S-video checkerboard noise

[Chris Jeris]

I have just purchased a new US cube. It is connected to a Viewsonic
Nextvision 5 composite/S-video to VGA converter, into a Sony
Multiscan G400 19" monitor.

I initially bought a 'Brand X' (Pelican) S-video cable for the cube.
On connecting it, I found that the composite image looked fine, but
the S-video image was obscured by a regular checkerboard pattern, about
2mm squares of brighter and darker color. It looked truly awful, as bad
as lousy TV reception, except for the regularity of the pattern.
It literally looks like you're looking at the monitor through a window
screen or something.

I tried another converter which I had (Nextvision 4) with the same result.

I have not tried another S-video cable yet. With the supplied composite
AV cable, I notice an interesting related phenomenon: When cycling
through the inputs using the N5's input switch, the converter appears
to lock to the luminance signal before the chrominance signal, as there
is a second or two when the image is black-and-white - and this black-
and-white image has the same checkerboard pattern on it. But once the
chrominance signal kicks in the picture looks fine (well, fine for
composite video).

These converters work well with my PSone, and don't give this checkerboard
problem - although one can elicit a similar interference pattern by just
barely plugging the S-video cable into the converter, so that one of the
ground pins doesn't make contact. It's not nearly so pronounced or
regular though.

So my questions are:

1. Has anybody else encountered a similar problem? What did you do?
(Component video is unfortunately not an option for me.)

2. If the S-video signal is not simply 'broken as designed', what is most
likely to be at fault? The cable? The cube? (Although Nintendo
mentions S-video output in the manual, they don't seem to sell the
cable any more; could this feature have been deliberately broken to
remove it and force people to use component? That would be a little
strange even for a corporation.)

thanks for your time,
Chris Jeris

[Chris Blanco]

cdj...@hotmail.com (Chris Jeris) wrote in message news:<6c99217.03091...@posting.google.com>...

I I am having the SAME exact problem, with the Pelican cables. I just
bought a Monster cable and will try it tonight. Let me know if you
found anything that works. This is a very annoying issue.

Chris

[Chris Jeris]

Following up to my own message...

It was the cable. Substituting a different Brand X cable (don't even
remember the brand name) for the Pelican cable solved the problem.

I warmly recommend the Nextvision 5 as a video solution
for anyone who has a computer monitor rather than an expensive
TV, and who (like me) can't afford the $220+ Nextvision 6 with
component ins, and who is satisfied with good quality S-video picture.

Chris Jeris