Component vs. S-video vs. Composite - how good is good ?

bmulligan

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I'm curious to hear from anyone who has the component video cable from Nintendo for the Gamecube. I'd like to know if it's worth the $30 for this piece of wire and plastic.

I finally have a progressive scan TV and noticed a great improvement in the S-video cable connection vs. standard composite. Images are noticibly sharper, and textures are more detailed, and the contrast is better (puts the PS2 to shame if you ask me).

In general, Component>S-video>Composite. But when I upgraded my PS2 connection from composite to component, The difference was almost negligible. Just wondering if the Cube cable is really that good.
 
Are you sure you have a progressive scan TV? Because if it isn't, you'll only run 480i and not 480p. There is a big difference between the two. If your television is not HD ready then you will only run 480i which is not much of a jump from S-Video cables. The cables are worth it for those with a HD setup. The difference is night and day. Well worth the $30.

As for your PS2 woes, it's possible that you don't notice much of a difference because not many PS2 games actually support progressive scan. Check www.hdgames.net to see which ones do and which ones don't.
 
well with games that take advantage of your progressive scan tv (such as metroid prime phantasy star online and im sure others that i dont know about) and have hd modes you WILL notice a LARGE improvement in picture quality. for standard not hd games the difference will be improved over s-video but, to the human eye, bye a negligible amount
 
just noticed that what i said was redundant thanks to spidey but i was still typing my post when he submitted his so yeah
 
This may help, imo

Picture not worth looking at=0
Picture showing interferance=1
Picture some distoration=2
Nice Coaxil=3
Composet=3.5
Svideo=4
Component=5
 
This is knowledge that I remember from my sales training at a local home/electronic store that I had the displeasure of working at a couple years ago.

They broke it down like this in terms of lines of interlaced resolution:

coax-110 lines
composite-220 lines
s-video-400 lines
component-480 lines

Now I've never heard anybody else explain it like this so I can't confirm that this is technically correct but it seems to make sense
 
I have the Component cables for my Gamecube. The difference in picture quality as compared to S-video is amazing. I have 2 HDTVs one 55" the other 34" and all the Progressive scan games look great. My friends that come over and play always comment on how they can see things on my TV that they can't see when they play the same game on theirs. Color seperation, brightness, clarity all make big jumps in improvement when upgrading to these cables. Don't even get me started on how good games look on my Xbox in 1080i!
 
I have to agree with everyone that component is definitely worth it for the GC. Every single first-party game supports 480p, along with a number of high-quality third-party games (most Sega games, some EA, some Acclaim, some Capcom, etc.). The picture quality is beyond compare.
 
Component vs. S-video output



Posted by Jonas A [IP: 130.244.107.130] on August 10, 1999 at 21:20:28
Using Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows 95):

In Reply to: Component vs. S-video output posted by Ken Simmons on July 28, 1999 at 10:51:06:

The component video may be "the most expensive system to implement", but only by the cost of an extra 10bit D/A-converter (Which is implemented anyway in most "better" DVD-players.
As you probably know the image is stored in component video format on the DVD and all TV:s use Component video internally...

Yes, it is better than Y/C, and the reason is simple. Once you combine the separate components of the videosignal you can't separate them completly again.
The more you combine the signal, the more you degrade it when separating the components again!

The signal originates as a RGB-signal in the TV-camera or filmscanner, which immediatly is converted to Component Video (Y-Pr-Pb-format, aka Y-Cr-Cb, aka YUV, where Y is a B/W picture an Pr and Pb is the difference betwen B/W and red resp. blue,) video is usually edited and sometimes stored in this format professionally. This conversion doesn't degrade the signal if the converter is of sufficient quality.

After that the Pr and Pb components are combined to a C-signal (aka Chroma, all Colours together) which gives you Y/C (aka S-video), the next step (and the worst, regarding picture degradation) is to combine the Y and C-signals to composite and in the last step the composite is combined with sound and modulated onto a RF-signal for broadcast.

In the TV the process is reversed.
Most better european TV:s has RGB inputs and many US TV:s has Y-Pr-Pb inputs though.
My TV actually converts the RGB inputs into Y-Pr-Pb for processing and then converts it back to RGB before entering the CRT..

The less conversion stages the better!
DVD is Component Video
S-VHS is Y/C
VHS is also Y/C on the tape, but allways goes through Composite for unknown reason...
LD is composite
TV broadcasts is RF

On the other hand those formats have different limitations in other aspects than vidoesignal, like timeing and most notably resolution. Thats why LD looks much better than VHS and Broadcast TV.
 
I just got my Nintendo component cables and hooked them up. I have been through most of the progressive scan games in my collection and the result is less than stellar.

I've tried Rebel Strike 3, Bounty Hunter, Starfox, Mario Cart, and Metal Arms and found a slight improvement in color saturation, and a slight improvement in overall quality.

The most noticible is the apparent dithering effect, making the 'jaggies' less noticible. But this improvement makes the picture appear less sharp. Perhaps I would have noticed a difference if my TV didn't have a digital comb filter. I've enjoyed the interscan line interpolation from this while using s-video, so this may be why I don't notice a great improvement in progressive scan. It's an improvement yes, but I really don't see why there aren't any 3d party cables for less money out there because $30 is too much for this thing.

Given the choice again, I'd rather have bought 2 $15 games instead of this cable. But don't ask to trade me for it. I don't think I could untangle the eagles nest of wires behind the TV ever again.
 
Not to be stupid, but are you sure that you've got progressive scan properly turned on? The difference in clarity should be seriously apparent, no question.
 
Yes, progressive scan is turned on. In fact, some games boot up giving a progressive scan choice without even having to hold down the b button on startup. I guess it automatically detects the component cable.

As I said before, I probably don't notice a huge difference because 1) i'm already going from s-video to component, and 2) the scan line interpolation before the component cables was already giving me a more detailed picture.

I'll say the same thing about the PS2 component output, going from s-video to component wasn't that much of an improvement. Going from composite to component is much more noticibly improved.
 
Re: ps2,
I went from composite to component. It did look noticeably better on the 'hi def' input for the few progressive scan games, but there are so few, and it seems to be such a PITA to go from Component to S-video or Composite for each game, that it's not really worth it for me.
I do have the Component cables hooked up via the regular, non-HD CVi inputs, and again, it looks better, but not OH MY GOD THAT LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER!. In fact, I have noticed on one game [FFX], during the battle scenes, the characters have a sort of aura or halo around them. I'm not sure if that's the game, or my tv needs to be calibrated, or the extra sharpness from the component, but it is noticeable.
I wouldn't have paid 30 bucks for them, but I found a set for about 10 bucks, which I could do.
 
You don't have to switch between cables to play different games. You can always use the component cable, whether the game runs in progressive scan or not.

And yes, the GC will auto-detect the cable after the first time you turn on progressive scan for appropriate games, until the status quo is altered.
 
I don't mean to sound completely ignorant here, but I've been playing all the current systems (GCN, Xbox, PS2) on an old 80's era 27-inch RCA tv through an RF adapter. The picture tube just has just started to go out on it recently, and instead of fixing it (again), the wife and I decided to upgrade to a new 32-inch set. We settled on a Toshiba with S-video and component inputs, but I doubt it has progressive scan for the price (around $300).

I picked up S-video cables cheap last year in the hope that I would one day have a tv set that could use them. Since I don't have progressive scan, should I even bother with component cables or just stick with the S-video cables I have? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
Since you don't have progressive scan, don't bother with component cables. You'll just be paying a premium for pretty much the same quality as S-Video.
 
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