So my younger brother has a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, one of the earlier models. Anyway for a while he wanted Apple’s DVI to Composite/S-Video adapter. This year he put it on his Christmas list but, he still ended up without it. But a few weeks ago I was at MicroCenter and saw one as an open-box return. So I picked it up for him at about $5 off and he was very happy about it. It worked great with his Mac, allowing him to hook up his Mac to be displayed on the old TV in his dorm.
Now this made me wonder, can I use this on my PC? I have an Intel Quad Core PC with dual ATI 4670 graphics cards. The only thing I dislike about them is that the only port on them is DVI. There is no option for S-Video or Composite output, although I can hook the PC up to my TV via an HDMI to DVI cable I have. But I would like the option for S-Video out. Why? Besides the fact that I have a little obsession with S-Video, the main reason is that my DVD Recorder has S-Video input, therefore if I want to record what is on the screen on my PC I can do so. I do this with my Mac – it’s great for recording live streaming video events, or difficult to capture videos that are online in a pinch.
So I plugged in the adapter to the PC and ran a composite video cable to the TV set… what I got wasn’t pretty. Just a few black and gray bars. It seems that this adapter may as well be Mac-only. This was disappointing. I tried many different resolutions and video modes, but the adapter failed to display anything but some black and gray bars. So I suppose this adapter is only made for MacBook Pro machines. It may have to do with the type of DVI connector, if Apple’s MacBook Pro has a certain pins dedicated to TV-compatible video out – that would explain the issue. But, for now I’m stuck with using an old VGA to Composite/S-Video adapter I picked up at last year’s Trenton Computer Festival last year. The only bad thing is it needs a big power brick and it can be kind of bulky. No where as nice as a simple adapter. Oh well. Who knows, maybe the adapter just didn’t like my PC’s graphics card. Maybe it’s compatible with other graphics cards or adapters? I might try to see if I get any signal from my iMac. If I try a Mini-DVI to DVI adapter and then attache the Composite/S-Video adapter to that… although I doubt that’ll work. (Update: No, that does not work, it formats the screen for a TV but the output doesn’t seem to send a proper signal) Plus it’s useless considering I have a Mini-DVI to Composite/S-Video adapter. Oh well! It was worth a try. š