YSTV's home-made Devices

Old page

http://old.ystv.co.uk/internal/docs/index.php?page=YSTVUserManuals

Composite to Scart

These are not quite as simple as they first appear. They send the composite video signal of up to four inputs to the correct pins of a corresponding Scart plug. Additionally they send 12 volts (from the DC input) to the appropriate pin of the Scart plug.

S-Video to Composite
  • Not active, just raw.
Three Composite along Cat-5

This was originally used at Woodstock 2007. It is a very convenient way of getting three camera video signals from approximately the same location to their common destination. It could also be used to send mono sound to the destination too.

Dirty Little Box

Dirty, in this case, because it's not very sophisticated. This will convert a 50Hz, interlaced RGB video signal (like the output of a Comodore / Acorn / BBC computer) to a composite video signal. It doesn't do any resolution changing or frame rate conversion, so if your input video isn't at the right rate (and most PC VGA cards won't do the right rate) then the output will go to pieces. As a result this isn't the most useful piece of kit in the station.

VGA DA

Does what it says on the tin - splits a VGA input signal into two identical copies to drive two monitors or projectors at full signal strength.

VGA to Composite Dongle

(Malcolm.chambers 03:31, 2 January 2010 (UTC)I don't think I've ever seen this)

A rather nasty widget that converts a VGA output from a PC (at any sensible low resolution) to composite and S-video outputs. It's powered from a USB plug (to get 5V), which can if necessary be put in another PC's USB port. It should be noted that as there is no USB data connection, the PC doesn't know that any power is being drawn from the port.

S-Vid switcher
  • 4-to-1 or 1-to-4 passive switcher(although it can also be used on composite with the relevant adaptors).
  • No syncing, and no framestore.
  • Not clear whether the inputs are terminated when not selected or not.
S-Vid to Composite exchange
  • Composite into S-video.
  • S-video into composite.
  • Active.
  • Avoids the signal loss and resolution loss by actually extracting the relevant signals and sending them down the required cores, and actively combining the s-video signals to the composite output.
  • One channel one way, 1 channel the other.
S-Vid DA
  • Splits an S-video input into three identical outputs.
  • Also provides gain and HF boost controls for the chroma channel, to correct for colour loss on long cables.
  • Can be used on composite video through the S-video luma channel as a 3-ouput DA (chroma channel is a bit oddly behaved).
VT C-E switch
  • A metal box
  • Three BNC connectors and a switch in it.
  • Shove two sources in, and the switch chooses what come out.
  • Also supposed to do appropriate termination for unused source.
  • C-E switch? why? - originally used to swap between VTC (Umatic) and VTE (VHS) due to a shortage of mux inputs.