S-Video

S-Video

S-Video sits comfortably between composite and RGB in both quality and availability. It carries the brightness (luma) and color (chroma) information on separate wires, which sharpens the image and removes much of the color bleed and dot crawl that composite suffers from. AV

Why choose it

For users whose televisions lack SCART or VGA support, S-Video is the easiest meaningful upgrade. The connector is widely available on CRTs and many capture devices, and a Dreamcast S-Video cable is inexpensive and plentiful. The picture is noticeably cleaner than composite, with crisper edges and steadier color.

• Separating luma and chroma reduces the rainbow shimmer common to composite.
• The 4-pin mini-DIN connector is common on North American and Japanese CRTs.
• It still outputs an interlaced standard-definition signal, not progressive scan.

Where it fits

If you have access to RGB SCART or VGA, those will look better. But where neither is practical, S-Video gives most of the benefit of separated signals without special hardware. It is also a reliable choice for feeding a capture card that accepts S-Video input.