Arnie.d said:
Can you explain how that can possibly make any difference?
Well that's a definite maybe....
Imagine standing in an empty hall and clapping your hands. The sound bounces back from the wall at the far end, and you hear it as an echo.
Well your BNC/RCA adapter behaves a little like the wall. Most of the electrical signal passes through the adapter as it should, but a small percentage is reflected back along the wire. Part of the signal bounces back from that point inside the adapter where the impedance changes just as sound waves bounce off the wall and ripples bounce back from the side of a pool.
Moth3r said:
back-reflection caused by impedance mismatch.
g-force said:
bouncing back and fourth between the mismatched impedance ends
Yes, that's the idea I'm trying to get at (don't know if it's correct or not ;)
Your current setup has impedance mismatch at both ends of the cable. [Yes, even with the "native" cable -- RCA cable to card's RCA jack -- there's still some impedance mismatch because of the physical properties of the RCA connector. The diameter of its centre pin prevents it from reaching 75Ω.] So the possibility of standing waves like G mentioned or multiple bounce-back-and-forths between the two "impedance boundaries."
With the alternative setup having a 75Ω BNC connector on the LD end of the cable, there's no impedance mismatch at that end -- hence no signal bouncing back from that interface, and no echo to be captured at the PC end.
Too bad Laserman isn' t in a position to give input. I'll bet he's tried it both ways already, but we're stuck reinventing the wheel through our own (your own) experiments. Nevertheless it seems worth a try to me....
The ebay link for the adapter is just what I mean.
The link for the BNC cable is RG-59. That might well have been what was used back in the day when your player was new. Today with cable modems and satellite TV boxes RG-6 is more prevalent than back then, and should be even better. They're both 75Ω, so backward-compatible in that sense. Even though you're not sending the very high frequecies associated with digital data, RG-6 might offer a slight advantages even at the lower frequencies of composite video. I found a USA vendor selling 2m RG-6 with BNC ends for $5. If you can find RG-6 for similar price, then why not?
Thank you for the pics. I'll show you mine ;) . . . as soon as I can beg, borrow or steal a camera or phone from somebody.