My "home made" s-v to RCA converter not working

[chssvl]

I previously had a Radeon 8500 which came as Bulk so there were no S-video to composite converters included. Believe it or not I was unable to find one where I live. However, experimenting with a Hi-Fi audio cable (which has a 4 pin S-video connector that splits into 2 compusite connectors) I noticed that if I joined together both composite connectors I would get a working S-video to Composite converter. It worked perfectly with every DVD I tried it with and every Video card as well except one from an uncle's Laptop.

Anyway, recently I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro which also came as bulk so there were no other components installed. But I was surprised to find out that my converter doesn't work with this card. The S-video connector works fine because I tried it out with a TV with S-video and it worked fine but the moment I hook up my converter it stops working. Does this mean that I'll need to get an "official" converter"? Any thoughts?

 

[cefoskey]

ATI S-video ports have 7 pins + key, so your adapter probably is a standard 4 pin S video cable. This wont work, and I dont rememeber exactly why (something to do with the signal ATI cards use and the pins output ability to be converted to component RGB).

I ran into this same issue a year or so ago with a customer when i used to sell computers at best buy. The ATI equipped laptops had the 7 pin S-video plugs, and customers thought they would have to use a 7 pin S video cable, when they didnt. Apparently, though, looks like you have to have a 7 pin <font color=red>converter</font color=red>. Im looking at my converter cable right now and sure enough it has 7 pins.

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[chssvl]

Actually it seems I've solved the problem with this link:

http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/svideo2cvideo.html

I took out a 1000pF ceramic capacitor from an old toy car I had and did as stated and it worked. It seems that it desn't really matter how many pins the connector has (both the 8500 and the 9700 had 7 pins) but the 9700 (and I would assume that many other video cards as well) need the capacitor in place.

Thanks a lot for yor reply though

 

[Crashman]

You don't even need a converter. The "adapter" the card comes with is just a passthrough for the added pins. The added pins actually carry a Composite Video signal, hence no conversion is needed.

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[chssvl]

My card didn't came with any adapter though. But what you say is quite interesting. You wouldn't happen to know what does each of the 3 additional pins do?

 

[Crashman]

Some cards had 2 extra pins, rather than 3. Those 2 pins were the center (signal) and ground wires for a Composite cable. Your guess is as good as mine what the 3rd wire is for.

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