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Ultimate S-Video Cable

Posted by Steve W (A) on July 5, 2001 at 18:48:01

Over the weekend, I built a s-video(SVHS) cable that made quite a
significant difference in picture quality on my Sony 61HS10 hdtv. As someone that was dissatisfied with the quality of svhs cables on the market, I figured I could build a better one. Since a SVHS cable is supposed to be nothing more than two siamesed 75 ohm coaxial cables, one carrying the luminance (Y) signal and the other chrominance (C),I could not help but think that the noodle thin coaxs inside your standard SVHS cable might possibly be hindering picture quality. I think it is hard to manufacture and maintain true 75 ohm impedance and minimal attenuation in a cable when the coaxs are so small. Initially I had been using a 6' run of Monster Video II between my RCA DTC100 and my 61HS10, but when I moved the DTC100 to my equipment rack a couple of months ago, I handbuilt a SVHS cable from 18' of what looked to be a very high quality Phoenix Gold SVHS cable - two tiny coaxs covered by a outer shield and jacket. No difference in picture quality, but no degradiation either. Different SVHS cables I had lying around all looked the same.

I went through the Belden, Canare, and Mogami cable catalogs
searching for a cable that would large enough to maintain high signal
quality and have minimal attenuation, yet would be flexible and small
enough to fit into a SVHS connector. My initial choice was the
Canare V3-3CFB hi-res digital component cable, but this cable is
difficult to find, and I live in Hollywood, studio capital of the
world. I also looked at the Mogami 2947 SVHS cable which is supposed
to be very highly regarded, but the small size (looks like a black
pair of 16g speaker wire) dissuaded me. I finally chose 18' of the
Belden 1406B RBG cable - about 80 cents/ft. Readily available, the
1406B is a pretimed video cable consisting of three 75 ohm coaxs
bundled in a 10mm jacket.The dielectric is a foamed polyethelene for
a low 17.3 pf/ft capacitance, the conductor is 26 g for low
attenuation, has a 78% velocity of propagation, and the shield is
foil with a 93%+ tinned copper braid. The individual coaxs inside
are 3.71mm diameter each, just enough to barely fit in the barrel of
a SVHS connector. I stripped off 6" of the outer jacket, trimmed
away the rope filler and cut off one the three coax cables. I
soldered the two remaining coaxs to the four pins of a SVHS connector
with some 2% silver solder, and finished off the ends with some 3M
shrink tubing. There is no outer shield over these coaxes, and it is
not necessary.

So did it make a difference? Let me state that I am often skeptical
of claims when it comes to cables, and most of my cables are either
Audioquest, or handmade Canare or Beldens. But this cable did make
quite an improvement that I was not expecting. Immediately, I
noticed that the reds were deeper, as if you turned up the hue
+3 more red and the color up +2, and the disappearance of some very
fine video noise(snow). Sharpness improved to the point where I now
use the Pro mode with sharpness set to 0. Previously I had sharpness
set to about 30% for an acceptable picture. But now since the
picture sharpness is so good, increasing sharpness to 30% or whatever
provided almost no picture improvement and served only to accentuate
DSS MPEG artifacts and create video ringing. Now that I have
sharpness set to 0, 80% of picture noise is gone, and most
importantly, I got rid of most video ringing - the annoying thin
halos and lines around dark objects/faces against bright
backgrounds. For my tests, I used my DTC100 playing Direct TV and
KCET hdtv programming out of the SVHS output. My 61HS10 is highly
tweeked short of the TLV maneuver. I've even treated every
jack/jumper/connector inside with Caig Pro gold. Watching hdtv
programming through the SVHS now looks almost like hdtv with
sharpness set low! My hdtv cable is Belden 1522A.

Overall, I spent under $20 for everything, and this since this cable
is a 3 coax RGB cable, it should work very well as a component cable
for a DVD player.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Amplified Parts

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