Does a SCART to S-Video cable always drop into monochrome?

[ajmoss]

My VCR doesn't have a S-Video output port, so I bought a high quality cable that has a SCART input and S-Video plus stereo audio outputs. It gives good crisp images, but they're all in black and white. Is there any way to avoid this loss of colour?

[Arachnotron]

Nope. If a VCR has no s-video signal of it's own, a SCART to S-video adapter will put the composite signal on the Y pin of the s-video and the C pin will be unconnected. So you end up with a gray picture.

SCART is just a norm for organizing a set of signals, but it does not say anything about which signal is actually connected/available.

Standard VHS VCR's in general only produce a composite signal. Which is a shame, since technically there is no problem in getting them to do a s-video signal too. (inside the VCR I mean, getting an external adapter to do it would be difficult and expensive, and not usefull besides since the card can split composite in Y and C too)

[Abond]

I am not sure if this will be of any help, but you can try to force the card to input (output?) composite (not s-video) signal.

[maciek_m]

Well, it doesn't seem so straightforward though. Let me just quote my own post I put under the "PC Hard and Software" a few days ago:
_____
I got 2 s-video cables: a short and a long one

When I use the long one to capture from my video player (scart TV output and then a special plug to which I can connect audio cinch cables + composite + s-video) I got full color picture. But if I use the short I got only b/w.

On the other hand, when I use my standalone DVD player as a source for capture, the short cable gives the full color picture (the long cable works fine with the DVD too).
_____

Any explanation?