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If a DVD-R has only s-video in, is component out likely to be better than s-video?

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John C. - Aussie

(B)

I'm playing around with a Pioneer DVR-720H-S DVD recorder - has a 160 gb HD. It is a little different to the European units in that there are no SCART connections, only s-video in (no digital in curse it) but a choice of composite, s-video & component out.
In the set up here s-video out is the most convenient to use although I could use component via a switcher unit -> more cables & mess. I will do this if it would mean better quality output but I figure if the best is s-video in the signal could hardly be improved so s-video out is likely to be just as good as component.
Anyone any experience or comments on this?
BTW I'm well aware of the inherent advantage of component over s-video but I'm sceptical as to whether is would be significant in this situation. And no, I've been too lazy to try it out - lot of messing around and A/B comparative switching would not be easy.
TIA
John

Interesting times

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Technically, yes, but... - Joe Murphy Jr 22:40:50 03/11/05 (0)
you may not be able to see much of a difference on your display. More to the point, how much of a difference you will see on the displayed output will be directly related to the quality of all the processing and converting that's taking place in the DVD recorder and the display itself -- in addition to the quality of the original source that you will be using.
Here's the simple version:
The analog S-video (Y/C) input is A/Ded and separated into color difference signals (YCbCr). What's recorded on the DVD is YCbCr 4:2:0 and is output by the MPEG decoder as YCbCr 4:2:2 digital video. Before the analog outputs, it's D/Aed and is available as component (YPbPr), S-video (Y/C) and composite (C).
Since the YPbPr output is the analog version of the YCbCr format recorded on the disc, it is closest to the original source. To use the S-video output, a downconversion/combining process must take place to get that Y/C output. That's not all too horrible, but when you consider that the display is going to take that signal, do another conversion in order to get a signal that it can process (YCbCr, YPbPr or RGB) and then do some additional processing of its own before it's even displayed... Well, any extra processing and conversions are seldom a good thing.
Re: If a DVD-R has only s-video in, is component out likely to be better than s-video? - FF 15:41:46 03/09/05 (0)
I have two sony dvd recorders & svhs out is acceptable for most use. Component out works well & only for prog scan @ 480p..
switchers are out of the question w/signal loss & isolation issues...
720p & 1024p & 480i & 1080i come into play with DVI(w/o audio) & HDMI(w/audio) with scaling dvd players & HDTV.....

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