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HELP! Sony SB-V55A Switcher: fuzzy from composite->S-Video
I'm trying to "grandparent proof" my audio system, in that I have both the receiver and TV always set to their respective Video1's and a switcher to auto transfer the last thing turned on to them. I'm getting a /slightly/ but bothersome fuzzy picture (particularly on the white text of the pop-up guide) that I didn't used to get when cablebox drove the tv. Here's the set up from source to destination: Digital comcast (Motorola) cablebox 6 foot composite (vanilla quality: ~$6.00) Sony SB-V55A Auto Switcher <---Note--- 6 foot S-Video (Acoustic Research) Sanyo TV Unfortunately, all my cables are running /right/ next to each other for at least a foot or so. This is do to the whacked design of my cabinet. Now my questions are: 1. (obvious: Have you seen this, and what are your thoughts?) 2. Is the 12' length the /likely/ culprit? 3. Is the switcher itself the /likely/ culprit? 4. Low quality shielding on the cheap a/v cables? 5. The length that they are side by side? Thanks! This will help guide me in the order that I experiment and try to fault-isolate this. -- "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" "Thomas G. Marshall" <tgm2tothe10thpo***@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail.com> wrote in message news:fokle.114$zb.37@trndny06...Show quoteHide quote > I'd say #3.> Hi, > > I'm trying to "grandparent proof" my audio system, in that I have both the > receiver and TV always set to their respective Video1's and a switcher to > auto transfer the last thing turned on to them. > > I'm getting a /slightly/ but bothersome fuzzy picture (particularly on the > white text of the pop-up guide) that I didn't used to get when cablebox > drove the tv. > > Here's the set up from source to destination: > > Digital comcast (Motorola) cablebox > 6 foot composite (vanilla quality: ~$6.00) > Sony SB-V55A Auto Switcher <---Note--- > 6 foot S-Video (Acoustic Research) > Sanyo TV > > Unfortunately, all my cables are running /right/ next to each other for at > least a foot or so. This is do to the whacked design of my cabinet. > > Now my questions are: > > 1. (obvious: Have you seen this, and what are your thoughts?) > 2. Is the 12' length the /likely/ culprit? > 3. Is the switcher itself the /likely/ culprit? > 4. Low quality shielding on the cheap a/v cables? If the cables were that lousy then #5 _might_ be a problem. Then #4 would > 5. The length that they are side by side? also fix #5. Show quoteHide quote > > Thanks! This will help guide me in the order that I experiment and try to > fault-isolate this. > > > -- > "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" > > I'd be putting the convertor on a very very short cable to the Digital
comcast (Motorola) cablebox and use the shortest possible one from convertor to TV. Don't know anything about these cable boxes but don't these thing tend to have an s-video out? You should also expect the end result to be no better than composite as the convertor is not going to improve the composite and even may slightly degrade it. "Thomas G. Marshall" <tgm2tothe10thpo***@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail.com> wrote in message news:fokle.114$zb.37@trndny06...Show quoteHide quote > > Hi, > > I'm trying to "grandparent proof" my audio system, in that I have both the > receiver and TV always set to their respective Video1's and a switcher to > auto transfer the last thing turned on to them. > > I'm getting a /slightly/ but bothersome fuzzy picture (particularly on the > white text of the pop-up guide) that I didn't used to get when cablebox > drove the tv. > > Here's the set up from source to destination: > > Digital comcast (Motorola) cablebox > 6 foot composite (vanilla quality: ~$6.00) > Sony SB-V55A Auto Switcher <---Note--- > 6 foot S-Video (Acoustic Research) > Sanyo TV > > Unfortunately, all my cables are running /right/ next to each other for at > least a foot or so. This is do to the whacked design of my cabinet. > > Now my questions are: > > 1. (obvious: Have you seen this, and what are your thoughts?) > 2. Is the 12' length the /likely/ culprit? > 3. Is the switcher itself the /likely/ culprit? > 4. Low quality shielding on the cheap a/v cables? > 5. The length that they are side by side? > > Thanks! This will help guide me in the order that I experiment and try to > fault-isolate this. > > > -- > "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" > > Daver coughed up:
> I'd be putting the convertor on a very very short cable to the Digital Have you seen longer cables cause fuzziness? I *do* have experience with > comcast (Motorola) cablebox and use the shortest possible one from > convertor to TV. cheap extension computer monitor cables causing echos and blurry displays. I'll experiment with shorter AND better shielded. But it's gonna cost more money just to test this. > Don't know anything about these cable boxes but Surprisingly, no. The comcast basic (motorolla) box only has coax and > don't these thing tend to have an s-video out? composite as options. > You should also expect the end result to be no better than composite Oh I'm not expecting anything to be clearer. Just I was hoping things to be > as the convertor is not going to improve the composite and even may > slightly degrade it. closer to the original than I'm getting. One of the things I'm going to test is composite to the TV. Hopefully a non-converted composite will simply be a pass-through and have the least degredation. Show quoteHide quote > > > "Thomas G. Marshall" > <tgm2tothe10thpo***@replacetextwithnumber.hotmail.com> wrote in > message news:fokle.114$zb.37@trndny06... >> >> Hi, >> >> I'm trying to "grandparent proof" my audio system, in that I have >> both the receiver and TV always set to their respective Video1's and >> a switcher to auto transfer the last thing turned on to them. >> >> I'm getting a /slightly/ but bothersome fuzzy picture (particularly >> on the white text of the pop-up guide) that I didn't used to get >> when cablebox drove the tv. >> >> Here's the set up from source to destination: >> >> Digital comcast (Motorola) cablebox >> 6 foot composite (vanilla quality: ~$6.00) >> Sony SB-V55A Auto Switcher <---Note--- >> 6 foot S-Video (Acoustic Research) >> Sanyo TV >> >> Unfortunately, all my cables are running /right/ next to each other >> for at least a foot or so. This is do to the whacked design of my >> cabinet. >> >> Now my questions are: >> >> 1. (obvious: Have you seen this, and what are your thoughts?) >> 2. Is the 12' length the /likely/ culprit? >> 3. Is the switcher itself the /likely/ culprit? >> 4. Low quality shielding on the cheap a/v cables? >> 5. The length that they are side by side? >> >> Thanks! This will help guide me in the order that I experiment and >> try to fault-isolate this. >> >> >> -- >> "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -- Sometimes life just sucks and then you live. Thomas G. Marshall wrote:
Show quoteHide quote > Hi, You're probably running up against the lack of a comb filter. When you> > I'm trying to "grandparent proof" my audio system, in that I have both the > receiver and TV always set to their respective Video1's and a switcher to > auto transfer the last thing turned on to them. > > I'm getting a /slightly/ but bothersome fuzzy picture (particularly on the > white text of the pop-up guide) that I didn't used to get when cablebox > drove the tv. > > Here's the set up from source to destination: > > Digital comcast (Motorola) cablebox > 6 foot composite (vanilla quality: ~$6.00) > Sony SB-V55A Auto Switcher <---Note--- > 6 foot S-Video (Acoustic Research) > Sanyo TV > > Unfortunately, all my cables are running /right/ next to each other for at > least a foot or so. This is do to the whacked design of my cabinet. > > Now my questions are: > > 1. (obvious: Have you seen this, and what are your thoughts?) > 2. Is the 12' length the /likely/ culprit? > 3. Is the switcher itself the /likely/ culprit? > 4. Low quality shielding on the cheap a/v cables? > 5. The length that they are side by side? > > Thanks! This will help guide me in the order that I experiment and try to > fault-isolate this. > > fed the cable box straight into the TV (sounds like you were using composite, if I'm reading correctly), the TV's internal comb filter was used. When you run the composite through a separator that puts the luma and chroma on the proper s-video pins, you're probably NOT running it through a comb filter, thus causing the softness. If I may ask, your TV seems to support s-video, so why are you using the composite output of your box? Most modern digital convertors support s-video, and I'm sure that Sony switcher has both s-video and composite inputs and outputs, so I would recommend using as little composite as possible. I've got a $20 adaptor that I purchased from Radio Shack, that does almost the exact same thing - if I take a composite source and hook it straight to a TV, the TV's internal comb filter processes the signal. If I take that same source and run it through the adaptor I have, and feed it to an s-video input, I get the softness you describe. Cables running right next to each other shouldn't be that much of a problem unless you've got crappy cables with no/almost no shielding. LocalH coughed up:
Show quoteHide quote > Thomas G. Marshall wrote: As it turns out, an ALARMING number of digital cable boxes only output coax >> Hi, >> >> I'm trying to "grandparent proof" my audio system, in that I have >> both the receiver and TV always set to their respective Video1's and >> a switcher to auto transfer the last thing turned on to them. >> >> I'm getting a /slightly/ but bothersome fuzzy picture (particularly >> on the white text of the pop-up guide) that I didn't used to get >> when cablebox drove the tv. >> >> Here's the set up from source to destination: >> >> Digital comcast (Motorola) cablebox >> 6 foot composite (vanilla quality: ~$6.00) >> Sony SB-V55A Auto Switcher <---Note--- >> 6 foot S-Video (Acoustic Research) >> Sanyo TV >> >> Unfortunately, all my cables are running /right/ next to each other >> for at least a foot or so. This is do to the whacked design of my >> cabinet. >> >> Now my questions are: >> >> 1. (obvious: Have you seen this, and what are your thoughts?) >> 2. Is the 12' length the /likely/ culprit? >> 3. Is the switcher itself the /likely/ culprit? >> 4. Low quality shielding on the cheap a/v cables? >> 5. The length that they are side by side? >> >> Thanks! This will help guide me in the order that I experiment and >> try to fault-isolate this. >> >> > You're probably running up against the lack of a comb filter. When you > fed the cable box straight into the TV (sounds like you were using > composite, if I'm reading correctly), the TV's internal comb filter > was used. When you run the composite through a separator that puts > the luma and chroma on the proper s-video pins, you're probably NOT > running it through a comb filter, thus causing the softness. If I may > ask, your TV seems to support s-video, so why are you using the > composite output of your box? + composite. Mine (a Motorola from comcast) is like that. The technician said that they only boxes they offer that output S-Video are the DVR combos. SOOOO: Just after I wrote this paragraph above I decided to follow my own long standing advice to assume that the field techs are not in touch, and I called comcast. After a little ping-ponging around I found out that I *can* in fact swap out my box for one with S-Video for no charge. (actually, she said that they might charge me a $1.99 change-of-service fee, but that I should just call back and get that credited.) Interesting. > Most modern digital convertors support Huh. But Why wouldn't the TV's comb filter (as an aside, it's an analog > s-video, and I'm sure that Sony switcher has both s-video and > composite inputs and outputs, so I would recommend using as little > composite as possible. I've got a $20 adaptor that I purchased from > Radio Shack, that does almost the exact same thing - if I take a > composite source and hook it straight to a TV, the TV's internal comb > filter processes the signal. If I take that same source and run it > through the adaptor I have, and feed it to an s-video input, I get > the softness you describe. comb filter), filter out its s-video input *as well* ?!! Thanks! You've been a HUGE HUGE help. > Cables running right next to each other shouldn't be that much of a > problem unless you've got crappy cables with no/almost no shielding. -- Sometimes life just sucks and then you live. Thomas G. Marshall wrote:
> Huh. But Why wouldn't the TV's comb filter (as an aside, it's an analog Because the comb filter is used when separating the chroma from the luma> comb filter), filter out its s-video input *as well* ?!! > on a composite signal. With s-video there is no need for a comb filter because the signals are already separate. 
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