My home theater system is ran through a DVD/VCR combo connected to an optoma ep719. The DVD quality is great. It is ran through an s-video cord. The image from the VCR for my TV reception has small vertical lines in it. They are hard to see but very noticeable on dark screens. The TV signal is sent through a sub woofer cable and connected into the composite jack on the projector. What can I do to eliminate this problem?
I went to best buy and needed a 25 foot composite cord. They did not have a 25 foot cord so he went and got a 25 foot subwoofer cable. He said it was the same thing.
I'd be suspicious of using a sub cable for video. It may be causing the problem, especially on that length of a run. Any of the gurus want to explain this better since I'm not exactly sure of how a sub cable is constructed?
The sub cables are designed with only low frequency in mind, but I'm not so sure that's the problem. (Anyone who tells you that all "Rca" cables are the same is an idiot. One has to only cut two apart to see they're radically different in most cases. I would honestly return the cable and talk to his manager. A sub cable uses a stranded, twisted pair for line level signal, whereas your video cable should be a single copper line with a 75 ohm impedance between it and the ground, which is usually the shield. A sub cable will have a shield that is grounded on the negative side of the signal.)
The problem you are having is usually caused by power interference or low signal quality. Either the power of one of your devices is recieving interference, or (more likely) the cable you're using for video is running too close to some power lines. You also may have a weak signal for TV in the first place.
The first thing I would try is an actual video cable (less than 6 ft) running straight into the projector. If this fixes the problem, then replace the sub cable with a real video cable (special order or have someone make one for you) and check to make sure you're not running it with power cables. (I would do this anyway.)
If that doesn't fix the problem, have your cable company come out and check the cable lines. If they don't do this for free, you can do a quick check by looking where the cable is split after it comes into your house and seeing how many splitters you have coming in. Most people have a single 8-way running the house, but sometimes (depending on who ran your coax) there are a lot of 2-ways instead. If this is the case, locate the coax running to the room you are having a problem with and move it further up the chain (closer to the cable coming into your house). If that doesn't help, or you have only one small splitter, you may need a cable amp. This is a complicated procedure that you may want to pay someone to check anyway.
This has been a long post already, but just to make everything right: You should have FOUR cables running from your DVD/VCR combo to your projector to get the best quality. By using one (yellow composite video) you are running at the quality of the VCR modulator. That's ok for the VCR, but the DVD wants to go out a component (Green, Blue, Red) or something higher. Doing this will improve your picture quality greatly and allow you to enable features like progressive scan on your dvd player.
Thank you for all of the information. I currently have the DVD running through an s-video cord. Is a green, blue, and red cable better then an s-video cord? I do not have a green, blue, and red hook up in my projector. If green, blue, and red is better than s-video, where do I get an adapter to use them?
This is an old projector, or a computer projector. I'm not sure if you can get High-Def on this or not, but your best bet is to use a DVI cable for the DVD player (if it even has it). If not, I wouldn't worry about it as you're probably not able to get the better resolution anyway. S-Video would be fine otherwise.
I eliminated the Cable and installed a Sat. with an HD receiver. I was able to order a component video hook-up with a VGA on the other end. I ran Video component out of my HD Box and DVD player into the Surround receiver. I used digital optic for sound. I then used the component/VGA cable into my projector. The picture is amazing. I am still trying to get the sound that i wnat out of my surround. Should you be able to take a surrond system right out of the box and use it to its full potential? Or should you need to fine tune it?
You'd be surprised what a difference "fine tuning" a reciever will do. Most have settings for speaker distance, level, and speaker size. A lot of them have crossover settings and things like that too, but those are mostly personal flavors (if you're really informed, you can change the crossovers to match the speakers you use, but that's beyond most people). Distance is easy, that's just the distance from the speaker to your primary listening position. For speaker level, you'll want to get an SPL (decible measurer) and make sure that all of the speakers produce the same decible level when you are sitting in your primary listening position. As far as speaker size, your speakers should all be set to small unless you are not using a sub (setting them to large sends low frequency to the speakers, but oftentimes this steals bass from your dedicated sub).