Black/White Tv-out only

[alekz]

I only get black/white TV-out, I've got a PAL TV. A S-VIDEO cable is running from the Matrox S-VIDEO plug to a SCART connector.
No matter what I do it's only black/white.
What should I do?

[Tempest]

Try putting another cable from the "normal" (yellow) video out into the corresponding plug on the SCART connector. If I recall correctly, the picture is transferred using the S-VIDEO cable while the colors use the coaxial cable.
Edit: Sorry, I was kinda assuming that you were using a SCART adapter there. I recall reading that this color thingy is a problem because there are two different kinds of S-VIDEO cables. The ones sold commonly are of the type where there are fewer pins, and thus the color signal needs to be transferred using another cable. Or was it the other way, SCART adapters use plugs which don't support all the pins? I can't remember
I also hope that you are using the proper cable for your card (the G400's DualHead breakout cable differs from the G450's corresponding cable).

[Grego]

I had the same problem with my old tv. Older tvs (I dont know how old) cannot recieve a s-vhs picture in colours through the scart-connector --> solution I bought another tv and there it was, colours and everything. Other solution is to use another cable.

[Peter Aragon]

Hi Alekz

Tempest was right. Try to get a scart adapter with both the s-vhs and composite connector (the yellow connector on the matrox cable)
Now attach both the scart and coaxial cable, and voila, you get the sharpness of s-vhs, and the color from the composite cable. You could also only use the composite cable, but that is kind of a blurry signal.

Good luck,
Peter

[dZeus]

though if there is a way to only connect the s-video cable and get colour reception, the image quality would be better than with both signals connected at the same time, since through s-video colour information can (will) use more bandwidth and you shouldn't mix the signals because of timing issues and stuff.

So only connect both cables when you are absolutely sure that your tv doesn't support s-vhs/s-video through scart. (only very old tvs sold in 'PAL countries' don't).

Often you are limited to only a few of the available SCART sockets on the TV for S-VHS support, since the others are used for RGB/Composite. It also often happens that you need to select S-Video as input signal for the AV channel on your tv (on older Sony tvs the 's' appears on the OSD menu when you enable the s-video input with the remote control input selection button.

[cerb]

It also often happens that you need to select S-Video as input signal for the AV channel on your tv (on older Sony tvs the 's' appears on the OSD menu when you enable the s-video input with the remote control input selection button.

Yeah, my Grundig is like that. Had to set it to use the S-Video on that AV input, otherwise I only got black and white off my G400.

[alekz]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm going to buy a 15M composite cable soon.

[Maggi]

doesn't your TV offer any S-Video (Y/C) input ?

[alekz]

Yes it does, it has a SVHS input connector on the front but when I put the cable in there and pressed the A/V button on the remote the picture was going up and down all messed up or something I dunno.

[dZeus]

that's what happens when you've set your videocard's tv-out to NTSC and your tv can only support 50Hz (PAL) refresh.

Set the tv-out standard to PAL in the dualhead tab.

[alekz]

I got it working now with SVHS only, thanks everyone!