TV out black and white

motown

Hi,

I have a Dell inspiron laptop with an ATI MobilityRadeon X300 64MB HyperMemory graphics card. I am using a s-vido to scart connection as my tv doesn't have an s-video port. The cable also is direct to scart ie. It does not have the audio and video ports and the s-video port as it goes directly to SCART. I have tried changing the settings to PAL and have tried all the PAL options available. I have tested the cable on a different tv and it works. The problem must lie in the laptop or the tv. Through my own troubleshooting I have discovered that the problem may be that the tv is picking up the luminance signal but not the modulated chrominance subcarrier information and that the solution would be the connect pins 15 [ chrominance ] and 20 [ luminance ] within the SCART but am reluctant to do ( though I can't see any reason why this would damage either system I am not happy about taking the risk - if any). HAS ANYBODY EXPERIENCED THE SAME PROBLEM OR ANYONE GOT A SOLUTION?

CHEERS.

maidhc

motown wrote:

HAS ANYBODY EXPERIENCED THE SAME PROBLEM OR ANYONE GOT A SOLUTION?

I have experienced the same problem, but no, never found a solution.

I can only get a B&W output on my television using both a Latitude D610 and a Radeon 9700Pro. I suspect the problem is related to the s-video cable (no. of pins?), but it hasn't put me out enought to try finding a solution. I only plugged them in to see what would happen.

Tom Dunne

*sigh*

Do a search on this forum. Bottom line, it is the cable. Buy one from s-video.com. Sorted.

jimmycrackcorm

You can get an s-video converter for about €18. Normally I see this problem nvidia cards and not ATI.

Right click on the desktop-->Properties-->Settings-->Advanced-->Displays and change the TV settings to PAL.

Try that before buying a new cable.

rogue-entity

There is no problem with your TV or Laptop. Do make sure you set the output to "PAL-I" which is the varient of PAL used by Irish televisions.

If you use a SCART converter to connect the S-Video cable you will only get b/w. This is because the S-Video colour signals are sent differently on S-Video and the SCART converter only converts the Luminance (b/w) signal. So that is all you will get.

shoegirl

Sounds like either of two things:

1. Its set to NTSC rather than PAL
2. Bios update required (do remember this on Dell CPx-J)

Bard

I had the same problem and switched from a plain (silvery type) S-Video cable to a gold-tipped one (not much more expensive - few euros more) and it worked. Bought mine in Harvey Norman but I'm sure most decent Hi-Fi/Electrical stores would have them. Best also to use an S-Video input (usually on the side of the telly) if your TV has one instead of using a SCART adapter with the socket at the back & yes, make sure that the TV is set to PAL-I and not NTSC or SECAM, naturally.

wingnut

As mentioned previously not all svideo adapter behave in the same way. Chances are if one cable works over another its converting the signal from SVideo to composite. You can by such cables in maplin. I would try the software settings first as others have suggest. However, as well as PAL-I some dells have a software setting for Svideo and Composite.

Most inspirons support composite out via the Svideo port (there are extra pins on it alongside the standard SVHS pins. Dell used to ship a little dongle with their laptops to allow you to use both. They have gone a bit tighter these days but you might pick one up on Ebay or off someone with an old laptops. Check for the extra pins first.

vex

I had the same prob, i found that when i used the s-vid to avi cable converter and used the av ports on my tv, i got colour. Where as when i was using the scart cable it was in black and white.

motown

Cheers for all your help. Invested in a new cable and it seems to have solved the problem.

pizzahead77

motown, what was the brand of the cable that you bought? Where did you purchase it?