CMVS S-Vid/Composite gets No Sync on PVM

[Darknb]

I picked up an older CMVS the other day that has been setup with only composite and s-video. The seller hooked it up to a common CRT TV via composite when I bought it from them so I could confirm it was working. At home I have a Sony PVM 14m2u that I use for RGB gaming normally. The TV has a port on the back that has an input and output (line C) labelled 'SDI' with a S-video looking connector. I hooked up the S-video cable and set the PVM to use line C, and I can hear sound but get a very scrambled picture with the TV reporting "No Sync". I also tried using composite on line A and B with the same result of a scrambled picture and "No Sync". I don't have any other options selected (RGB or Ext. Sync).

Any idea what might be happening?

[airs]

I picked up an older CMVS the other day that has been setup with only composite and s-video. The seller hooked it up to a common CRT TV via composite when I bought it from them so I could confirm it was working. At home I have a Sony PVM 14m2u that I use for RGB gaming normally. The TV has a port on the back that has an input and output (line C) labelled 'SDI' with a S-video looking connector. I hooked up the S-video cable and set the PVM to use line C, and I can hear sound but get a very scrambled picture with the TV reporting "No Sync". I also tried using composite on line A and B with the same result of a scrambled picture and "No Sync". I don't have any other options selected (RGB or Ext. Sync).

Any idea what might be happening?

My CMVS (Omega) requires an LM1881 in line to work..

[Unseen]

The TV has a port on the back that has an input and output (line C) labelled 'SDI' with a S-video looking connector.

SDI is short for Serial Digital Interface, a standard for digital video signals that is almost never used outside of broadcast equipment (like your Sony). It seems that some equipment indeed uses S-Video-like Mini-DIN connectors for it, but it's a completely different signal than S-Video.

[Darknb]

SDI is short for Serial Digital Interface, a standard for digital video signals that is almost never used outside of broadcast equipment (like your Sony). It seems that some equipment indeed uses S-Video-like Mini-DIN connectors for it, but it's a completely different signal than S-Video.

Thanks. I guess I had better get my wallet out then: http://www.svideo.com/svideosdi.html

...or get to modding an rgb output.

[airs]

Hmm, my Sony 20M2MDU has that port and works with svideo just fine.

Have you tried any other consoles with svideo on it?

[Unseen]

[s]After a bit of research it appears that the SDI kit for this monitor should use the usual BNC connectors instead of Mini-DIN, which makes me wonder why the inputs are marked as SDI on your PVM. Does it look like a factory-original text or does it look like somebody added it later, possibly indicating a custom modification?[/s]

Edit: Stupid me, I only just noticed the "very scrambled picture" remark in your initial posting. If it really was an SDI input, you'd get no picture at all, so forget about my rambling here. =)

[Darknb]

Yeah so i took the CMVS apart to check the connections and everything, didn't really see anything wrong. When I hooked it back up again, suddenly it works fine. Both the composite and svideo work fine, scrambling or sync, so whatever I guess.

A note about sdi/svideo. The back port is a mini-din that accepts svideo on both pvm's I own. On the front control panel on both tv's it says C/SDI (the other inputs are A/RGB and B/COMP). I assume the port takes both kinds of input. It looks factory original.

[Ed Oscuro]

Loose connector or something seems a fair bet here.

Is the SDI part of the factory chassis, or a plug-in input board? Lots of PVMs have input boards for SDI.

I have seen, here and there, some hints about RGB to SDI transcoders. But yeah, if you've already gotten RGBs working on this monitor, that shouldn't be an issue at all. The only other thing I can think of is that perhaps one of the input types wasn't selected properly (if the model supports that; I know that has caused me some trouble on my own PVM from time to time).