I use it to connect my video camera to a TV, and it works perfectly. The first time I tries it the in-laws were impressed by the picture, and I was impressed that it just fitted and worked - no jiggling required.
I wondered at first why it has that bit of cable between the two connectors instead of just being one double-ended plug, but this way there's less of a lever sticking out of the camera's S-video socket so I suppose it'll be less likely to get damaged or accidentally knocked out during use.