Composite Vs S-Video (LARGE PICTURES!)

[Áedán]

Right, for those wondering what the difference between Composite and S-Video really looks like, I've snapped a couple of video captures. They are both PNG and big! That means they're large, and modem users might hate me. On the other hand, there's no lossy compression used (Solely lossless here.)

Both pictures were captured using the same video capture card and poor wiring. (The cabling is typical of consumer grade console cables BTW) The image was originally interlaced, but you're unlikely to see the interlacing, as there's no movement. The image source was PAL, so the resolution is higher than NTSC.

Áedán

[Áedán]

First up, the picture captured via composite. It's not too bad actually.

[Áedán]

Next, the second image. This was captured via S-Video. Now you can see why S-Video doesn't do so well!

[Áedán]

I'd do one in RGB if I had a capture card that could manage straight RGB.

Áedán

[Darkest]

This is terrible but I can't tell which is better :P
The S-video looks ever so slightly better, is this correct?

[Áedán]

Originally posted by Darkest
This is terrible but I can't tell which is better :P
The S-video looks ever so slightly better, is this correct?

Heh. The best place to look is at the edge of the text. It's much sharper on the S-Video version. Composite tends to smear where there's an "edge" in the picture. An "edge" is anywhere where there's a sudden colour change or brightness change.

There's also some dot crawl on the bonnet of the car under the "Quck Arcade" option. The stippling interacts with the composite to give a rather nasty "crawling" effect when it's shown on a screen.

Áedán

[Darkest]

Áedán,
Ah, I can see it now that you have pointed it out. Thank you


PS, I can't find the correct keystrokes for the A and e in your name under the character map, what are they? ALT something right?

[Áedán]

Originally posted by Darkest
PS, I can't find the correct keystrokes for the A and e in your name under the character map, what are they? ALT something right?

Depends on which keyboard you have. If you have a US keyboard, then you'll have to use character map. If you've got a European keyboard, the chances are you've got the characters. If you've got a European keyboard without those chars, you should be able to get them by hitting <ALT GR>+<SHIFT>+<A> for the "Á", and <ALT GR>+<A>" for the "á".

Áedán

[Darkest]

Áedán,
Got it, I didn't have to cut and paste that one, LOL. I found em, on my keyboard it's <Alt>+<0193> for the capital and <Alt>+<0225> for the lowercase. Wow, I actually learned something new today