I tried to find a post about this but was having a hard time, not exactly sure what to look for... so sorry if this has already been posted..


Been running with video for a few months now and been using the adapter from DVI to S-Video, and was just using an RCA Cable to plug into the plasma tvs.. i then found a coax adapter with the RCA ends so I could run the cable longer, used it last night and was having issues with the video freezing for about 20-30 seconds almost on every video that I played..

Does using a regular RCA Cable vs using a Coax Cable have any effect on the video freezing?

No.

I'd be interested to see if anyone has done any quality testing...I have tried S-video and Composite (no place has HDMI or anythign else yet). I have found or so it seems, the quality is better with the composite...not sure why, maybe its just random...or maybe its a setting in the video out? any one have an idea?

there's plenty of people who will tell you s-video looks better, and it should. there should be noticeably less artifacts especially in terms of color bleed, brights blooming and stuff like that.

honestly though, at viewing distance, i would not bet even $5 that i could tell the difference in a series of blind tests where i had to distinguish the two, using random footage. of course if you post up a test chart or color bars and move me in closer to the picture on the tube, say 1ft. I could probably nail it every time.

what that should me to you is that s-video or composite, probably not going to make a huge difference. they both look like crap.

Correct. I'm actually using the Apple video splitter/adapter (S-Video / Composite) and I use both every Friday at my gig. Both look the same to me and everyone else.

I'm not concerned with the quality of the video so much as some old videos look like crap anyway. But, I am very concerned with the audio from the video. If the audio is not clean to me, I will swap it for something better from my library. I've found myself replacing about 70% of every video I touch. Sad but true.

Quality rating for analog:
1 componet (RGB)
2 S-Video
3 Composite
4 Coaxial

Coaxial is the worse of them all, the video freezing is more than likely your computer.

If you have to run any sort of distance, I suggest using a Cat 5 cable and getting an adapter. This will reduce a lot of interference with all of the above cables. You also don't need to amp it.

The quality from the apple, using the adapter is good, because all of the processing is done internally by the video card.

I agree with everything that is said so far here- but even if we had the the option to run VGA into some club, would it make THAT big of a difference since our source videos are usually 640 or 720 x 480 to begin with? I faintly remember someone telling me the max res of a composite cable is about 800x600 so a VGA wouldn't really do much better since we're all using the medium/ high settings on serato's output?

Niro -What about...........DVI, HDMI, VGA

Waddup Charlie, I would consider all of those in the digital category. They are going to far superior to any of the analog options. VGA will probably be the most popular out of them. There's a few clubs I dj at with a VGA and the picture quality is really really good, also I don't have to convert the signal coming from my unibody.

ok thanks everyone, my next step in trouble shooting is probably because I did the upgrade to snow leopard, everything was working perfectly fine until I did that, so I guess i will have to start over from scratch and go back to 10.5. snow leopard 10.6 works really dope and everything seems to run very smooth just not with video..

Snow leopard hasn't been released yet.

I realize it hasnt been released to the public but my father works for apple as a programmer.

No different than people who work for serato and have the new programs before they are released even to beta testers, and how beta testers have it before the pubic beta testers, and how the public beta testers have it before the general public..

your father is a programmer for apple? dope. hook up a brother with a copy of final cut.

i pre ordered snow leopard. and you're saying it won't work with VSL? So ... I'm guessing I shouldn't have gotten it? Or will there be updates that will make it work? Or are we gonna have to wait on Serato to update SSL/VSL in order to be compatible?

HAHA I wish I could.. heck I wish I could slang half the stuff I get for some extra cash..

Im not sure if its because of 10.6 or if its because of something else.. i just know right after i did the upgrade my video started to trip out.. so who knows.. i dont understand programs well enough to understand why a OS upgrade which makes everything else run more smooth and faster would cause any issues with a video playback to periodically freeze the video for 30-60 seconds..

im still testing some things to see if I can find anything..

Could it possibly be because of the Quicktime X instead of regular or pro? I'll wait for your tests Wreckrd before I install. By the way what type of Mac are you using?

Here's mine:

MacBook Pro 15"
2.66 Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR3 RAM
320GB HD
NVidia 9400M + 9600GT

Keep me updated on your tests. Thanks in advance!

not too sure..

MacBook Pro 15"
2.2 Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR2 RAM
500GB HD
NVidia 8600M GT

SDI WTF

I don't understand what you are trying to say.

I think he's wondering why SDI is not in the list. Like anybody would ever have an SDI video interface in a club.

Oh, thought SDI was some sort of texting jibberish, I can probably say that 99% of the clubs or bars people spin at will not have or know what SDI is. You will have places with a BNC connection, but that's about as close as you're going to get. If I remember right, SDI is only for professional broadcast applications and has some weird restriction for you to use it. I could be wrong.

SDI is a digital data interface. It actually doesn't carry a "video" signal like an analog composite video connector, which also uses a BNC cable. An SDI connection is digital data connection. A typical application of SDI, such as HD-SDI can carry video data encoded into a 4:2:2 10bit signal over a single cable with BNC connectors at each end.

And you are correct that you won't find SDI connections on consumer equipments. An editing house might have SDI switchers and gear. A pro camera would have an SDI output to record the digital data directly to data files (or even tape) but it's extremely unlikely an club has SDI data signals running in its wires or SDI switchers to run all of it.

I know that 99.99% of the Clubs will not have SDI and yes I know the places that have SDI, but wouldn't it be great if SDI was the standard. HD video over a single Coax cable LOL

My video camera records via SDI. The picture quality is unreal.

I've seen a few VGA setups at clubs and the results are impressive! As for the original question, S-Video is MUCH better than composite (RGB are separate but grounds are combined, compared to RGB combined and grounds combined). I remember when I first hooked up my PS1 to a Trinitron via s-vid and thought... now that's a picture!

Due to the resolution of the display, some blurring/stretching may occur depending on video size and aspect ratio. Might be good to test some 720x480 vids versus 640x480.

if i had more energy, i'd point out where your post is wrong and try to explain a few points but I'll start and end with this one: R -G - and B are not separated in an s-video signal. Chroma and components of the video signal are separated. The chroma component carries all the colors, RGB combined.

Also, many analog video cabling schemes do not combine grounds for signals. Especially signals that can get up there in frequency.

lol A-swift is not only right but funny about it as well :)

You're right, RGB aren't separated in an S-vid connection! Luminance and Chrominance are separated and the connector carries their separate grounds. Component has RGB... but the G doesn't actually carry green, it carries the Luma and the green is subtracted from it.... wow, cool. Learn something new every day :D

VJ Justin: He is, and he was also kind!