think i payed around $30 for it (swedish store)... works good! the cable for it has like a really thick plastic casing... ill try to search for it specifically later if u want

dishwasher

2013-03-01 09:48:41 am

http://www.micro-64.com/features/svideo.shtml

Basically, if the cable has both a composite and S-Video plug, chances are the S-Video output sucks. I've owned 3 cables like this, each with a different brand, and they all had the problem mentioned in this article.

Your best bet is to get one that doesn't have a composite jack. They're less common, but still relatively cheap. I have one made by "Innovation" and don't have any complaints so far, though I guess if you need a composite plug for your setup, this doesn't really help.

Tranquilite

Edit history:

Tranquilite: 2013-03-01 02:58:06 pm

2013-03-01 02:52:26 pm

Sometime in '09-'11, I bought three Pelican Brand Nintendo s-video/composite cables from a single seller. Of the three I bought one of them had slightly different packaging than the other two. The one with the different packaging had the checkerboard pattern problem explained in the article dishwasher posted, and the other two worked just fine. Apparently the Pelican folks had multiple revisions of their cable, and I happened to get two out of three good ones.

Unfortunately, I cant remember what the differences were in packaging, but said cable seems to be available on amazon. I have no idea if the ones listed on amazon will even be Pelican brand, of even if said Pelican brand cables will be the correct revision with proper svideo pins.

The only way to guarantee a good svideo/composite cable would be to open up the the cable and manually fix the svideo pins. This is practically impossible to do though because you also need to add the correct svideo pin to the multi-av out connector.

Sometime in '09-'11, I bought three Pelican Brand Nintendo s-video/composite cables from a single seller. Of the three I bought one of them had slightly different packaging than the other two. The one with the different packaging had the checkerboard pattern problem explained in the article dishwasher posted, and the other two worked just fine. Apparently the Pelican folks had multiple revisions of their cable, and I happened to get two out of three good ones.

Unfortunately, I cant remember what the differences were in packaging, but said cable [i]seems[/i] to be available on [url=http://www.amazon.com/Gamecube-N64-S-Video-AV-Cable/dp/B00005RH4D/]amazon[/url]. I have no idea if the ones listed on amazon will even be Pelican brand, of even if said Pelican brand cables will be the correct revision with proper svideo pins.

The only way to guarantee a good svideo/composite cable would be to open up the the cable and manually fix the svideo pins. This is practically impossible to do though because you also need to add the correct svideo pin to the multi-av out connector.

nate

2013-03-01 06:28:38 pm

the bad one also may have been a knockoff intended for the american market.

UchihaSasuke

2013-03-03 09:08:14 am

Stand: Devil's Call in your Heart

from the sound of this thread, i guess i lucked out big time when i got the cable i've used for over 10 years.

korpse

2013-03-12 10:03:26 pm

last.fm > korpse_413

So, I have the exact problem of wanting to record S-Video, but want to play the game via a Composite only TV. I own THIS and connected my S-Video cord from SNES to that Amplifiers Input. I then connect a Male to Male S-Video cable in Output 1 to my Capture Device (all is clear there). As for Output 2, I put in Male to Male Composite (Video / Audio) to connect to my TV and no dice. Sure, the SNES S-Video cord I use has Composite Audio cords so I will plug those in, and the Audio comes through the TV obviously since its Composite friendly I guess.

Basically I am frustrated since I thought it would somehow convert the S-Video to Composite. I guess its just 1:1 like making yggdrizzle correct, at least for what I went through. Coming from the manual it says "Input Jacks: Connect to original source of corresponding output jacks. Output Jacks: Connect to corresponding input jacks of TVs, VCRs, etc." (why did I buy this....)

Is there anything I can do on my end other than possibly returning this splitter? From the sounds of it, and from what HonorableJay have mentioned to me in the past was that you want to avoid as many hardware/software connections going to your Viewing Device as you can. So would buying say an S-Video to Composite cable be worth an investment? Or is that just going to make my gaming experience look like ass.

?

So, I have the exact problem of wanting to record S-Video, but want to play the game via a Composite only TV.  I own [url=http://www.amazon.com/Cable-Electronics-AV-400SV-Distribution/dp/B0009QZPO6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363145737&sr=8-1&keywords=Cable+Electronics+LABS+AV+400SV+Prograde+S-Video+Distribution+Amplifier]THIS[/url] and connected my S-Video cord from SNES to that Amplifiers Input.  I then connect a Male to Male S-Video cable in Output 1 to my Capture Device (all is clear there).  As for Output 2, I put in Male to Male Composite (Video / Audio) to connect to my TV and no dice.  Sure, the SNES S-Video cord I use has Composite Audio cords so I will plug those in, and the Audio comes through the TV obviously since its Composite friendly I guess.

Basically I am frustrated since I thought it would somehow convert the S-Video to Composite.  I guess its just 1:1 like making yggdrizzle correct, at least for what I went through.  Coming from the manual it says "Input Jacks: Connect to original source of corresponding output jacks.  Output Jacks: Connect to corresponding input jacks of TVs, VCRs, etc."  (why did I buy this....)

Is there anything I can do on my end other than possibly returning this splitter?  From the sounds of it, and from what HonorableJay have mentioned to me in the past was that you want to avoid as many hardware/software connections going to your Viewing Device as you can.  So would buying say an S-Video to Composite cable be worth an investment?  Or is that just going to make my gaming experience look like ass.

?

yggdrizzle

Edit history:

yggdrizzle: 2013-03-12 11:48:06 pm

2013-03-12 11:47:26 pm

the 400sv doesn't introduce any noticeable (prove me wrong) latency or video quality so adding something on top of it shouldn't be a problem (and you're recording directly from it). it's a really good dist. amp and if you need one for S-video it'll be hard to find a better one.

not sure when my cable will be here but I'll do some testing with it when it shows up. i'm still far too wary on how well any dist. amp (or cable) can do s-video to composite since I haven't seen one do it well to the quality of ordinary composite.

korpse

2013-03-14 03:44:37 pm

last.fm > korpse_413

Update on my previous post, I stopped by a local RadioShack (happy to see they still exist) and ran into this:

There was a Non-Gold plated (I think that's RadioShacks gimmick[?]) that I stumbled upon first when looking around in their 'splitter/conversion' section priced $18.99. This one was toward the end of the shelf, marked $6 from clearance.

Hopefully this in my setup will provide me with accurate frame rates during my Nintendo 'SNES era >' runs (not sure if my eyes will even notice). I will update if I notice anything going haywire, but so far things are looking up!

Cheers!

yggdrizzle

2013-03-24 02:42:06 am

Bought a cheap cable (the KMD one that's all over eBay) and ~what do you know~ it's shit. Super 'patchy' look.

Here's some screencaps. Left is the official cable. Motion actually looks worse, since there's noise all over the new cable. Composite itself looks fine from a quick look but I'll do more investigation on that later.

Needless to say I'm still looking for recommendations. I'll probably throw this cable up on eBay, lose a few bucks and have to buy something new. What a surprise!

Tranquilite

2013-03-24 03:42:31 am

If you could easily add pins to the multi-av connector, I would recommend repairing a sucky AV cable as its merely a slight mixup that causes the noise issues. Unfortunately, adding pins to a multi-av connector is almost impossible.

Well, good luck cable hunting...

blizzz

2013-03-24 07:08:07 am

For a long time I thought that S-Video was supposed to look like these screenshots as the only time I ever saw an S-Video plug here in Europe was in a multi-console cable with RGB Scart and S-Video.

Maybe you could find someone who would make you a custom cable that uses the right pins. But that would probably cost quite a bit more than the crap you find on eBay.

yggdrizzle

Edit history:

yggdrizzle: 2013-05-10 03:07:27 pm

2013-05-10 03:06:34 pm

I never made a post in here after finding some solutions so I have two things to share:

1) I found a good third-party cable in Japan. It uses the proper S-video pins, two ground pins, and the image looks identical to the official Nintendo S-video cable. The composite, however, isn't directly wired to the connector (pin 9, composite), so I'm guessing they connect the two S-video pins with a cap added to the croma wire to make the composite connection? Composite looks normal, but I'll take a closer look later. It seems like changing the capacitor makes the image different, so it's possible that the composite signal is slightly too sharp or weak, but it looks perfectly fine on my CRT.

I don't know how it's wired, and I'm not sure if I want to break open the cable to find out. This cable is available around $20 or so thanks to shipping costs (more if you use EMS, but I might carry these at some point if there's a market for third-party cables that don't suck). Looks kind of like the Monster cable people recommend. Looks like a decently built cable.

2) Before I got that cable, I broke open an official S-video cable and a composite cable, and just added the composite pin to the S-video cable. Worked perfectly, and this is what I currently use. Kind of messy -- the pins didn't want to come out the connector, and I ended up bending one terribly and breaking another one before I got one out clean. This probably shouldn't be an issue if you break the plastic around it well. To do this I needed to ground the wire as well, so you need to strip the cables and do a little soldering. You'll probably also want to cut the composite cable and reconnect it to make this easier. No way to do this without destroying one cable or making your own.

If you are trying to do this fix with a -bad- S-video cable it's not going to work. It has to be a good S-video cable to start with; adding composite only does just that.

I never made a post in here after finding some solutions so I have two things to share:

1) I found a good third-party cable in Japan. It uses the proper S-video pins, two ground pins, and the image looks identical to the official Nintendo S-video cable. The composite, however, isn't directly wired to the connector (pin 9, composite), so I'm guessing they connect the two S-video pins with a cap added to the croma wire to make the composite connection? Composite looks normal, but I'll take a closer look later. It seems like changing the capacitor makes the image different, so it's possible that the composite signal is slightly too sharp or weak, but it looks perfectly fine on my CRT.

I don't know how it's wired, and I'm not sure if I want to break open the cable to find out. This cable is available around $20 or so thanks to shipping costs (more if you use EMS, but I might carry these at some point if there's a market for third-party cables that don't suck). Looks kind of like the Monster cable people recommend. Looks like a decently built cable.

2) Before I got that cable, I broke open an official S-video cable and a composite cable, and just added the composite pin to the S-video cable. Worked perfectly, and this is what I currently use. Kind of messy -- the pins didn't want to come out the connector, and I ended up bending one terribly and breaking another one before I got one out clean. This probably shouldn't be an issue if you break the plastic around it well. To do this I needed to ground the wire as well, so you need to strip the cables and do a little soldering. You'll probably also want to cut the composite cable and reconnect it to make this easier. No way to do this without destroying one cable or making your own.

If you are trying to do this fix with a -bad- S-video cable it's not going to work. It has to be a good S-video cable to start with; adding composite only does just that.

puwexil

2013-05-10 04:18:26 pm

Professional Second Banana

Quote from yggdrizzle:

1) I found a good third-party cable in Japan. It uses the proper S-video pins, two ground pins, and the image looks identical to the official Nintendo S-video cable. The composite, however, isn't directly wired to the connector (pin 9, composite), so I'm guessing they connect the two S-video pins with a cap added to the croma wire to make the composite connection? Composite looks normal, but I'll take a closer look later. It seems like changing the capacitor makes the image different, so it's possible that the composite signal is slightly too sharp or weak, but it looks perfectly fine on my CRT.

Where can such cables be found?