Obsolete S-Video connection? (1 Viewer)

[TedE]

OK, I may be missing something obvious, so please help if you can
Here's the situation. My folks recently moved into a smaller place and swapped TVs with me: my 27" Panny for their 12-yo 40" Pioneer projection w/ an S-Video jack (which my Panny didn't have). I was leafing through their old manual just for kicks and noticed that the connection instructions explicitly state that the composite cables must also be connected for the S-Video cable to be used. Hmmm.
Now, since this TV was from 1990 or so, the S-vid connection was clearly meant for an LD player. I've never owned an LD player so for those of you that have: is this how "old-style" LD s-video connections were made? Am I out of luck on the s-vid front and have to remain with my current composite connections for this set? Thanks for any clarification!

 

[John Berggren]

Perhaps they were just referring to the audio inputs.

 

[TedE]

I don't think so. Don't have the manual in front of me right now, but I remember it saying that the composite video cable had to be attached for the S-Video to also be used. Granted, I was glancing at it quickly in the car, but I did a double-take and read it a couple more times to be sure. Now I'll have to check again! BTW, the model is SD-P4053 (I think, might be SD-4051) if anyone owns (or, more likely, owned) similar.

 

[Peter Hunt]

I was going to echo what John had said. I'd think "composite cables must also be connected for the S-Video cable to be used" if you want audio. If most people are/were used to a coax hookup (one cable) then they might assume that you'd need only one for an S cable too.
Either that or it's actually a "Pionear" not a "Pioneer." Thus with a mystery brand, maybe mystery connections

 

[Jeff Loughridge]

This is just a guess, too, but the audio inputs are normally called discrete. Composite means the video signal. Are you sure it doesn't say if S-Video is used, Composite must NOT be connected?

I have seen that a lot on components and TV's. The manufacturer parallels the two inputs, with extra circuitry for the S-Video, so you can ony use one at a time.

 

[TedE]

OK, I'll have to check back with the manual when I get home.

Jeff - I'm almost positive that it said Composite MUST be connected. Unless my eyes were fooling me, which is entirely possible (I was just leafing through while talking on the phone).

More later tonight...

 

[TedE]

Here it is, verbatim from the manual:

"When making S-VIDEO connections for either a VCR or a LaserVision player, be sure to also keep the standard VIDEO and AUDIO connections between the VCR/LaserVision player and the Projection Monitor."

Hmmmm. May be a moot point, as I picked up an s-vid connection today. We'll see if it works tonight if I have time to hook it up.

 

[Jeff Loughridge]

Very interesting. I don't know if there was a change in the S-Video standard over the years, but maybe so. Perhaps it needs the composite connection to derive sync or color burst or something, but I can't imagine the composite and S-Video signals would be close enough in time to make that work. I'm interested to know what the picture looks like with and without the composite connector attached.

 

[Greg.K]

Sounds more like a typo or translation error in the manual.

 

[TedE]

Yeah, I'm going to say it was a typo Hooked it up with s-video only and things looked fine (probably as good as it will get on this old monitor!)