Video switching (1 Viewer)

[Howard_S]

Does video switching offer any increase in performance? Say if you have a VCR connected to a receiver through composite and the receiver to the TV using S-Video would you see a difference?

 

[Ken Seeber]

Not only will you not see an increase in performance, you're likely to not see anything at all. Most receivers will not convert one video format to another. In other words, you need to connect your VCR to the receiver with an s-video cable if you're only going to run s-video to the TV.

There are exceptions to this rule. Some higher-end receivers do in fact upconvert signals. You still won't see any improvement, because you started with a composite signal to begin with.

 

[Bill_Weinreich]

Unless your reciever is capable of converting composite to s-video,which very few can, that usually wont even work. If you input with s-vid, you have to output with s-vid (providing your reciever is capable of s-video switching). Same goes with composite. If you want, most S-VHS players are capable of S-video out but qualities vary (usually with price).

 

[Howard_S]

Okay. So it's just a convenience thing right? Thanks.

 

[Darryl_B]

"Does video switching offer any increase in performance? Say if you have a VCR connected to a receiver through composite and the receiver to the TV using S-Video would you see a difference"

For the connection you are describing (composite in = S-video out), the receiver would have to be cable of "transcoding" or converting the signals to the output format. This isn't possible in most a/v recievers. Video switching is offered mostly for convience of adding more inputs and letting the receiver switch the proper video source along with the audio input with one command. Some say the video switching circuitry in some receivers can actuallly degrade the signal a tad bit, but I've never seen any noticeable difference using any receiver I've owned. On the other hand, video switching can not increase the quality of the signal.
Note: there are a few receivers (I believe Harman/Kardon makes some) that do convert signals. However, this is beneficial only for convenience, as it still will not improve the signal quality over just connecting the component directly to the TV set.
Hope this helps...DB