Hello,

I've authored about a dozen DVD-Rs for distribution. I'm
concerned about the appearance on various DVD players and
larger TVs. My low-end Apex DVD player (composite output)_ looked fine on my basic 27" Philips TV. However, the Apex svideo out showed a lot of yellow fringing on my Sony Wega40 tube.
I plugged the Apex DVD player into both TVs, so I had to compare
composite to svideo. The same DVD-R played on my Sony DVP-NC665P (dring both TV sets) showed no such fringing on either TV set.

Does anyone have any tips for producing DVDs for the various quality players? At Circuit City, I watched titles roll by on various rear projections TVs. The horror ...

The only thing I can think of is stay with the broadcast limits,
but that really shouldn't matter for DVD. You can never increase
quality on your product if someone is using a player with less
then good components to play it on. Apex is a well known
brand for their very cheap DVD players. These players will not
have the quality components you would want in such a device.

It is very weird that the SVHS output is worse then the composite
output. Perhaps your player needs a firmware update (should be
downloadable from their site)??

I would trust a better component such as the Sony any time
above the Apex.

Keep in mind that your SVHS cable can't be that long. If you
were using a long cable that might explain things as well....

If a very long cable (10 to 20 meters) is needed, does S-video or composite give better results?

That's a question I don't think I can answer. I do know the better
the quality of the cable, the longer you can get. Personally I'd
just stick with as short a cable as possible. I personally have run
a bit long composite cable without too much trouble.

Rob,

Yeah, I bought the Apex a year ago for $40 because it plays anything, even mixed DVD-R of MPEG1, JPEG and MPEG2 files.

As for video outs, my svideo out isn't worse than composite for either the Apex or my new Sony DVP-NC665P/B . However, with careful comparison,
I find that the component outputs on my Sony DVD player are slightly worse than the svideo out of the same player. The blacks are slight less black on the component. The TV settings are the same for both A/V sources on Sony WEGA 40" (300 lb!) tube. This tube does great blacks. Perhaps the DVD player is unable to handle both svideo and composite outputs simultaneously. I was shocked and a high end Monster component cable is probably not
a limiting factor.

Okay, we are talking about three things now. Composite, Svideo
and component. You are saying that your component signal is
worse. You have a TV that accepts component in? I don't think
I've seen such a TV myself.

Are you mixing things up by any chance? can you describe how
the cables look for each of these three?

Rob, Yup. My Sony Wega 40" tube accepts composite, svideo and component input as well as some sort of DVI from an HDTV tuner. The svideo signal display appears to have darker blacks than the component signal display. I'll compare some more.

40" FD Trinitron® WEGA® XBR® Hi-Scan® TV
KV-40XBR800

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start;sid=5XZqUqstpzJqZpQWGFJgWeQg0QGYYsFpxDI=?CatalogCategoryID=4TQKC0%2eNDbUAAAD2E4NQK_fZ&ProductID=NhAKC0%2eNBDcAAAD2jTdQK_ff&Dept=tv

That's weird then. Component should be better then anything
else. Perhaps your using a bad or inferior cable for composite??

Otherwise I have no idea...