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Separate video, abbreviated S-Video and also known as Y/C (or erroneously, S-VHS and "super video") is an analogue video signal that carries the video data as two separate signals (brightness and colour), unlike composite video which carries the entire set of signals in one signal line. S-Video, as most commonly implemented, carries high-bandwidth 480i or 576i resolution video, i.e. standard definition video. Component video cables are commonly used to carry bandwidths over the resolutions supported by a S-Video cable (for example, a component video cable can easily handle 576p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p) and many devices will commonly have both S-Video and component video inputs (along with the composite video input). S-Video does not carry audio on the same cable.

The 4-pin Mini-DIN connector (shown at right) is the most common of several types of S-Video connectors. Other S-Video connector variants include 7-pin locking "dub" connectors used on many professional S-VHS machines, and dual "Y" and "C" BNC connectors, often used for b-Video patch bays. Early Y/C video monitors often used RCA connectors that were switchable between Y/C and composite video input. Though the connectors are different, the Y/C signals for all types are compatible.

Overview

The luminance (Y; gray-scale) signal and modulated chrominance (C; colour) information are carried on separate synchronized signal/ground pairs.

In composite video, the luminance signal is low-pass filtered to prevent crosstalk between high-frequency luminance information and the colour sub-carrier. S-Video separates the two, and detrimental low-pass filtering is unnecessary. This increases bandwidth for the luminance information, and also subdues the colour crosstalk problem. The infamous dot crawl is eliminated. This means that S-Video leaves more information from the original video intact, thus having a much-improved image reproduction compared to composite video.

Due to the separation of the video into brightness and colour components, S-Video is sometimes considered a type of component video signal, although it is also the most inferior of them, quality-wise, being far surpassed by the more complex component video schemes (like RGB). What differentiates S-Video from these higher component video schemes is that S-Video carries the colour information as one signal. This means that the colour has to be encoded in some way, and, as such, NTSC, PAL and SECAM signals are all decidedly different through S-Video. Thus, for full compatibility, the used devices not only have to be S-Video compatible but also compatible in terms of colour encoding. In addition, S-video suffers from reduced colour resolution. NTSC S-video colour resolution is typically 120 lines horizontal (approximately 160 pixels edge-to-edge), versus 250 lines horizontal for a DVD-encoded signal, or 30 lines horizontal for VHS/betamax.

Read more at Wikipedia.org