Video In questions....

[deBoor]

My computer is about 50-60 ft from the actual cable outlet, so is it possible to get a cable to go that far? Will there be a quality change? How much would it cost? FYI: Im going to be using a GAINWARD/CARDEXPERT GeForce 4 Ti 4200. It accepts S-video and Composite (Whats the difference btw?) Thanks for all the help in advance!


-Your Friendly Neighborhood Mathematician!

 

[Ghostdog]

I think the cable length might affect the quality, if it even can deliver the signal, I´ve heard something like this, but I´m not sure.

<font color=red>I´m starting to feel like a real computer consultant.</font color=red>

 

[Lamoni]

From the cable outlet? Are you trying to watch TV? You need a TV tuner for that. Without a TV tuner you can run it through a VCR so the VCR can filter the channels and only send the one you want.

There is a lot of difference between S-video and composite video. S-video is better because it leaves the signal split between contrast/brightness and color. Then the TV or video card has less to decode. TV's with comb filters don't use the filter with S-video or component video. Only with composite and RF. But because of the TV's comb filter (depending on the quality) expensive TV's can produce a signal almost equivalent to S-video. (given the same source signal) I am just briefly summarizing this. If you want more info, do a search for it on the web.

As far as cable length goes, yes you 'can' get cables that long, or at least I have seen one for 50 feet, but I wouldn't recommend it. Especially with S-video because there are two signals sent in the same cable and the interference they cause to each other grows proportional to the length. That is why component video is nice because it sends the signals in different cables instead of the same one, but component video isn't an option. Not only will you see a significant reduction in quality, long cables cost much more.

With all that being said, I have used over 36 feet of cable to connect a projector for a dance I put on with some roommates. I used three cheap 12 ft RCA stereo cables with connectors. It worked great for us... we got the signal to the projector fine but we didn't care about the picture quality because it was a dance not a movie. Music videos weren't too important. It sure was fun though.

To summarize, you 'can' do it. You can either do it cheaply and get bad quality or you can do it very expensively ($150 or more) and get good cables and still end up with only medium quality. Best thing to do is find a way to move the computer closer. If that can't be done, I would go the cheap route. If the quality isn't good enough for you, at least you aren't out more than $30.00 at most.

 

[deBoor]

Thanks, I really dont need vivo, but it would have been nice.

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Mathematician!