Everybody wants to hook up their TV

[Annoyingrob]

Aaah, I remember a few months ago, I was in the market for a new video card. I had 2 requirements, it had to have a composite video out, and it had to be pci (My motherboard has an embedded vidcard connected to agp). I quickly realised that the only card out there for this was the ATI all in wonder, but because of the price, I got a Geforce2 MX (Annihilator2 MX) instead. My dreams of hooking my video card to a television vanished.....Until today. Now, the mx can come with a multitude of different connectors, the vga, an svideo, and a Digital flatpannel out. My card, however, only came with the vga. I had a stroke of inspiration the other day, when I was brosing this site. Some guy had built an svideo to composite adaptor. I thought, man, if i had an svideo out on my card, I would be in heaven. OOOH, THANG GOD to mass production. Creative had used the same board for many different models, and I saw that they had the traces for svideo, and digital (Although I think the digital is missing a few resistors). I have an idea of just soldering in an svideo adaptor in there, but I have one question to anyone out there who might have done this, or thought about it:

On the underside, while following the traces, there is a gap, where the traces are not there. It's a simple solution of connecting the traces across the gap, but i have a suspicion that there might be some sort of chip that goes here (Very unlikely). I will send a picture later, I can't right now because it's in use typing this message.

I'm just trying to cover all my bases so I don't make a 200 dollar parerweight. (That's canadian prices)

 

[Annoyingrob]

[img="[URL]http://www.geocities.com/annoyingrob/1.jpg[/URL]"]
[img="[URL]http://www.geocities.com/annoyingrob/2.jpg[/URL]"]
[img="[URL]http://www.geocities.com/annoyingrob/3.jpg[/URL]"]

hmm, not quite working....

www.geocities.com/annoyingrob/1.jpg
www.geocities.com/annoyingrob/2.jpg
www.geocities.com/annoyingrob/3.jpg

please note that this geocities site is just for my pictures, it's VERY old website.

As you can see, it looks kind of like something should go here. I hope this works because I want an s video out. I would appreciate input.

 

[SP]

As for the guy building an S-video to composite adapter thats nothing. All you really need is a little adapter cable to convert from S-video to composite. Here is an S-video to composite adapter. As you can see it's nothing but a couple of connectors and a smal capacitor. The reason it's nothing more than this is because S-video and composite both carry the same type of video signal which is what we call NTSC video. The only difference is the way they carry it through the cables. With S-video the luminance and crominance are carried over separate wires, whereas with composite they are combined.

Anyway, getting S-video out on your video card is a much more complex issue because you don't have the same type of signal coming out. The signals that come out of the VGA output of a video card are much different than an ntsc video signal. The scanning frequencies and the timings are different. Also, the VGA uses separate RGB signals. That means in order to get S-video out of your card you will need to add much more complex circuitry. Youd need some kind of scan converter chip. Anyway, I don't think it's practical for you to modify your video card to do this.

The way I see it you have 2 options. The first option is to use an external scan converter. These are devices that plug in between your video cards VGA output connector and your monitor and have a composite and/or S-video output on them. The convert the signal into an ntsc signal. The second option and perhaps the best is that if you really need S-video out just return your card and buy another one that does have S-video out. The reason I think this is the preffered option is because the cost of the external scan converter may be close to the price of another card. So, in the end if you could return your card (or sell it on ebay) and buy a new card with S-video out then you may actaully come out cheaper than buying the scan converter.

 

[SickBoy]

it's more than just adding the s video thingy.... you need a Chrontel or Brooktree encoding chip and several resistors. this mod takes more effort than you think.

Sickboy

 

[svideo.com]

*This post edited by Forum Moderator*

Only our seniors are allowed to advertise, and then only with a link in thier sig.

Thelemac

 

[scoobydoo]

Right on s-video I knew you could do better than 3 months back. We now have 6 months, so lets go for a year or so.

BTW all, I know s-video is just doing the typical spam crap and will never see my witty comments, but I am having fun and isn't that what it is all about anyway?