Insurrection Industries has recently started selling a fully-shielded S-Video cable for the Sega Saturn. The quality is excellent and this is a great choice for anyone using an original Sega Saturn console, or any of the MiSTer solutions that use a Saturn MiniDIN. The price is $25 plus shipping and they’re currently in-stock:
Insurrection Industries Saturn S-Video Cable: https://insurrectionindustries.com/product/sega-saturn-s-video-y-c-cable/
I recently did a livestream testing this cable and the results were great! I think the best demonstration is the light blue background in Sonic Jam – You can see the badly-shielded, generic cable has a checkerboard pattern, where the Insurrection Industries cable is clean:
The audio also performed well…and yes, I double checked: The left and right cables are oriented properly 🙂
As a note, unshielded S-Video cables usually end up looking like composite, as the color lines interfere with the brightness and sync. Ironically enough, badly shielded S-Video cables like the one I have here can actually look worse than composite, since you get bad checkerboarding, with none of the “blending” of composite. And to make matters worse, these generic Saturn S-Video cables are sold under many different brands, including some bigger-named ones with fancy packaging, tricking you into thinking they’re good.
Don’t be fooled – Get the better one from Insurrection Industries!