Test Caps - various composite and s-video cables

[BrainStorm69]

Here are some screen caps from AVIs of one of our favorite test patterns (the THX pattern off of Ice Age) using various cables. [EDIT 2: I mainly did this to examine the differences in s-video cables, but then decided to add the composite cables also.] Captured in VirtualVCR using HuffyUV. Then screencapped in VirtualDubMod to .tga format. Then converterd to .jpg format in Paintshop Pro using a compression setting of 1 (best quality).

Since questions about the differences in cables are frequently asked, I thought this might be nice to have posted.


Standard Composite Cable - came with something I bought


Cheap Gold Composite - $5


Radio Shack High End Composite Cable - $5 (overstock)


Monster Composite Cable - not sure, came with used VCR I bought


Cheap Silver S-video Cable - $1.50


Cheap Gold S-video Cable - $2.50


GE UltraPro S-video Cable - $6.00


Philips M62791 S-video Cable - $8.00


Acoustic Research S-video Cable - $15.00


Belkin PureAV S-video Cable - $13.00

[Marvingj]

There is a big difference between the cheap and the more expensive, the cheap ones has clarity problem. I was wondering if you had Monster Cables, what a difference it wouldn't made or is it the hype? Monster cables being Monster cables.

[BrainStorm69]

Marvingj, unfortunately the one cable I don't have is Monster. Their "best" s-video cable is about $45 for 3 ft, and that's just too much for me to spend. Although I am curious myself. Anyone in Dallas area have a Monster s-video cable they want to lend me?

[anitract]

This is pretty interesting. My untrained eye can't see too much of a difference between the different s-video cables, although the composite is clearly worse (especially on the color band).

I personally like Belkin PureAV cables (low price, good quality). I think they're a little better than the Acoustic Research line, which I also use.

[BrainStorm69]

I don't see any real difference between the s-video cables except in the red and blue of the color bars. The better ones (GE, Philips and AR) have less noise in the red and blue than the cheaper ones. To my eyes, the Philips and AR both have less noise in the blue than the GE, but the GE has less noise in the red than the Philips or AR.

The composite definitely is worse. There are chroma problems in the copyright legend and THX logo, and there is dot crawl along the edges of colors in the color bars. However, other than at the edges (where there are color transitions), it appears to me that there is less noise in the red and blue color bars for the composite cable than any of the s-video cables.

I really don't see any difference in resolution for any of them.

[davideck]

With respect to composite versus s-video, the difference in cables is most likely negligible compared to the different processing that is taking place within the composite and s-video signal paths.

The dot crawl indicates a comb filter to separate chrominance/luminance in the composite path, and the copyright legend artifacts are most likely the result of this as well.

More evidence to use the s-video path whenever possible...

[BrainStorm69]

David, you make a good point. The difference between the composite and the s-video is probably caused more by having to the capture card having to separate the chroma and luma than quality difference of the cable. The composite cable itself appears to be very good quality.

Originally, I was only going to do this for the different s-video cables I have, but I figured someone would eventually ask for the composite, so I went ahead and did it now.

[greymalkin]

people who buy monster cable can be equated to people who buy lexus'.

a status symbol or a waste of money depending on which side of the fence you sit :P

[BrainStorm69]

people who buy monster cable can be equated to people who buy lexus'.

a status symbol or a waste of money depending on which side of the fence you sit :P

I wish I had a Monster s-video cable to test with to prove (or disprove)that point.

[BrainStorm69]

I personally like Belkin PureAV cables (low price, good quality). I think they're a little better than the Acoustic Research line, which I also use.

Well, we'll see how they fair. I needed another high quality s-video cable anyway, so I got a 6ft'er from Staples for $12.98. I'll put up a screen cap using it tonight.

I still can't seem to make myself fork over $45 for a Monster cable though.

[davideck]

people who buy monster cable can be equated to people who buy lexus'.

a status symbol or a waste of money depending on which side of the fence you sit :P

I wish I had a Monster s-video cable to test with to prove (or disprove)that point.

I wish I had a lexus to prove that point.

[canadateck]

I'll Trade my Monster s-video cable, for a lexus.

[anitract]

I'd be interested to see that, BrainStorm69. ^_^

[BrainStorm69]

I have some slight clearance problems with plugging the PureAV cable into my card. Too much to deal with right now...maybe tomorrow.

[Wile_E]

The composite seems to resolve just as many lines as the s-video. At least from my short comparison. But the composite has dot crawl and noise in colors.

The s-video look very similar to me that it wouldn't be worth it to spend more $$$. Of course being one frame, it's hard to say. Another frame could show yet different results.

[spectroelectro]

One of the oldest old wives tales in audio/video: "[x] brand of cable dramatically improves the [sound/picture]."

It's all nonsense.

Silver, gold, copper, zip cord from home depot, $45 monster cables, or the best example of folly I ever saw, the rubber tubes filled with mercury (!) and fitted with gold audio connectors on the end... Linear crystal oxide-free copper, "nine 9s" copper... All supersition with nary a shred of evidence to support it.

Cables are cables. Any modern cable should have negligible capacitive reactance and negligible inductance, and the conductance of any modern cable will be essentially identical. Copper, gold, silver, whatever, they all conduct electricity equally well for all practical purposes. Remember your quantum mechanics: electrons in a metallic conductor blend into a conductive soup. Any of the group VIII metals on the periodic table will have the same electrical properties. Cu, Au and Ag all occupy the same column of the periodic table for a reason, you know.

The composite signal looks different because, as is very well known, a composite NTSC signal squishes the chroma and luminance signals together whereas an S video separates 'em. When you use a bandpass filter to separate out the chroma and luma signals from a composite signal you get artifcats caused by signal leakthrough, since no filter is perfect. S video avoids that problem but it does it by separating chroma and luma into different signals, not because of anything to do with the cable.

If you had tested component video you would've gotten even better results but once again not because of anything to do with the construction of cables. Component video separates chroma into red and blue component signals and separates both from luminance.

The effort is laudable but it's a complete waste of time. Every double-blind ABX test ever done with cables shows that audio or video looks/sounds identical to a typical observer regardless of what kind of cable you use, unless there's something drastically wrong with the cable -- i.e., if there's a break in the cable, or something of that kind. Otherwise, folks, wire is wire. The copper in Home Depot zip cord is 9 nines copper. We live in a very technically advanced society nowadays. Even the crudest wire cabling in the developed world is excellent stuff, and electrically it all has essentially identical properties.

[rhegedus]

Not much between them, but the transition between green and magenta, and the THX logo highlights some differences.

IMHO, there's nothing to chose between Philips and Accoustic Research.

people who buy monster cable can be equated to people who buy lexus'.

a status symbol or a waste of money depending on which side of the fence you sit :P

My gf has a lexus IS300 - it's better equipped and cheaper than an equivalent car (BMW330, Audi A4 etc).

[BrainStorm69]

The effort is laudable but it's a complete waste of time.

By waste of time, I assume you mean it will show no/negligible differences. Which is ok by me. I have no agenda here, other than to do some testing and share the results.

When there are differing opinions on a topic without evidence put forth for all to evaluate for themselves, I like to do some empirical testing and share the results. Then folks can make up their own minds based on at least some evidence, rather than wondering which opinion to believe. That makes it worthwhile as far as I'm concerned.

[rhegedus]

One of the oldest old wives tales in audio/video: "[x] brand of cable dramatically improves the [sound/picture]."

It's all nonsense.

I have to disagree.

Whilst the metal used for the wires and connections might not matter that much, the quality of shilding and craftsmanship does.

When I bought a new dvd player a while back, I just used the scart cable supplied and left the cabe dangle along with the scart cable from my satelite box. When watching DVDs, I noticed ghosting from the satelite channels, especially during dark scenes. Separating the cables wasn't really an option since I like everyting to be nice and neat behind the glass TV stand.

I replaced the OEM scart with an IXOS scart cable and the picture sharpened up and had no ghosts. I even wrapped one scart around the other to see how well it did - perfect picture every time (so I junked the other scart lead for another IXOS).

Since then, all my cables have been IXOS.

[davideck]

The effort is laudable but it's a complete waste of time.

I think this effort is very worthwhile;
It demonstrates that cables really don't matter that much (apart from what rhegedus pointed out).
It also demonstrates how much better s-video is than composite!
Thanks BrainStorm69

[BrainStorm69]

I edited my first post above to add the Belkin PureAV s-video cable. I think it has the very least amount of noise in the blue bar, but somewhat more noise in the red bar than the other high-end cables. Interestingly, it seems that the cleaner the signal is for blue on the high-end cables, the noiser the red becomes. Wonder if it has to do with them being at opposite ends of the frequency spectrum?

[BrainStorm69]

I decided since I also had several different composite cables (including a Monster composite cable), I would expand this topic a bit by adding caps from AVIs captured using them.

As far as the composite cables go, I don't really see any difference except that the standard cable (silver colored connectors) seems to be worse (or at least different) than the other three, which all have gold connectors. So much for Monster composite cables being better than other composite cables (except for the cheapest).

[anitract]

Thanks for the Belkin shots! This was an interesting comparison...kinda backed up what most of us thought about cables...though...no final verdict until the Monsters are tested.

[sanlyn]

Sorry I don't have captures to post (that's what happens when you're too thorough about cleaning your PC out every 2 years), but to help settle the Monster Cable S-Video questions: I used to have a ton of 740x480 images from VHS tapes and TV captures using Monster's s-Video Series3 wire. What I saw was a very sharp image -- but a visible loss of contrast and sparkle in every case, as well as edge artificats on very bright and very dark edges, blue and cyan blotches in shadows and skin tones, lotsa noise in reds and yellows, a subtle loss of what photographers call "atmospherics" or "ambiance" in the overall image, including color and b&w. Now, I wish I hadn't deleted all those images (too lazy to compile yet another disc of samples and tests), but these were not captures of test patterns. These were frames from VHS tapes and new tv captures. I got rid of my Monsters a while back, so I can't remake those scenes.

I cured those problems by using AR, GE-branded and RCA-branded generics, Mogami, and Sony OEM cables. The cheap "GE" S-video gave the sharpest and snappiest image and best color -- but with noisy tapes and cables, I had to go with the softer Mogami and AR for S-video to reduce noise and avoid the kind of crappy distortion that MPEG makes from it. For composite I'm using AR's -- but again, with a noisy source I use a "softer" composite wire such as Belden 1505A (watch for the contrast loss there, and burned-up highlights), or cheapo SONY OEM's, which are surprisingly nice cables.

I once spent $250 on 3 feet of Audioquest gourmet S-Video wire. Fortunately, I got my money back.

My experience with Monster RG59 and composite cable wire (as well as Monster "video" left/right audio wire -- these are all made from the same core wire): Avoid it at all costs. Very grainy, too red, wrong impedance for RF, composite, or audio use (average impedance is 30 ohms, not 75, and the treble thru the audio version is really bad). I ditched all of these after breaking one and replacing them with a $7 non-branded a/v set and seeing what a great picture I was getting after ridding myself of yet another Monster product.

[akito8]

anyone use vampire wire s-video? one of my favorite s-video cables to use was the JVC cable that came with my S-VHS VCR. I don't use monster anymore either; I started to build Canare stuff for Coax. I wanted to use Belden but my soldering technique really really sucks.

[sanlyn]

anyone use vampire wire s-video? one of my favorite s-video cables to use was the JVC cable that came with my S-VHS VCR. I don't use monster anymore either; I started to build Canare stuff for Coax. I wanted to use Belden but my soldering technique really really sucks.

No need to make your own Belden. They're nicely wired at www.bluejeanscable.com, some with Canare or very good s-video plugs, or with other good plugs at www.a2zcable.com . I used Canare in the past, but Belden had a crisper image. As for Vampire: I've read they're overpriced. The British press sez they're OK, but you can do better at lower prices.

[akito8]

yeah i like the beldens - i paid about $22 for a 6ft vampire - is the bluejeans worth $14 extra? ($36 for bluejeans 6ft)

I haven't used a bluejeans cable so difficult for me to know. I am using AG-7750 SVHS vcr.

[sanlyn]

I've seen 3 reviews of typical Belden composite and s-video cable, all favorable but not great--3 reviews of Vampire, one of which is still printed in Britain in WhatHiFi mag. No one seemed crazy about either brand. My Beldens had a pretty nice image, but I began to see "echo" (edge ghosting and artifacts) and problems with dimly-lit scenes.
I ended up replacing Belden's composite with AR Performance Series ($I think $14/6ft) and AR's Pro-II Series s-video. I don't think AR's s-video ($25) was any better than Belden's, but the AR composite is very nearly as good as any s-video I've used. Not quite, but pretty good. Right-on color.

[Acden]

BrainStorm69, and what is your conclusion - AR are the best?

[sanlyn]

Thank you, brainstorm69. Interesting. How do these cables perform with real video that has people and other stuff in it, moving around? I've been using Ar quite a while (a bit soft with real stuff, but accurate color and very smooth looking b&w captures, no wire transmission noise that I can see. My favorite is a cheapo GE s-video. I threw away Monster a long time ago; too much cable noise, and skin looks weird.