Thanks to Garry Dunbar for the following question about Freeview showing in Black and White:
“I have a Fujitsu monitor that doesn’t take a SCART. I use the svideo port, when playing ps3 I have a ps3 to svideo lead which gives me perfect picture and sound, however when I watch TV, it’s black and white.
I plug in SCART to the back of the Freeview box and run audio lead from SCART to s-video, which gives me sound. However, when I run s-video from SCART to the s-video port on the TV, the picture is black and white (with sound).
Please help, as I’ve tried everything! It’s just a standard Freeview box I have.”
Black & White S-Video
The problem here, is the video format that the Freeview box is outputting. Equipment is normally capable of outputting one or more formats, which are typically:
- HDMI (for high definition)
- Composite Video
- RGB Video
- Component Video
- S-Video
Most standard-definition set-top boxes support Composite and RGB video only… which is what’s used for a SCART connection.
If you want to watch on a monitor that supports S-Video, then you have to set the Freeview box to output S-Video. In simple terms, this is to make sure that the correct video information gets sent down the wire. You’re getting Black and White because the S-Video connector on the monitor can’t see anything on the ‘colour’ wire.
Somewhere in your Freeview’s on-screen menu, you should find a set-up screen that may give you the option to change the “Video Output type” to a different format. You can try checking to see if S-Video is supported, but in most cases, it won’t be.
If your Freeview box doesn’t support S-Video output, this means that buying a simple SCART-to-Svideo lead isn’t going to work, as the Freeview box isn’t outputting S-Video
The alternative
You can look for an RGB SCART to S-Video converter. These are typically small mains-powered devices that cost between £50 and £70 – far more than the cost of a basic Freeview box.
The cheaper option is to connect to the monitor in a different way. See if your monitor supports Composite. This is normally a yellow phono socket. If so, a Composite SCART lead to phono lead should do the job.
SCART to Phono leads with three phono sockets (yellow for video and the other two for audio) are available from Amazon and Maplin.