Quick Review of Lotharek HQ Video Cable

[StickJock]

10 minutes ago, archeocomp said:

My experience says plastic melts only on cheap DIN connectors.

Are you suggesting that my 3 connectors for a buck from China are cheap?

 

I'm trying really hard to be offended. It's not working.  😀

 

Yeah, I totally cheaped out.

[+mytek]

6 hours ago, ivop said:

BTW has Lotharek already reacted to this not so flattering review?

Not that I'm aware of. However I might have screwed up my opportunity to purchase other items from him in the future 🤔 .

 

[+mytek]

On 8/26/2020 at 4:51 AM, tf_hh said:

I´ve ordered two cables several months ago, and both cables make the same problem. I found the reason why: The "Chroma" pin of the S-Video plug isn´t connected to Pin 5 or the DIN 5 plug (which contains "C" - Chroma - at all XEs, the XLF and modded XLs), it´s connected to pin 4 - CVBS. So you get all the ugly disturbations of a combined (CVBS) signal also to S-Video, what is nonsense, than this is the one and only goal of S-Video: having different signals to get better color quality.

That's rather intriguing, and it made me go back and verify all the DIN-5 connections coming from the cable. Unlike your situation, everything on my cable was terminated to the correct connections. This made me curious as to what was connected to your CVBS RCA plug, since you stated that the Chroma pin of the S-Video plug was going to the CVBS pin on the DIN plug. Was the Chroma routed to the RCA instead of the S-Video Mini-DIN-4? That would make sense if it was a simple wire mix up.

 

On 8/26/2020 at 4:51 AM, tf_hh said:

I wrote this to Lotharek, he said he checked the cables in stock and they´re ok. Because normally I trust him absolutely, I take this as it is, cut the glued DIN 5 plug and make my own. Since this the S-Video quality is okay.

Not the case over here.  I suspect that Europe has more tolerant S-Video monitors (SCART?), which would also explain why Lotharek sells these cables without shielded wires. I also have one SCART capable monitor, but the S-Video is routed external to that connector, ending up on a Mini-DIN-4 jack. The SCART is dedicated to RGB only. However the problem with that particular monitor is that the S-Video looks no different than the CVBS, so the manufacturer obviously took a shortcut on providing a 'supposed' S-Video input.

 

[+tf_hh]

On 8/29/2020 at 1:12 AM, mytek said:

Not the case over here.  I suspect that Europe has more tolerant S-Video monitors (SCART?), which would also explain why Lotharek sells these cables without shielded wires. I also have one SCART capable monitor, but the S-Video is routed external to that connector, ending up on a Mini-DIN-4 jack. The SCART is dedicated to RGB only. However the problem with that particular monitor is that the S-Video looks no different than the CVBS, so the manufacturer obviously took a shortcut on providing a 'supposed' S-Video input.

 

When I open my cable from Lotharek, I also mention there was no shielding. But, I shorten the cable to 40 cm lenght, because I use S-Video to HDMI converters. This short lengths works for me without quality problems, but it´s not as it should be, nevermind.

 

From my personal experiences, only older CRT TV´s are capable of displaying S-Video signals using SCART. S-Video over SCART is a very very late addendum to the SCART specification and not all televisions accept it. I didn´t know about any common computer monitor with SCART which is capable using S-Video.

 

[foft]

 

On 8/29/2020 at 1:12 AM, mytek said:

Not the case over here.  I suspect that Europe has more tolerant S-Video monitors

I guess it’s such clear stripes in ntsc because of the colour carrier frequency.

[+Larry]

Amazing that this thread got 5 pages of traction!  But I also ordered one of those S-video cables from the Hercules Workshop (Canada).  Only mine will be 3 ft.  Still plenty long enough.  Looking to improve my already good results (or maybe not).

[Paul Westphal]

I have always purchased Hercules Workshop A/V cables. I'd be interested to know how they compare to the others.

[Vyper68]

On 8/26/2020 at 3:00 AM, Fierodoug5 said:

I ordered this one

http://herculesworkshop.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-product.cgi?d=hercules-workshop&item=80304

Says Double Shielded

only $15

Coming from Canada to me in NJ so me be a little while before I get it

Sounds and looks like a quality cable...we shall see

I’ve just ordered one but no idea when it will get here in the U.K. Gotta be better than the basic composite video cable I have at the moment. I have a S-Video socket on my telly so should be interesting to se how my XE looks with this.

[Fierodoug5]

Got my cable from Herculesworkshop.com. I got the double shielded cable, I went with the 3.5mm audio jack version since that worked best for me, but he has a RCA version as well.

http://herculesworkshop.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-product.cgi?d=hercules-workshop&item=80304

It is a very high quality looking and feeling cable, the wire size is much thicker than the 8bitclassics cable I was using.

The first Screenshot is my before pic, very bad jailbars. Stock 800xl, Dell FP-2001 monitor hooked up S-video

The second screenshot is with the Hercules cable, no other changes. The difference is amazing! No jailbars, crystal clear!

I can HIGHLY recommend Hercules Workshop cables.

 

[Fierodoug5]

Couple more screenshots, including 80 column text

[mimo]

Wow!

[+DrVenkman]

That's fantastic. I need to buy a couple of those cables!

 

[Mrarkus]

56 minutes ago, Fierodoug5 said:

Got my cable from Herculesworkshop.com. I got the double shielded cable, I went with the 3.5mm audio jack version since that worked best for me, but he has a RCA version as well.

http://herculesworkshop.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-product.cgi?d=hercules-workshop&item=80304

It is a very high quality looking and feeling cable, the wire size is much thicker than the 8bitclassics cable I was using.

The first Screenshot is my before pic, very bad jailbars. Stock 800xl, Dell FP-2001 monitor hooked up S-video

The second screenshot is with the Hercules cable, no other changes. The difference is amazing! No jailbars, crystal clear!

I can HIGHLY recommend Hercules Workshop cables.

 

This is awesome, can't wait for mine to get here!

[TommyTomorrow]

It's my first post here so hello to everyone! Too bad that I haven't seen this topic before I bought my s-video cable from Lotharek. Now I know that I'm not the only one who has such issues. I've tested my cable with my Atari 65XE (PAL) and my Benq FP241W lcd monitor and I have these ugly bars too I wrote to Lotharek and he said to me "there's nothing strange there, the picture is OK and you have a sh**ty lcd monitor". Then I borrow the home made cable from my friend and there were no issues with the picture. I'm not against the Lotharek, I've bought Ultimate and SIO2SD from him and the quality of these products is great but I'm a little disappointed about this "HQ cable". BTW the colors (except white/black/grey) are also strange with this cable if you compare them with ex. Robbo game). I really don't know if this cable is really shielded or not, I haven't disassembled it yet.

Edited September 11, 2020 by TommyTomorrow

[+Philsan]

Thanks for the info @Mrarkus

 

Perhaps I am wrong or the seller forgot to do it but the RCA audio version page doesn't mention double shielding.

[Fierodoug5]

It's the same cable, there is a drop down menu to choose 3.5mm or RCA.

http://herculesworkshop.com/cgi-bin/p/awtp-product.cgi?d=hercules-workshop&item=80304

[mimo]

Quote

"there's nothing strange there, the picture is OK and you have a sh**ty lcd monitor"

Great customer service 

[youxia]

Can somebody tell me what the bottom line is regarding this subject?

 

I have some vertical bars, using a cable that came with my 65XE (looks cheap) and CRT TV (so it's S-Video to SCART). Can I improve this by buying a decent cable, or is it possible it's a fault of the Atari's output?

Edited September 11, 2020 by youxia

[tsom]

Well, I now have one on order. Will report back as to how it looks on my 130xe (where I have the vertical bars).

[+orpheuswaking]

It shows them all out of stock, did we create a decent cable shortage ? 🤣

[mimo]

44 minutes ago, orpheuswaking said:

It shows them all out of stock, did we create a decent cable shortage ? 🤣

There were 4 available yesterday, so yes

[archeocomp]

6 hours ago, TommyTomorrow said:

It's my first post here so hello to everyone! Too bad that I haven't seen this topic before I bought my s-video cable from Lotharek. Now I know that I'm not the only one who has such issues. I've tested my cable with my Atari 65XE (PAL) and my Benq FP241W lcd monitor and I have these ugly bars too I wrote to Lotharek and he said to me "there's nothing strange there, the picture is OK and you have a sh**ty lcd monitor". Then I borrow the home made cable from my friend and there were no issues with the picture. I'm not against the Lotharek, I've bought Ultimate and SIO2SD from him and the quality of these products is great but I'm a little disappointed about this "HQ cable". BTW the colors (except white/black/grey) are also strange with this cable if you compare them with ex. Robbo game). I really don't know if this cable is really shielded or not, I haven't disassembled it yet.

This zig zag pattern is what I am seeing on my PAL LCDs. I would not call it vertical bars. So I think people are seeing two different problems.

[Fierodoug5]

I bought one for my C64 yesterday after seeing how good the Atari one worked. It showed 4 Atari ones left last night. Just shoot him a email about getting one.

[invisible kid]

2 hours ago, orpheuswaking said:

It shows them all out of stock, did we create a decent cable shortage ? 🤣

 

1 hour ago, mimo said:

There were 4 available yesterday, so yes

 

lol, first the retrotink, now this!

[+Stephen]

2 hours ago, archeocomp said:

This zig zag pattern is what I am seeing on my PAL LCDs. I would not call it vertical bars. So I think people are seeing two different problems.

I only see the zig-zag stripes on my PAL systems - never noticed it on an NTSC one.  It's there even on my Sony PVMs.