[mythtv-users] Supervideo and miniplug to RCA

[Richard Woelk]

gonzalo diethelm wrote:
> I want to (temporarily) use an old laptop as a front-end. It is an old
> Asus, and the (old) TV has one set of RCA inputs (the typical ones:
> yellow for video, red and white for audio).
>
> For video, the laptop has a supervideo output and I have seen cables at
> Radio Shack that convert from supervideo to RCA; these cables have no
> circuitry in between, just a piece of wire with a supervideo plug on one
> end and a RCA plug on the other. Do these cables work, or do I need a
> more sophisticated video converter?
>
> The laptop has a single miniplug output for audio, marked as S-PDIF
> (from memory). Will it work if I plug another simple cable with a stereo
> miniplug on one end and two RCA plugs on the other? What happens to the
> sound amplification / impedance in this case?
>
> Thanks for any hints and best regards.
>
>   
Depending on the video chip in your laptop depends what kind of 
converter you need.

With an nVidia video chip, the converter doesn't need any circuitry. 
When "Composite" output is selected, the videocard outputs the full 
color composite signal on the Y pin of the s-video plug.
If it is an ATI chipset, then there is no settings to switch between 
s-video and composite, it is always s-video. In that case, you need a 
capacitor mixing adapter like David suggested.
I havn't played with the tv out on other laptops, so I'm not sure there.

- Richard