Our DVDs are playing in black and white. What are we doing wrong?

Question

Regual television plays in color so it can't be the TV. Is there a button we accidently pushed?

Answer 1

check your cables, it all depends on how you have it hooked up.       or it could be your dvd player is malfunctioning. one of the two.

Answer 2

If you're using the S-Video cable (single connector with 4 small pins in it), you have a bad cable. S-Video splits the singal into chrominance + luminance. Without one, you get black/white picture.

Answer 3

It's all in the hook-em-up.

Your DVD player has component video connections that may be labeled Y pB pR. Does your TV have these? The plugs will be red green and blue.

If your TV is capable of component video, then you will need three cables, one for Y, one for pB and one for pR,  just to see a color picture, and two more for sound.

If your TV only has yellow/red/white, (yellow being the entire video, red being right channel audio and white being left channel audio) you will have to find the matching connections on your DVD player and use those.

You will see black and white when you take the green from the DVD player and plug it into the yellow on the TV.

COMPONENT VIDEO AND AUDIO

Green (Y): Brightness and sinc information

Red (pR): Red information

Blue (pB): Blue information

(there is no green information sent. it's calculated in the TV)

Red: Right channel audio

White: Left channel audio

REGULAR (composite) VIDEO AND AUDIO

Yellow: The entire video signal

Red: Right channel audio

White: Left channel audio

You've plugged your green from the DVD player into your yellow on your TV. Green only sends black and white and sinc information so you will only see black and white.

There now, wasn't that simple? (just joking, it's anything but simple)

Best of luck, and remember, nothing is broken, it's all in the hook-em-up.