PC to SDTV Component?

[Cronozilla]

I saw a $700 TV at my local goodwill before >_>

But it was a DLP TV.

[Anapan]

In reguard to your OP, your best bet is to get the shortest possible cable. I've never seen any benefit from plated cables. Any other solution is prohibitively expensive for your needs. Your 480i display would not benefit much from changing from S-Video unless your s-video output device (PC native or a transcoder box?) was bad at scaling or color encoding.
I had a specific need for a high quality scaler/transcoder which I asked about here.
The passable solution I found was an Altona AT-VGA300CV Scaler.
I still use it regularly both ways (VGA to Component/Component to VGA) for many sources and displays, but unless you're willing to pay the ~$300 price I wouldn't bother.
Altona VGA/Component bi-direcional scaler
Except for 240P signals it can reliably convert all the video signals from any system I try through it's ports. It's on-screen menu can compensate for both the source and display's weaknesses and make a decent signal/picture no matter what they are/are-not capable of. The only problems I have with it are that it's nearly always scaled (can't do 1:1 pixel mapping ever - but you'd need an exponentially more expensive scaler and transcoder setup to do that kind of stuff anyway) and it's deinterlacing is on-par with a XRGB-3 (crappy, but no lag) - it's not able to do any sort of line doubling, and can't deinterlace any signal at all well. Still, for the list of what it is capable of doing it's worth every penny, or, more accurately, the price for something dedicated and even a bit better is almost double last time I checked. I've been buying more expensive and capable video transcoding, scaling, and processing units regularly for a couple of years since I bought it and still find it indispensable because of it's adaptability. I regularly combine it with a $20 HDMI transcoder from Deal Extreme to show HD 720P videos on a 48" 480i CRT projector screen with fantastic results. It also does laptops well, with a sharp picture and great controls over the placement and scaling of the picture while compensating for the brightness, contrast, saturation and gamma change.

Still, from what you're describing about your setup, you'd be better off spending that money on a 15Khz capable display that could benefit from the soft15khz driver and get some awesome scanlines going rather than a smooth blurry version of what the games are supposed to look like. A modded OXboX hooked up through component can do the same thing while bypassing the control setup necessary to make a PC do that same stuff.

[jay_red]

Ok, so after figuring that I would just live with the standard s-video out on my graphics card, I was making a normal stop at goodwill today and found a bag that contained an "AVerkey 3 Plus" Scan converter. It converts the VGA signal into Scart, S-Video, and composite. It was only $10 bucks and it had all the cables and plugs, even the remote so I decided to give it a shot.

First of all, it has some nice features such as fitting the image, and being able to adjust it up down left and right, sharpness settings etc. I get it hooked up and wow the image is better, the colors specifically are dramatically improved, and the sharpness is noticeably better. All fine and dandy except...

The image is "Dancing" on the screen, like it has waves going down constantly. It varies depending on the resolution you set the computer to, but is the worst at 640x480 (which I have it set to). I swapped VGA cable and S-video and got the same effect. I even tried the composite and it was the same. Not much info I can find online about this, and even less troubleshooting. The manual basically says nothing about it, so I am asking here to see if there are any suggestions?