The Way Playstation Games Should Look
Written: Sep 02 '00 (Updated Jan 08 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Increases sharpness, color definition, and picture clarity
Cons: May make older games look ugly, cable's a bit shorter than that of the A/V
The Bottom Line: It’s a great accessory that surely increases the graphical quality to your games.
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| Horhay's Full Review: InterAct S-Video Cable |
Intro:
The words “S-Video” meant nothing to mean when I played my videogames. I heard it increases the quality of the picture on your T.V. and that was about it. So I searched various videogame websites in need of answers. I came across a nice review for a Playstation S-Video cable, which said that it worked exceptionally well. With that said, I went out and bought one.
I was very doubtful that it would work. It took me a while to hook it up and when I turned on the Playstation I could immediately tell the difference. I no longer use A/V jacks for my Playstation and I insist that I’ll only play using a S-Video cable.
Price: $9.99
What is it?:
To sum it all up, S-Video is a high-quality method of transmitting a TV signal to a videogame console (it can also be used for VCRs, DVD players, etc.). What it does is it separates the color information from the brightness, thus increasing picture clarity, sharpness, and color definition.
What you need:
The first thing you need to know is whether or not your television has a S-Video input. If it has this funky looking circle with 4 small holes and one rectangular opening then it’s probably it, the words S-Video near it also helps. Out of the five TVs in my home not one had a connection, so how did I get this baby to work? I used my VCR of course, and that’s probably the best alternative.
Design:
The cord is very similar to the look of the regular a/v cable. The part that connects to your television or VCR is comprised of one red and white connector (audio) and an awkwardly designed black connector (video). The cord is much shorter than that of the a/v cable, and is perhaps my only gripe about the design. Hmm what more do you need in a description about a cable.
(You don’t necessarily have to read this part, it just explains a little experiment I made to see the difference the S-Video makes):
The best way to see a change is by having two TVs side-by-side and they each have a different connection (in this case one has a S-video setup while the other one uses the A/V cable). Let’s face it, it’s pretty difficult to try to put two TVs (same size) next to each other, have two Playstation systems, and having two of the same games playing. Anyway, my alternative method was very effective. My Playstation is from the ancient model 1001 series so it contains both an A/V multi out and separate A/V plugs. So I inserted my S-video cable in the A/V multi out and plugged in the A/V connectors in the separate plugs. I then inserted the other end of the S-video cable into my VCR in Line 1, and I inserted the A/V cable to the front of my VCR to Line 2. So I turned on the system and swapped back and forth between Lines, and the results were quite surprising.
The Good:
Right when you turn on the system you can automatically see that the picture is greatly improved. The S-Video picture was unmistakably much more superior than that of the standard A/V cable. The first test run was with Resident Evil 2. I soon discovered that characters models were much more sharper and backgrounds (far off) were much more clear. Then I tested it out on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and again I seen a vast improvement on the character models and the clarity of the levels. Another great function that the S-Video holds is the ability to improve the quality of text on screen. This really relieves the eyes and makes fonts look so much cleaner and defined. The S-Video cable works wonders for most games, but like anything that seems to good to be true there has to be some flaws.
The Bad:
Although the S-Video cable is suppose to increase the quality picture, it sometimes makes it worst for first and some second-generation games. See programmers back then didn’t really use the Playstation to its full potential and compared to today’s standards certain parts of these games are unpolished. Take for example Twisted Metal 2. First off TM2’s graphics in the first place are a bit glitchy, the S-Video seems to even increase the graphical flaws found in the game. The S-Video now shows details that were once never visible. So you’ll see that the game’s roads, streets, etc. are made up of polygon squares, which almost resembles a huge checkerboard. Lastly there the fact the S-Video messes up (not literally) FMV and CG movies. How does it do that? Well each movie is made up from a certain amount of squares (sort of like giant pixels). When these squares are put together they form the CG movies. The S-Video cable allows the viewer to actually see the squares and sometimes they appear blurry in some games (Ridge Racer 4 intro demonstrates this perfectly). But keep it mind that this is not likely to happen for newer games.
There’s one last point that I wanted to make that’s very important. The difference in picture mainly depends on the size of your TV (the bigger the TV the bigger difference you will see). It may seem that I’m bashing the S-video in this section but to tell you straight, it’s not really the cable's fault.
Final Comments:
I barely found out that my VCR had an S-Video input last year, man was I missing out on the goods. It’s a great accessory that surely increases the graphical quality to games. My advice; give your TV and VCR a nice inspection, you might be surprised.
Recommended:
Yes
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Horhay
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Member: Jorge Vazquez
Location: San Francisco, CA
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