Adventures in S-video land

I got my hands on a video conferencing product which will appear in next month's sneak preview section. Actually I got two of them. This product (I can't say who makes it yet) is designed to be used in a conference room to room scenario, not on a desktop PC. I opened the box and looked at the AV connectors on the unit. I see a white RCA jack. That must be for the left audio channel. I see a red RCA jack. That's for the right audio channel. I see a jack with four pin holes and a bar. Oh yeah, that's an S-Video jack. Hmm. There isn't an RCA video jack. Well there goes my plan to connect one of the units to my 13" TV, which only has RCA jacks. I look on the back of my 30" TV. Surely that has S-video. Nope, just RCA as well. Maybe the surround sound receiver has an S-video jack. Nope, all RCA and optical ports there. I don't have any devices that can handle S-video? My digital camcorder has an S-video input jack, but I don't think video conferencing should be reviewed on a 3" LCD screen. I could configure the unit to output video via the VGA port. I only have a 17" VGA monitor. Damnit, I want to use this product on the biggest screen I have, and that's the one in the living room. Converter cable! I need an S-video to RCA converter. My PowerBook has an S-vid out port. I remember it came with an S-vid to RCA converter cable. Problem solved. Guess again. That was a 7-pin male S-video to female RCA connector. The video conferencing unit has only 4 pins. I'd have to rip 3 pins right out to plug it in, which isn't an option I want to consider at this time. I want to complete this review by Monday at the latest, since we have our yearly NWC editors meeting on Wednesday. It's 7pm on Friday. The vendor wouldn't be able to ship me any suitable parts until Monday at best. This will require a trip to the store. I call up my friend Al, and we head to the mall. Story continues on Tuesday.