HElp! TV out isn't working on ATI Mobility 9600

[Con]

Hi,

I have a laptop with S-Video out, and I've connected it to an S-Video>SCART connector, hooked it all up and the signal the TV picks up is black and white!!

Not only does this happen, but when I try and play a video, the screen on the TV is black and doesn't display the video at all!

Could I have bought dodgy cabling that would cause this? (Cheap eBay deal) or is there something up with my configuration on the graphics card???

Cheers

Con

[danrok]

Not positive, but the B&W thing suggests to me it could be a US card and it's putting out an NTSC signal not PAL.

Some UK TV's will display NTSC, but only in B&W.

[Con]

Tried setting it to all flavours of PAL, and still got the same issue.

Theres no hope! I've tried the latest radeon drivers also.

Con

[Con]

Quick update on this, the Video is working now, but its still black and white!! So the driver update did something!

Could it still be a cabling issue?

[Con]

Grr this is making me want to headbut the wall tbh, 2 hours wasted on a pile of crap :/

[devilmyarse]

Have you tried it on another tv? The fact that you've managed to get video working now as before it didn't work suggests to me that it's not a cable problem, so that should be fine!

[madcatmk3]

I stay away from ATI after a bad tunner experiance. Anyway I know most TV's in America use A digital input and will ONLY play B&W if you try using S-vid.Edit or try to do the covert singal thing found that out the hardway.

[Con]

Tried two TVs

[danrok]

Found this:
http://www.hauppauge.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=211

Post #2.

[madcatmk3]

isn't that sort of what I said?

[Con]

How does that affect my situation

[Favu]

It might be your cable, methinks. Have you tried a different one?

[Aedan]

Black and white on an svideo connection has limited issues in terms of hardware. Svideo uses two lines to send the picture information - one carrying the brightness (black and white) and one carrying the colour.

If the colour line is broken, you get a B&W picture. If the TV expects svideo, and the encoder is putting out composite then you'll get a B&W picture. If the TV expects composite and the encoder is putting out svideo, you'll get B&W.

Software side I can't help on!

[danrok]

Sounds like the TV is expecting RGB, but it's being given composite?

[Aedan]

After speaking with Con for a while, we decided to rule out as much of the chain as possible.

Con is using a S-Video to SCART adaptor, as his TV doesn't have a dedicated S-Video input, so the SCART socket is being used. To further complicate things, there's a FreeView box in the chain. The signal goes from the S-Video on laptop -> SCART input on FreeView -> SCART output on FreeView -> SCART input on TV.

Now, we've tested using a DVD player set to use the S-Video output in place of the laptop. This works correctly, validating everything from the S-Video cable onwards. Any issues must therefore be either the hardware encoder on the laptop, or more likely, the software on the laptop.

[Con]

Unfortunately, the software on the laptop is an issue, I've got the latest radeon catalyst drivers on there; this solved my problem of the video output not showing on the TV, but hasn't solved the lack of colour issue.

Aedan pointed me at a thread on another forum where someone with my laptop had exactly the same issue, and they resolved it by using an S-Video - > composite adaptor. I'm not convinced this will solve the problem, and neither is Aedan, but it's my next trouble shooting step.

I managed to get an S-Video - > female composite RCA adaptor on ebay which is used for graphics cards.

I've heard from other sources, that if you don't use the OEM adaptor like the one mentioned above, TV out will not work because it uses a different pin assignment on a 7 Pin S-Video adaptor, how true this is I don't know.

I guess it'll be Tuesday before I get the hardware!!! Watch this space.