That's not true! Yes VCR's don't play back RGB, but they can pass through the RGB signal. Indeed that is what I used to do, pass through the RGB of my DVD player through the SCARTs of my Panasonic VHS recorder.

Also when I changed from a TV that offered RGB to one that offered S-Video only I also passed through the S-Video signal which is possible because they use the same pins on the SCART plug.

Yes, it would have been a good idea -however, as I could only afford a £20 One Scart socket STB this is not possable

VERY few VCR's have RGB pass through.

I think that's correct though I've had 2 (both Thomsons) which did. One (still working aged >12) is a VPH6557 and another a couple of years younger, which died.
A relative thought their's did but in fact the RGB output of their DVD player seemed to EITHER output both RGB and Composite at the same time (if that's possible) OR their VCR accepted the RGB signal but output Composite. They thought the inferior picture was just due to the extra lead and connections. Could tell that it was not an RGB signal by the lack of screen shift on switching between Composite and RGB when fed via the VCR but screen shift present when fed directly. No idea if that might commonly mislead some people into believing that their VCR is transparent to RGB signals.

As regards S-VHS v RGB, my Humax 9200 is definitely better on S-VHS when playing into either of 2 CRT TVs (Philips 28ML8770 and Toshiba 32ZD09B) but RGB has a very slight edge on my Panasonic Plasma TV. Composite is always undoubtedly inferior in my experience. Is anyone perhaps confusing Composite with Component??

Possibly. Lots of people get S-Video and S-VHS mixed up - including manufacturers.

[quote=Hector;44815523
A relative thought their's did but in fact the RGB output of their DVD player seemed to EITHER output both RGB and Composite at the same time (if that's possible)[/QUOTE]

It's not only possible it's highly likely. RGB uses totally different pins on a scart socket, these are multipurpose and can be used for RGB, S-video or Component but not at the same time.

There are 6 pins on a scart socket totally dedicated to CVBS in and out and stereo audio in/out. Most kit does not switch off cvbs output when outputting RGB. TV's generally have an auto setting for the scart sockets which uses RGB if it's present, if not it uses the cvbs input.

Also if you plug the scart into a socket without RGB you still get a picture

RGB in fact won't work without the cvbs in connection as this is used to carry the sync signals

It obviously depends on the source unit and the display unit, but even more so on the original source quality.

RGB is the best possible quality (which is why computer monitors use it), but the only RGB quality broadcast source was the long defunkt BSB studio transmissions.

S-Video is a 'reasonable' quality B&W image, with a low bandwidth colour picture added to it - about like coloured crayons rubbed over a B&W drawing.

For those engineers amongst us, or those who have had a 'no luminance' fault on a TV, there's almost no detail at all in the chroma information on S-Video (or PAL of course).

But as there's no decent quality sources, it doesn't make that much difference - and RGB pictures aren't as massively better as their capability would suggest.

RE-EDITED.

I'm just not gonna bother ........

Now you've got my Intrigued

Well, I wonder what the heck some people are on about, half the time .......

The chroma signal is low def, but that's fine, since the human eye only sees low def colour. That's why analogue colour tv works. You only need 1 full bandwidth luminance picture.

This is how colour tv was possible, to start with.

RGB wouldn't look "better" than s-video, even with 3X bandwidth.

The main reason to use s-video over cvbs is, you don;t want the colour subcarrier, that DOES compromise the quality!

To say that European PAL wasn't a decent quality source is crazy. The transmitted picture is excellent. However, most tv sets were low quality. DIL tubes showed less detail than shadowmasks, and nobody wanted better comb filters .........

Read that and agreed, thinking how some people are annoyingly imprecise in their use of some terms ..... then read my own post!
I suppose the main original use of S-Video inputs on TVs was for S-VHS (and Hi-8) so they were labelled S-VHS by manufacturers, but not appropriate for quite a while now.

Interestingly, a Sharp Aquos LC-19D1E (a 19" LCD TV) is I think unusual in only allowing RGB into its scart connector. Cannot be configured to accept Composite. It is presumably deliberate to ensure people get the best picture from connected decoders/DVDs etc but annoying if you want to directly connect an old VCR (not that I did except to see how it looked - and only got sound).

I'd also like to point out that ALL tv systems have chroma = approx half luminance bandwidth. Including all high def.

Yes, but RGB doesn't have any chroma component, its exactly what it says it is it has 3 signals of Red Green and Blue, and then a sync signal. RGB is a "component format", and can be mathematically converted to Component ( YPBPR) without any loss of quality.

In CRT times it made sense as the colour guns where RGB so the signal just went direct with no extra processing. In theory RGB is definitely superior to S-Video, but in practice this wasn't always the case, some TVs internally used S-Video and in these cases the RGB would be worse quality.

On rechecking, in fact it can. However you first have to select Ext 1 as if going to view it then go to options (not setup) and the input can then be set to RGB, S-Video or Composite.

On some tvs only one scart is RGB the rest are composite. Thats why RGB looks horrid if you use the wrong scart. VCRs always have a composite outputi on the scart

As course it would, and of course it does - even with the relatively low quality sources available RGB is still far superior. But back on the old BSB RGB studio images it was in a totally different league.

No.

ALL these systems have luminance = twice chrominance.

The problem with cvbs is luminance and chrominance are superimposed, instead of separate

On my old Sharp Aquos 37" the picture is much better using the cvbs option.

RGB, doesn't have luminance in the same way that the other formats do. Its 3 separate signals that get combined into one, the colour isn't separate as it is in S-Video