[mythtv-users] OT: geforce 5200 and cables

[Neil Cronin]

Hi all,

I have a video cabling question, and I haven't found the right answer
anywhere else, so I thought I'd post it here since I'm sure that
someone has run into this with mythtv.  I'm looking for a way to
remove some video interference in my current setup.

My mythtv box has a geforce 5200 hooked up to a sony trinitron
television.  Inputs and outputs that I have are here:

5200:
- svideo out
- dvi out
- vga out

TV
- component in
- svideo in
- composite in
- coax in

I'm currently using the svideo-out on the 5200 to the svideo-in on the
tv, but there is way too much interference.  I see about 100 grey
lines running from the top right to the bottom left of the screen. 
I've tried various svideo cables (high quality and low quality
cables), but the interference is always there to one degree or
another.  The case fans on the computer are directly besides the agp
slot, and when I turn off the fans the interference goes away
completely.  Hooking up the computer to a monitor displays zero
interference with the fans turned on.

My understanding was that vga *is* component, but this doesn't exactly
seem true.  I have a vga->rgb rca cable, and this obviously doesn't
work.  I see "transcoders" for sale at close to $200, but I'm not sure
what exactly they do.  Is it not possible to do this in software?  Can
Xorg do this out of the box?

In my reading on this subject, I've found that Apple ships some
computers with a dvi->svideo adapter, which I think means that at
least some dvi implementations send analogue and digital at the same
time.  Does the 5200 do this?  Can I use a similar adapter?

As I see it, these are my options:

- get a VGA to Component (Y-Pb-Pr) Transcoder (~$200)
- get a DVI to S-Video adapter, if possible (~$20)
- live with the interference ($0:)
- get a new case (any recommendations for my existing hw?)
- anything else that I've missed?

My tv signal is coax from local cable, so I'm not looking for anything
fancy or super-high-quality, just something that will make mythtv
*close* to the quality of coax straight into the tv.

Thanks!
Neil