Noise on Nintendo 64 PAL S-video cables

I've tried that, didn't work, no matter how much foil I used

What sort of cable would you recommend? (Here's a website that sells cabling) While at the moment, I'm looking to fix my S-video cable, I am also having audio problems with my 2 SNEs (the audio buzzes when the picture is bright). The picture is perfect though, so I'm not sure if a better cable would fix it. At the same time, for my NES and Mega Drive, they have perfect audio, so I think the difference there is their cables.

 

Okay, I've been looking at the official composite cable that came with my N64, and I've had another thought. It has clips on it, so you can easily gain access to the inside of the plug by un-clipping them. So I figured, what if I brought an official Nintendo S-video cable? You can still get the Japanese ones. I'd really like to use a Monster cable, since I know they've got enough shielding but I can't see a way of getting into them, the plug felt like solid plastic. Anyway, this sounds far less annoying than trying to modify a 3rd party cable which are normally sealed shut. Second, it's an official cable, so it should be just as well-shielded as the official composite cable I have. Obviously, I would need to modify it, since it will be an NTSC cable. On that topic, I had a peek inside my official composite cable, and here's what I saw:


As you can see, there's just one resistor, running from the black wire and yellow wire. Assumingly, I could do the same to an official S-video cable? I found THIS POST, and it seems to say that's correct, which is strange, since other discussions talk about also adding capacitors.

*EDIT* Upon further reflection (sorry for all the back and fourth guys!), I really should stick with trying to get the console to work with the Monster S-video cable, since I have no idea if even the official Nintendo cable would be properly shielded. So anyway, back to modifying the console itself! In that post I linked to, radorn says "All you have to do is use a 75ohm resistor to bridge Y(luma) and ground. Do not bridge crhoma!" and "you can probably just solder it directly on the console". So, if I wanted to do this to the console itself, it would look like this?

(Black thing is the 75ohm resistor)

Surely it can't be as simple as this? Bad_Ad84 talked about this mod on a previous page, though he talked about using more than just 1 resistor, so I'm not too sure which way to go here. Anyway, with regards to Bad_Ad84's method, I'm following him right up until he starts talking about cutting traces. So uh, here's how I'm visualising it:


The black lines are 75ohm resistors and the red lines are possible locations for trace cuts, (I have no idea which I should choose!) I'm getting tripped up where he says "Connect a polarised 220uf cap where the break is", (does he mean put each leg on either side of the cut trace?) and "connect a non polarized ceramic cap between the trace you broke for pin 8.".

 

You can get into the cheap AV cable (I know we are talking S-video here) but it is a bitch. I get these cables and add the 75ohm resistor for Game Traders. Seems to work fine just doing this for SNES and N64. At the shop they have a Plasma setup and with the standard 3rd party AV cables you get a washed out picture, adding the resistor obviously fixes this. My point to this post is that the 3rd party cables can be pulled apart and modified. You could buy a few cheap ones just for the plug and pins and swap shit around to make your own S-video cables with good quality erm cable.

 

Hmmmm, that would work too. I guess I don't NEED the Monster cable (I'm just attached to it, since I know it works!) so I guess I'm back to the modifying the cable idea again

What cable would you recommend and where can I get some? You only mentioned 1 resister, this matches what Nintendo do with the official cable, but differs from that information page I linked to earlier, do you have any problems? Also, what resistor and where do you solder it?

 

Yup it seems the s-video cable did well enough in Japan for two re-releases. SNES, N64, & Gamecube packaging exists there.

Nintendo also issued a scarce US SNES box. I don't think N64 or Gamecube had boxed US s-video cables

 

Yes only 1 resistor for the composite plug. For the S-video you would need the other components in that list you linked to earlier. You could get an s-video cable and cut 1 end off. Jaycar sell a nice cable under their own brand, it is properly shielded cable, not that "side by side" shit. If you want I can take a pic of the dismantled plug to give you an idea.

 

Which JayCar cable are you refurring to? I was thinking of just buying a cable, but I wasen't sure how many wires S-video used. Buying an S-video cable and just chopping the plugs off works too And yeah, a photo would be good

 

Here is a plug, I had taken apart previously. The cable arrived new, faulty (awesome).









With Jaycar there are a few options, best to go visit your local (Aspley or Woolloongabba). You could add a seperate S-video cable like this http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=WV7330 and then add audio cables beside or see what else they have there. My old 2009 catalogue shows they have a combined cable WQ7254, but it isn't on their website.

 

Looks good to me! Thanks! I take it from there it's just a matter of chopping the plug off the new cables and soldering it's wires to the wires on the old cable? How do I know which wires to solder to? Do S-video cables all share the same color scheme?

 

Best to remove the old wires alltogether and solder straight to the pins. You will need to use a pinout guide and multi-meter to see which wire goes to which pin. You will also require at least 2 of those composite av cables to get enough pins.

 

I was thinking of simple swapping out the cable from the PAL-modified S-video cable I already have, since it already has enough pins and the resistors and stuff are already in place. In that case, would you recommend just soldering the wires from the new S-video cable to part of the wires from the original cable?

 

Would probably start from scratch, straight to the pins.

 

Same issues here. I have an LCD, HD-ready LG 80cm TV.
I've ordered a simple unbranded NTSC S-video cable then modded the cable as described here:
http://pinouts.ru/Game/n64video_pinout.shtml
the picture was too dark but wehn i removed the resistors everything was perfect. Very sharp image and vibrant colors without any fuzziness. No one could give me explanation why it is working properly without the resistors and why it is dark with them.
Another important thing: when i connect the s-video cable to my TV via the s-video input i get a strange chessboard effect (it's like if every second pixel were too bright). But if i use a cheap s-video to scart adapter and plug it into the first scart input - then the chessboar effect's gone!

Where did you get the SNES and MEGADRIVE cables? Because i get the same scrollig diagonal lines and noise when the picture gets bright as you experienced with the N64.
I've ordered the cables from consolegoods but they are crap. Only working properly on CRTs. The consolegoods pal N64 s-video cable doesn't even work on my LCD (only for a second) but it's also perfect on a CRT.

I know the scrolling diagonal lines and the brightness-noise issue is due to the poor quality cables coz i had an unbranded GameCube RGB cable which did the same. Then i got an official Nintendo one and everything is perfect on my GC since then.

 

In my case, replacing the wiring with better shielded ones like omp suggested fixed my N64 issues, though I have an RGB-modded console now, so it's a moot point I brought my SNES and Mega Drive cables from eBay, if I didn't already mention it, they're SCART cables, not S-video.

 

Yes i have suspected it is a shielding issue. i think the first cable was just better shielded (i accidentally broke it so i couldn't test anymore). I'll try to order from the same seller and test it out again and report back.
and yes i'm talking about RGB scart cables here except the N64.

 

If it's a shielding issue, should it also be noticable with a SNES on the same LCD tv, or with the N64 on a CRT tv?