MCE advice and SVIDEO issue

Conar

Hi guys

It looks like I'll finally be getting around to setting my MCE pc this week so I was just looking for a few bits of advice.

The PC is a Dell Optiplex SFF jobby so it should be reasonably quiet but I may get a passive PSU if required down the road.

I want to get one of these Hauppauge PVR 150's, but Elara are OOS so I may have to order from elsewhere.
I assume people still regard this as the best in its price range yeah?
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECE1200777&productID=S3419233

I have a passive FX5200 with TV-out which I want to use but in the past when I have used the SVideo to Composite adapter and a phono lead it has come out on my TV in black and white.
Have other people had this problem?
I noticed on Maplins under the comments of some video components it states:
"Getting a black& white picture from an s-video source (e.g. PC or laptop) is indicative that the SCART input on your TV does not support s-video. Sometimes this has to be enabled from the on-screen menu but unfortunately many TVs do not have this option. One possible solution is to use our s-video to composite video convertor (QM52G) first."
Has anyone else had this issue?
Any advice , different adapetrs or workarounds?
I assume the video converter mention on the maplins page wouldn't work as I believe the TVout cable provided with the old Geforce cards is SVideo to Composite. Am I wrong thinking that?

8T8

I dont know if this would work or not but the black & white issue could possibly be circumvented with this hack of the scart adaptor with s-video or composite.

If you want better picture quality you may be better off getting a VGA-scart adaptor though that one is not exactly cheap it works without issue.

As for any tuner that will do as a start, the actual tuners with better picture quality from NVIDIA & ATI are increasingly difficult to acquire.

Komplett also has some MCE tuners.

Conar

Do you have any experience with VGA to Scart cables?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120040728107&fromMakeTrack=true

***EDIT***
I'm being a muppet here, I haven't even tested it in this setup yet so I'll wait till I can confirm that I actually have a problem before I try to fix it.
I think I might have even been using Windows 2000 when I had the issue so it may have even been a driver issue.

Thanks for the suggestions though 8T8, I'll let you know how I get on.

8T8

Not used one myself but I have seen others referring to them, the thing with the cable is that you would probably have to fiddle with the resolutions settings.

I don't know if it is a driver issue, how recent is your TV by the sounds of it the maplins FAQ was correct in that your TV does not properly support s-video over scart (I have seen this myself with some TV's).

Though I would have thought converting from s-video to composite would have worked but still try the hack I linked to that seems the sort of thing that may work in your case.

SouperComputer

I had the same problem with the fx5600. the cable or TV may not have the Svideo pins connected or supported.

You can cheat by going to your nvidia properties and selceting Composite as the output on your TV. Despite the fact it is coming out on the svideo socket. Strange but true.

Also, be sure your TV output is set to PAL not NTSC. Im pretty sure you already know this though!

Conar

Cheers Souper.
You still have that spare Hauppauge 150 knocking around?
Still want to sell it?

SouperComputer

Conar wrote:

Cheers Souper.
You still have that spare Hauppauge 150 knocking around?
Still want to sell it?

Im not sure if they are with me in the US or if I left one in ireland. I'll have a look and see if they are with me. IIRC they are both here.

Conar

Ah well.
I guess I'll just wait till Elara get them back in stock.

Tom Dunne

Just to add my 2c to the whole Black+white s-video/scart problem. I've seen it quite a bit with various graphics cards and the problem is not drivers, but the physical cable.

To cut a long story short, this jobbie fixed it for me. I ordered from that crowd over Christmas one year and got the cable within a matter of days. This was after multiple trips to Dixons/DID/Woodies etc. trying different cables.