Unsure if anyone can help but thought I would post anyway (postcount++ hehe) … I connected my Sky+ box to my PC’s TV Card (Compro Videomate Gold) via s-video but whatever I try, I only seem to get a black and white picture. Does anyone know why this could be?
Just to add, I used to connect my PC to a TV using this exact same cable and the output was in colour so i guess the cable is a-ok. Oh and I don’t have any other sources I could try connecting the s-video cable to to see if i get the same problem
Could you clarify—is the S-Video port input or output. Are you sure it is a standard S-Video port. My video card has a port an S-Video cable will fit into, but requires an adaptor for S-Video output to actually work.
Hi DM, thanks for the reply.
On the back of the Sky box there is “S-Video Out” and on the TV card in the PC, the socket is marked “S-Video in”. Like I say, I do get a picture but it’s just in Black and White
S-Video has two components luma (Y) and chroma/color (C). The Y component is independent of your TV signal format. The C component is different based on if your video equipment is NTSC, PAL, or SÉCAM. Sky+ is a British device; so, it is probably PAL. Most computer equipment expects NTSC signals. There are PAL/NTSC converters, but they are very expensive. Best bet would be to see if your Sky+ box has an output format setting in the menu.
Yeah, the SKY+ box is set to PAL (the only other option is RGB which I also tried!); when I use ktv (i think that is what it’s called) and go through the channel setup, I have the options for
composite
s-video
tv
and then on the next page the type of signal (eg PAL, NTSC and so on)
Naturally, I select s-video and PAL but for a laugh I did try other combinations which all gave the same result (with minor differences such as no picture at all when I chose NTSC!).
Perhaps it is the software I am using, does anyone know any alternatives to the bundled K-TV that I could try?
ah yes, i never thought of that (strange really as i use it for mp3s and avi files)
i’ll give it a whirl and see what happens, cheers
failing that then i’m just going to give it up and go without endless adverts and crappy reality tv … thinking about it, i’m not sure why i wanted to put it through my pc in the first place hehe
