This is a simple circuit to connect your VGA graphics card to your TV.

The advantage of using RGB over S-Video is superior contrast and clarity. The schematic of this circuit is taken from Tomi Engdahl's site. The circuit basically XORs together your horizontal and vertical synchronization signals to create a composite sync output, and adjusts output for input polarity. By setting the resolution and timings on your VGA card correctly, it is possible to generate a signal that the TV will accept. This circuit works for both PAL and NTSC signals, just adjust the timings in software accordingly. To see which timings to use, this site has a list. If it doesn't work, experiment a bit. The resolution should normally be 720x576 for a PAL tv. The refresh rate should be 50 Hz interlaced. Use Powerstrip to set the timings after you've set the resolution to 720x576.

Schematic

Board
The board is made in Eagle PCB. It's small enough to fit inside a D-sub case, which is very neat. The resistor packages are 0603. It was the only (well easiest anyway) way to make this circuit fit inside a D-sub case.

If you want to etch this board yourself, you can download the Eagle schematic and board files. EAGLE PCB can be found at the Cadsoft website. Note that the board file has an unconnected via, the top left one. Connect your +5V supply here. Component list: Name
C1

Value
22

Package

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C2 R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6 R7 R8 R9 Q1 Q2 IC1

22 F 2.2 kOhm 2.2 kOhm 2.2 kOhm 2.2 kOhm 2.2 kOhm 47 Ohm 47 Ohm 47 Ohm 120 Ohm BC847C BC847C 74LS86

0603 0603 0603 0603 0603 0603 0603 0603 0603 0603 SOT-23 SOT-23 SO-14

You will also need a D-Sub case, a 15 pin high density D-sub connector, a SCART connector and some cable.

Photos
These are some photos of my finished circuit.

The black wires are the +5V/GND supply. These can more easily be taken from pin 9 (+5V) and pin 5 (GND) if your graphics card is VESA compliant. Most cards are. If in doubt, use a voltmeter to see if you have +5V on pin 9. I was too lazy to check and just soldered a wire there instead and used the internal molex connector in the pc. This turned out to be more work than simply check with the voltmeter. The logic of my decision still eludes me. I used shielded ethernet cable which has an impedance of approx. 100 Ohm. The VGA card and TV are both 75 Ohms. The impedance can be lowered somewhat by sending the red, green and blue signals in separate pairs and ground the other wire in the pair. I doubt you will run into any problems due to this though. I used 2 m cable but I suspect up to 10 m cable can be used without problems. I scoped the composite sync signal at the TV end of the scart cable with the TV on to check that I got a nice signal. Photos below. Click to enlarge. Horizontal sync pulses. Vertical scale is 500 mV/div and horizontal is 10 s/div.

Vertical sync pulses. Vertical scale is 500 mV/div and horizontal is 15 ms/div.

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