Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Vodafone Chhota Credit

Vodafone Phone Backup - ZooZoos at the copy machine

Zoozoos Videos download hi quality avi - Vodafone commercial for Beauty Tips

Vodafone commercial for Beauty Tips

ZooZoos have captured IPL 2009 viewers attention over the 20-20s

Vodafone's Zoozoos have captured the attention of the imaginative public.
Kudos to the team behind the ZooZoos.

What a silly name. But they look real cute.

In fact, even though it looks animated, they are really beautiful actresses in those huge costumes, with the set made to be quite big to make the Zoozoos look smaller than they actually are.

Here are a few of the ZooZoos videos : Enjoy !!!

Vodafone IPL Contest - Be the Star of the Match
Vodafone IPL Contest TV ad with Zoozoos in action, aired during IPL matches - Win a trip to South Africa.

Vodafone Musical Greetings

Vodafone Magic Box 2

N97- E71 : New Nokia phones are good and better

The N97, designed to run on U.S. 3G bands, can now be officially pre-ordered from Nokia’s USA website, with an estimated shipment in July 2009. The new flagship phone comes in two classic color solutions: Black or White. You can get the sweet N97 at the solid price of $699 and you will also receive a present from the company - the Nokia BH-703 Bluetooth headset, which otherwise would cost you $89.95. Let us brush up on its features: the Nokia N97 utilizes a large 3.5-inch touch-sensitive display, 5MP camera, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm jack and whatever you may think of. It’s also going to run the Symbian S60 5th Edition operating system, powering the 5800 XpressMusic.

This would be the ideal phone. A touchscreen, which also has a qwerty.

Just like the Android based G1.

And which also supports kazillions of applications - symbian, java and flashLite besides Javascript.

Then for less cost, there is E71. For ... wait for it .... $0.01*
*(with service plan)

Nokia E71x Phone, Black (AT&T)

Other products by Nokia


Availability:	Ships from and sold by Amazon.in Buy Nokia Mobiles from here - Nokia

Requirement:

This phone can only be used with a compatible service plan.

Monday, May 04, 2009

I give free money to all of my blog readers - It's a SCAM ! Don't fall for it

Yahoo/Msn Lottery
Incoperation Baley House Har Road Sutton,
Greater London,
SM1 4te
United Kingdom.

This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of Five hundred
thousand, Great Britain Pounds Sterlings (£500,000.00)  for the ANNUAL
2009 Lottery promotion which is organized by YAHOO/MSN LOTTERY INC &
WINDOWS LIVE.

YAHOO/MSN & MICROSOFT WINDOWS, collects all the email addresses of the
people that are active online, among the millions that subscribed to Yahoo
and Hotmail we only select five people every year as our winners through
electronic balloting System without the winner applying,we congratulate
you for being one of the people selected.

You are to contact the events manager on or before your date of Claim,
Winners Shall be paid in accordance with his/her Settlement Centre.
Yahoo/Msn Lottery Prize must be claimed no later than 20 days from date
of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won. Any prize not
claimed within this period will be forfeited.

These are your identification numbers:

Batch number.....................YM 064689X
Reff number.......................YM63447XY
Winning number...................YM0924546

These numbers fall within your Location file, you are requested to contact
the promotion manager, send your winning identification numbers to
him,to enable him verify your claims.How ever you will have to fill and submit
this form to the events manager for verification & direction on how you can
claim your winning funds.

1. Full name.............. 2. Contact Address........ 3.
Age....................
4. Telephone Number....... 5. Marital Status.........
6. Sex.................... 7. Next Of Kin............ 8. Zip
Code...............
9. Occupation............. 10. Company................
11.State:................. 12.Country................
13.Nationality............
14. Your Reference and Batch number at the top of this mail:

(CONTACT EVENTS MANAGER)
Name:Mrs.Susan Anthony
E-mail:susananthonydpt2009@hotmail.com

Thank you and Accept my hearty congratulations once again!

Yours faithfully,
Mrs.Gloria Bent
(Yahoo/Msn Lottery Games/Lottery Coordinator).

Power Saver saves your electricity bill ??? Or DOES IT !!

WHY TO USE POWER SAVER EVEN

(full capitals, bad grammar)

IF YOU ARE NOT BOTHERED TO

SAVE ELECTRICITY ????????????

( too many question marks)

IMROVEMENT

CIRCUITARY

spelling mistakes

POWER FACTOR OF YOUR HOUSE AROUND 0.8 WHICH IS BEST & THIS ASSURES LONG LIFE OF YOUR EXPENSIVE HOME APPLIANCES ,,

(vague statement)

( MAKE & BRAKE CURRENT )

(break)

AROUND YOUR MAINS ....

(meaning ?)

reduces your electricity bill by on average 10~25%, 30% is the max.

(grammar)

The actual effective electric power consumption in the industry and household is only 60%, and the rest is wasted, but the user will have no choice to pay for all these consumption.

(how, why ?)

READ MORE FROM OUR REASERCH :--

(spelling)

There are many factors which do affect the efficiency of your Power Saver. The device works immediately after plugging it in although it can take as long as 8 days before it has adjusted itself for peak performance.

(vague diversion tactic)

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Another io9 review of X-Men Origins : Wolverine

The following is from a gawker website called io9

I just love the way they have reviewed the movie to shreds ...

Wolverine Is An X-Men Ordeal

The X-Men movies have finally descended from "epic saga" to "farce," with a Wolverine prequel that sees him struggling against the banality of banality. Spoilers ahead.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not the worst movie I've seen lately - that honor probably belongs to Bad Channels - but it is a particularly awful type of bad movie. It's nearly joyless in its badness - unlike some Z-movies that revel in their badness, Wolverine thinks it's a great film. And it's all designed to set you up for action sequences, which - apart from one exception - are pretty dull.

Wolverine's origins used to be shrouded in mystery, but now they're drenched in obviousness. We follow Logan from his unhappy childhood, through a hundred-odd years of fighting in every war, ever, and then he gets court-martialed and executed. And that's just the opening credits. Then he gets recruited into a special secret military mutant squad, which flies around the world kicking ass and being one-note characters. Until the thuggery gets to be too much for him, and he quits. But nobody walks away from Whatever-it's-called Squad, and Logan's half-brother, Victor, goes after him, apparently killing the woman he loves.

There are really two kinds of dumb movies: ones where you don't notice the plot holes until you're out in the parking lot afterwards, and ones where you can't concentrate on the explosions because you're sitting there saying "WTF" to yourself over and over. Wolverine is the second kind. I particularly love the overly twisty plot that military goon William Stryker hatches: He goes all over the world to get hold of some adamantium, a metal so strong it could only come from both outer space and Africa. Having gone to so much trouble, he decides he wants to inject this rare metal into Wolverine's bones. But for some reason, he can't just strap Wolverine down and do this - because the procedure is so painful, Wolverine has to volunteer. (Pause for a moment and reflect that Wolverine is not super-strong. Straps and chains actually do stop him, right?) So Stryker gets his mutant super-agent Kayla to pretend to be in love with Wolverine for a year or two, then he gets Wolverine's half-brother Victor to pretend to kill Kayla. All this, so Wolverine will agree to lose his ability to walk through metal detectors ever again. And then, as soon as Wolverine actually gets the metal in his skeleton, Stryker has some half-assed plan to erase his memory. And when that doesn't work out, he immediately decides to kill the guy he just spent half a billion dollars putting the world's rarest metal into. Instead of, I dunno, talking it out. Does any of this make sense to any of you? It's so nutty the stock army general, General Exposition, comments on how nutty it is.

There are also way, way too many scenes of Wolverine and Victor, aka Sabretooth, with their mouths open wide, growling/hissing at each other. The half-brothers have approximately twenty-seven fight scenes in the movie, and they're all identical. Logan pounces, Sabretooth does a weird hands-on-the-floor lope, and they meet in the middle, tossing each other around and spouting homo/incest banter, until they call it a draw. "Same time tomorrow?" "Sure."

And this is where the movie really falls apart for me. The relationship between Wolverine and Sabretooth is meant to be the central focus of the story. They realize they're actually half-brothers, they vow to rely on each other, they go to war, they grow apart, and finally they become bitter enemies. At no time does this movie even remotely sell me on any of this. Partly, it's because the arc I just described takes place in the first ten minutes of the film, and we barely see it. But mostly, they just snarl at each other and then have rote fight scenes. If you even remotely need to care about the people you're watching fight, then it's a dreadful letdown.

Having said that, there is one area in which X-Men Origins: Wolverine absolutely excels, and that's awful dialogue. Wolverine's nemesis Sabretooth gets to say things like "Look what the cat dragged in," and "How about this time, you die for real," on a regular basis. Wolverine's love interest Kayla gets to say stuff like, "It was real for me too."

At one point, Kayla tells Wolverine a beautiful Native American legend, about how a wolverine and the moon were in love, but a trickster fooled the wolverine into leaving the spirit realm to collect flowers for the moon. The wolverine didn't realize he can never return to the moon afterwards, leaving the moon lonely. Later, Wolverine and Kayla revisit this fable, and Wolverine tries to hash out a new exegesis: "Maybe I'm not the wolverine. Maybe I'm the moon and you're the trickster. No, wait. Maybe I'm the moon *and* the trickster, and you're the wolverine. Actually, what makes the most sense is if the moon represents the military-industrial complex and the wolverine stands for Robert Gates, and the trickster is OMB director Peter Orszag. How's that?"

And best of all, there's the movie's villain, William Stryker. Who gets to say stuff like, "Become the animal." (While Kayla says, "You're not an animal," over and over again. I sense a techno remix in the making.) Also, Stryker gets to say, "Embrace the other side," which sounds like a come-on, especially as he leans over a naked Wolverine saying it. Plus "We're going to make you indestructible. But first we have to destroy you." And then there's my favorite: "I promise you two things. You will endure more pain than any man has ever known, and you will have your revenge. And there will be a chocolate smoothie afterwards. Oh, damn. Three things. Pain, revenge, smoothie. And you get to be bishop of Nova Scotia. Crap! I promise you four things. No, wait. Five things!"

Oh, and also amongst the multitudes of blah, repetitive fight scenes, there are a couple of real standouts. The sequence towards the beginning where Stryker's group of mutant thugs takes out an African strongman is really fun and exciting, with each mutant getting to show off his special powers. (Except, oddly, for Wolverine and Sabretooth, who just stand around.) And the helicopter/motorcycle/truck sequence you've seen in every single trailer is really as much fun as it looks. For those few minutes, this becomes an A-movie, and then it slinks back to Z-movie-land.

But that only reminds me of another problem with this film: the weird, old-school CG effects. I'm not a CG animation connoisseur, and I actually prefer practical effects wherever possible, but the shoddiness of some of the CG effects really jumped out at me this time. Like that scene, which you've seen in the trailers, where Wolverine walks away from an explosion - in the actual movie, the explosion turns into flames, which turn into fake-looking CG cheese.

I'm not sure they sell enough drugs to make this a good movie. I'm not even touching on the sweet old couple who randomly take Wolverine in and bring him free stuff, even after he trashes their bathroom. Or Dominic Monaghan's weird turn as a mutant who leaves the army in order to make a living as a circus freak. I'm not even going to go near the travesty that is the movie's version of Deadpool.

The really sad thing, though, is that this film really degrades the core idea of the X-Men franchise: mutants struggling for acceptance (and debating whether to crush the humans instead.) Wolverine parades out a seemingly endless stock of mutant characters, but they're all incredibly bland and gimmicky. Being a mutant really ought to be somewhat cool or interesting, and it would be nice to see people questioning their differences from regular humans. But instead, we get a bunch of forgettable cage fighters and single-idea characters.

All of the publicity for Wolverine has focused lately on how much the movie's actors bulked up - with Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber one-upping each other. "I ate a whole chicken every hour on the hour!" "Well, I went to a supermarket and didn't leave until I had eaten everything in it, including all the home cleaning products!" Etc. And in the end, their massive bodies are the most noticeable thing about the film. They both seem a bit bloated and blown up, even with Logan's ripped muscles - I honestly thought Hugh Jackman looked sexier fifty pounds ago - and we're encouraged to fetishize their sheer bulk. (And it's parodied, somewhat, by the appearance of the Blob, who's Keamy from Lost in an ever-expanding fatsuit.) That, in the end, is what mutation seems to mean in this movie - massively overinflated male bodies, slamming into each other, again and again.

It's all a long way from the first two X-Men movies, which managed to turn the themes of the comics into something coherent and even a bit awe-inspiring. By contrast, this really just feels like an extra-long episode of Heroes, with better special effects.

io9 gives a short and sour review of X-men Origins - Wolverine

X-men Origins - Wolverine was leaked online as a workprint 3 weeks BEFORE it was released officially. And the hollywood studios are shouting about it, even though they got loads and tons of free publicity and made people buy tickets just to confirm that the movie was as bad in theatre as they thought it would be ...

Here's a review by one of the Gawker websites, which gives a pretty accurate view of the movie

via io9

http://io9.com/5167911/a-wolverine-synopsis-thats-so-demented-it-must-be-true

We see Wolverine as a kid, with his brother, and something terrible happens and Logan's mutant power is revealed.

Then flash forward: it's the 1970s in Vietnam, and Logan and his "brother" Victor (Sabretooth) are soldiers. Victor has been going psycho and killing anyone who looks at him crosswise, so both mutants wind up locked in the brig. Until Stryker, a high-ranking officer, comes and tells them he's putting together a special team, with special privileges.

The elite special-ops team is made up of mutants with cool powers. One of the members of the team is the sword-wielding Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, who keeps making dumb jokes and driving everybody else nuts. Everybody keeps telling Wade to shut up, and Victor nearly kills Wade until Logan intervenes. The team takes on tons of missions, with Victor getting more and more bloodthirsty.

But Logan draws the line at having to kill innocent people, and walks away. He lives in a cabin in the woods, becoming a lumberjack (and he's okay), with his girlfriend Silver Fox. Meanwhile, someone is killing all the members of that special-ops team one by one. (The first to die is Beak, who uses electricity.) Stryker comes to warn Wolverine, but he says he can take care of himself... right before he finds Silver Fox with her throat cut.

This time it's personal. Wolverine goes after Victor, and they fight, but their powers are too evenly matched. So Wolverine goes back to Stryker and lets the military officer put him in a goo bath, giving him new adamantium skeleton and blades. And we find out where the name "Wolverine" comes from.

And in the end, we find out Stryker is kidnapping mutants and keeping them prisoner so he can harvest their DNA. All of these mutants are being held prisoner on an island, which turns out to be the Three Mile Island. It turns out Stryker has been harvesting mutant DNA to breed one super-mutant, who will have all the superpowers of the other mutants... and that mutant is Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool. Stryker doesn't want to release the super-mutant because he's not ready yet, but the nearly indestructible Wolverine is tearing everything up.

So finally Stryker releases Deadpool, who now is bald with flame shooting out of his sunken red eyes, and the ability to disappear like Wraith. And Deadpool's mouth is sewn shut, causing Wolverine to quip, "They finally shut you up." And Deadpool's trusty sword comes out of his fist — just like Wolverine's claws. The fight moves to the top of one of the nuclear reactors, and Deadpool is shooting everything with his eye-blasts, destroying all the reactors.

Wolverine almost falls into the reactor, but an arm reaches out and saves him — and it's Sabretooth. Who says, "Nobody kills you but me, brother." Then Sabretooth says "Back to back," and the two mutants fight back to back, so they can see on both sides. Wolverine slices Deadpool's head off with one swipe. Says Sabretooth, "You know, this doesn't mean we're not still enemies," and then he takes off.

And then — here's my favorite part — Wolverine is freeing all the mutant captives. And Stryker says he has a "magic bullet" to shoot Logan with. The other scientists point out that it won't kill Logan. Stryker says, "I know, but if I shoot him in the head, it'll erase his memory." So he shoots Logan in the head, and he falls to the ground, apparently dead. But then he wakes up with total amnesia. Gambit drags Logan to safety and says he's a friend. Then we hear Patrick Stewart's voice (as Professor X) telling the escaping mutants to come to him, and he'll keep them safe. [We Are Movie Geeks via Worst Previews]

Friday, May 01, 2009

Nokia E63 Vs Nokia E71

The Nokia E63 is available at a price of around Indian Rupee(INR) Rs. 12,300. compared to INR Rs.19,500 for E71.

If it lives up to the reputation of the E71, then the E63 is definitely good value for your money.The only negative point Nokia E63 has is lack of GPS and 2 mp camera compared to 3.5 mp for E71.

Nokia has officially launched the latest smartphone “Nokia E63″, designed for people who need to manage their business and personal lives equally well. The Nokia E63 is announced as the mass market messaging device at affordable price. The E63 resembles the Nokia E71 model in design and in most of the features.It is actually can be called “low-end” E71. Alongside a full QWERTY keyboard, Nokia E63 also features:

Symbian S60, version 3.1
2.36-inch TFT display screen with 16 million colors and 320×240 pixel
Quad band GSM connectivity (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz)
3G (In some models)
Wi-Fi
HTML browser
Email
Nokia Maps
Files on Ovi
Bluetooth 2.0
miniUSB 2.0
A 3.5mm headset jack
Music player
FM radio with RDS
A 2 MP camera (no autofocus)
110MB of internal memory
MicroSD & MicroSDHC card support, up to 8GB
126 grams
113 x 59 x 13 mm

E63 is better in some aspects too
- more shortcut keys.
- 3.5 mm audio out jack (the normal audio jack) (compared to 2.5 mm abnormal jack for E71)

Nokia E63 Vs Nokia E71

The newly announced E63 lacks GPS whereas the E71 has the GPS feature.
The newly announced E63 has 2 megapixel camera(no autofocus) whereas the Nokia E71 has 3.2 megapixels camera(autofocus)
The Nokia E63 has more plastic colured body as opposed to the metal body of E71.The front is a metallic-finish, whilst the back cover is a soft-touch finish - both attract far few fingerprints than the E71’s.
The E63 is nearly identical in dimensions to the E71 except for the depth - the E63 is around 1.5 times the depth of the E71.
The E63 has a 3.5mm jack on top versus the E71’s 2.5mm jack on the side. This appears to be the first E-series to have a standard headphone socket - something normally saved for N-series.
The E63 has no side buttons for volume or voice recording. It’s also missing the E71’s IR window.
The E63 has a revised keyboard layout, adding a ‘/’ button on the lower row, shortening the space bar.
The E63 appears to have a slightly smaller dimension screen although it is the same 320 by 240 pixels as the E71.
The E63 does not support HSDPA data in all models.
The E63 has the same 110 MB internal memory, but is shipped without an additional memory card (although a slot to add one is present).
The E63 adds a flashlight function that allows the camera’s LED flash to be used as a torch.
The E63 lacks the E71’s faux-leather slip case.

Want to compare E61 with other phones ?

E63 vs e51 - http://www.phonegg.com/compare/24/Nokia-E51-vs-Nokia-E63.html

And .. a bonus for my loyal readers ..

Nokia'a RoadMap for new smartphones.

Is your Dream Phone out there ?

Nokia’s leaked internal road-map for the upcoming smartphones including the Touchscreens has emerged on BGR.The phones have codenames only in the leaked road-map but it can be judged from it that many touchscreen,smartphone goodies are coming from Nokia.Below is the leaked road-map:

Product Code	Codename	OS	Prototype availability	Notes	Status
RM-320	Aino	3.1	2007 wk 22	N95 8GB	Development complete
RM-187	Ariane	3.2	2007 wk 28	5710 XpressMusic	Development complete
RM-235	Merlin	3.2	2007 wk 37	N78	Development complete
RM-462	Piranha	3.2.1	2007 wk 39	AT&T version of E71. Software based on 6650	Development complete
RM-261	Hammer	3.2.2	2007 wk 40	?	Cancelled
RM-313	Sharaku	3.1	2007 wk 42	N82	Development complete
RM-333	Gadget	3.2.3	2007 wk 50	N85	Development complete
RM-247	Lumiere	3.2	2008 wk 0	N96	Development complete
RM-328	Astro	3.2	2008 wk 1	6220 classic	Development complete
RM-346	Leevi	3.1	2008 wk 11	E71-1	Development complete
RM-357	Leevi	3.1	2008 wk 11	E71-3	Development complete
RM-422	Wheldon	3.1	2008 wk 12	Vassini facelift (Ed.: We don’t know what Vassini is.)	Development complete
RM-367	Polaris	3.2	2008 wk 16	6210 Navigator	Development complete
RM-370	Surfer	3.2	2008 wk 17	Landscape, 2.6-inch QVGA, QWERTY, GPS, NaviWheel, 5MP camera, DVB-H, quadband GSM, HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0	Development complete
RM-401	Roxy	3.2.1	2008 wk 17	Version of 6650 with half-QWERTY keyboard added. Includes Mail for Exchange. Quadband GSM, HSDPA	Canceled
RM-423	Bruce Lee	3.2.1	2008 wk 19	HSDPA, AGPS, 3.2MP camera	Development complete
RM-409	Celine	3.2	2008 wk 25	5320 XpressMusic	Development complete
RM-356	Tube	5.0	2008 wk 29	5800 XpressMusic	Development complete
RM-348	Vivien	3.2	2008 wk 37	N79	In development
?	Athlon	3.2	2008 wk 40	N85 refresh. Quadband GSM, HSDPA, 5MP camera with xenon flash, 8-16GB ROM, analog joystick, integrated compass, stereo speakers, GPS, WiFi	In development
RM-437	Sofie	3.1	2008 wk 44	E63. E71 downgrade, 2MP camera, no 3G	Development complete
RM-331	IP08	5.0	2008 wk 46	Widescreen touch, Naviscroll, QWERTY, AGPS, FM radio and transmitter, 5MP AF camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, TV-out	In development
RM-431	Shakira	3.2	2008 wk 46	Candybar, WiFi	In development
RM-469	Stella	3.2.3	2008 wk 48	Candybar — successor to E51. AGPS with integrated compass, 3MP camera with LED flash, WiFi	In development
RM-482	Terra	3.2.3	2008 wk 48	Version of Stella with hybrid QWERTY keypad	In development
RM-424	Gwen	3.2	2008 wk 51	Candybar, AGPS, 5MP AF camera with LED flash	In development
?	Ivalo	5.0	2008 wk 52	Follow-on to IP08. 3.5-inch wide touchscreen, 32GB ROM, AGPS, FM transmitter and receiver, 5MP camera, WiFi, TV-out, Bluetooth	In development
?	Mobile Office 09	3.2	2008 wk 52	?	In development
RM-412	Victoria	3.2.3	2009 wk 6	?	In development
RM-343	Dawn	3.1	2008 wk 9	E66	Development complete
?	Corolla	5.0.1	2009 wk 11	3.0-inch VGA display, non-touch, 8MP camera, half QWERTY keyboard, 128MB RAM, 8GB ROM, WiFI, UPnP, HSPA, AGPS, FM transmitter	In development
P3838	Madeleine	3.2.3	2009 wk 13	Side-sliding QWERTY, WiFi, Bluetooth, FM radio, VoIP, GPS, 3.2MP camera, N-Gage support with gaming keys	In development
?	Vector	3.2.3	2009 wk 14	?	In development
?	Jig	3.2	2009 wk 17	Landscape slider for AT&T using 6650’s guts. Quadband GSM, HSDPA, 2MP camera, 2.4-inch display	In development
RM-453	Eitri	5.0.1	2009 wk 17	Landscape candybar with QWERTY, 3.5-inch 640×350 display, minimum 8GB ROM, microSD, pressure sensitive touch UI with tactile feedback and gestures, charging via USB, 5MP AF camera with dual LED flash, integrated compass and accelerometer, proximity sensor, FM transmitter

Simplest Circuit for converting s-video to Composite video coaxial TV video

If you have a laptop with an RGB out and s-video out, you would have thought it was impossible to get a TV out to connect it to a normal Large TV. It would be very cool to get the video on a TV screen instead of watching movies on your laptop's tiny 14 inch screen.

S-video to Composite RCA video cable on Amazon

Amazon.in Widgets

How do I get my laptop's video on a normal TV (which has only a composite video in) which does not have any fancy S-video or RGB input ?

Very, very simple.

You could buy the cable - Buy S-Video to Composite Video Adapter 6-Inch cable

Or you could make it yourself.
This circuit I am showing here has only one Capacitor - but the circuit is absolutely useful.

Materials required : wires, capacitor, s-video pin and coaxial composite video pin (most of this can be salvaged from old wires and cables lying around the house)

1 Y ground
2 C ground
3 Y (luminance+sync)
4 C (crominance)

Or, you can buy this from an electronics shop for less than a dollar.

This simple adapter can be used to convert Y/C video (S-video) to a composite video. This adapter is useful in cases where your video output device has only S-video output but your signal source accepts only composite video input. This circuit works with both PAL and NTSC video standards.
Y-ground——————+

+———- RCA/composite ground
C-ground——————+
Y————————-+
+——— RCA/composite video
C————||———–+
470pF
This circuit can be quite easily i inside a the S-video connector case if a physically small size 470 pF (ceramic) capacitor is used. Larger capacitor values will also work, but cause picture to become “softer”. The voltage rating of capacitor can be 10V or more.
This circuit works in practice quite well even though the circuit operation is not ideal. This means that impedances and signal levels not matched exactly right, but near enough to work acceptably. The picture quality you get from this circuit is is good, but not as good as with best possible composite video output circuitry.

Can I use different capacitor values ?

The circuit diagram lists the capacitor value 470 pF. Somewhat different capacitor values would also work. Practically all capacitor values form around 400 pF to around 10 nF should work somehow acceptably.

Can I buy ready made adapters like this ?

I don't have ready made circuits for sale. Ready made circuits are nowadays avaialble at video/hifi shops and form computer shops quite cheaply nowadays (3-10 Euros/Dollars). For example www.svideo2rca.com has this kind of devices for sale on-line.

Are there ways to improve S-video to composite video conversion ?

Some ICs that do S-video to composite conversion internally use luma trap to eliminate cross color artifacts. With a properly designed luma trap, the conversion works somewhat vetter than with my simple circuit. One IC that implements luma trap is AD725 from Analog Devices. The IC data sheet has information on luma trap design. When luma trap is used, the luma trap needs to match the video standard (PAL and NTSC) being used. For a filter that will work for both PAL and NTSC a means is required to switch the tuning of the filter between the two subcarrier frequencies.
My simple circuit described above works for all video standards without modifications. I have not designed any circuit that used this luma trap method myself and I have no plans to add this to my circuit.

What if my PC graphics card has a 7-pin S-video connector instead of 4-pin ?

The four pin S-video connector as shown above is the standard connector for carrying S-video. Those seven pin connectors seen on some PC graphics cards are non-standard connectors for carrying S-video. The use of the pins on those seven pin connectors is not standardized and can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. (For some strange reasons some manufacturers in PC industry just keep constanly breaking the industry standars and create lots of confuzion to users when doing so).
Generally the four pins on those 7-pin connectors on the same places as the standard four pin S-video connector have practcly always the same fuctionality as those pins in S-video connector. The other three pins can have then some extra signals which are not part of S-video (usually some pins of those carry composite video and some control signals, but the use of those three extra pins vary quite much). So if you encounter 7 pin connector for S-video, then forget the three center pins... just use the four on the standard positions. The circuit shoudl work with those connectors as well.

I am using the adapter ans still do not get colors. What is wrong ?

This adapter is designed to convert S-video signals to composite video. And it has proven to work well on this. This circuit cannot solve other possible incompatibility issues that you might have. A typical problem that causes black and white video instead of color is incomatible video standards on the signal source and the receiver. If your video signal source (for example PC video card TV output) puts out NTSC video but your TV is designed to handle only PAL standard you get usually black and white image, and with some devices video signal does not sync at all. PAL signal to NTSC TV does not work either. One very common problem with computers that have TV putput is that the default output video standard is not right for your TV. If you get problems with computer TV output, configure your video output to right standard that your TV supports and try again. The exact details how o do this configuration varies between different computers and graphics cards. Consult your computer user's manual and other documentation for exact details.

Can the circuit used in other way ?

If you try to connect the circuit in opposite way so that you have a composite video signal which yoiu want to feed to S-video input then you might wonder would this circuit work also in that way. The answer is that the circuit sort of work also in this way. If you connect a comoisute video source to a S-video input of your TV using this circuit, you will get a full color picture on your TV screen. The downside of this is that the picture quality will be worse than if you were using the real composite vidoe input of your TV. The reason for this is that after the circuit the color information is still in the brighness signal, you you see some interference on the screen caused by color subcarrier which gets to the screen. This all means that you can use this circuit as last change in situations where you don't have a composite video input. The picture quality is degraded, but propably still usable for some not so demanding applications. A real well working solution would be much more complicated than this circuit (there are some commercial adapters based on two filters, band-pass and subcarrier frequency for C and color subcarrier band-stop on Y line). Please note that this kind of circuits are always video standard specific, meanign you need a different circuit for PAL and NTSC video standards. You can find one picture of the filter responsenses for NTSC system at http://www.epanorama.net/counter.php?url=http://www.smarthome.com/images/8290dgm.gif (filters out colro signal around 3.58 MHz frequency from Y component). The idea is the same for PAL, but the frequency here must be 4.43 MHz. There are both passive and active devices available to do this conversion.
Here are some links to some products:

Elektro Electronics magazine has published an active Video to S-VHS Converter circuit at their September 2001 issue. Due copyright reasons I can't publish the circuit here. You can find some information on the circuit at the magazine web page and you can even buy a copy of that article. This circuit design is designed for PAL video. I have tested this circuit and it works if you want go go from composite video to S-video.

Credits to Tom Tomi Engdahl <Tomi.Engdahl@iki.fi> - thanks for the circuit man, saved me a bunch of money and besides, none of the electronics shops nearby even knew what s-video was !!!

Ideaz