Card with only S-Video input... what to do?

[PaulJBis]

Hi all:

After my last message here and the advice I received, today I went out and bought a Hauppauge WinTV PCI-FM (which has a Conexant chipset). I connected it to my VCR via a SCART adapter, and it all works fine... except that it captures in black and white and with a lot of grain. I supposed this was because my VCR doesn't have S-Video output and I was plugging the S-Video output of the adapter into the S-Video input of the card, so I started looking for a composite (RCA) video cable... only to find out that my capture card doesn't have a RCA input for video. It only has a S-Video input and a RF one.

What to do now? I suppose I'll get a composite -> S-Video adapter cable, but what concerns me in that case is the possible quality degradation. I mean: if I feed a composite signal into a S-Video input, what happens? Will the card be able to understand it? Will the quality be lower than with a card that has a "real" composite input? How does this part work? Should I just exchange the card for another one that has separate S-Video and composite inputs, or it's not worth it?

(Of course, I could also just buy a standard RF cable and use the RF input, but I'm trying to capture a program from a subscriber-only channel (Canal +, to be exact), so the signal has to go through the set-top box first, and the box only has a SCART input/output which is plugged to the VCR).

[rfmmars]

Nothing happens, all the adaptor does is combine the chroma to Y-Lum. either by a jumper or a capsator. The grain you see has always been there, you just didn't see it on your TV.

richard
photorecall.net

[PaulJBis]

Are you sure? Please note that I'm talking about taking a composite signal (with Y and C already joined) and feed it into a S-Video one in the card, not the other way round.

[The Geek]

It'll be fine. If you use the composite to S-Video adapter, only 1 of the 2 wires will be used. Then just set the capture program to composite source, and that's it.

There won't be any quality degradation. Why should there be any ? All you do is using 1 wire instead of 2.

The Geek

[PaulJBis]

Thank you. That's exactly what I needed to know.

(Though of course, now that I think about it, I could have just bought a RF cable and connect it to the RF-OUT of the VCR... :rolleyes: That's what happens for not thinking things through).

[The Geek]

Though of course, now that I think about it, I could have just bought a RF cable and connect it to the RF-OUT of the VCR...

Now that would degrade the quality quite noticeable ;)

Use the way with the composite cable. The signal on the VHS tapes is composite, so by using the composite cable you transfer the signal as it is, without converting it, or modulating it, etc.

The Geek

[zilog jones]

That card should have came with an adaptor to plug composite video into the s-video socket via an RCA socket. It doesn't convert the video or anything - it will just make the video come into the card's composite video input. It's a pretty small thing - you sure it's not there?

Depending on what program you're using, there might be an option for the input to be "composite over s-video" - that should give you colour if you're still using an s-video cable. Or try messing around with the different input selections. WinTV seemed to be very dodgy about selecting the input correctly - I have much less trouble with VirtualVCR or DScaler.

You don't need a composite->s-video converter - trust me.

[PaulJBis]

Okay, I just looked at it again, and there is indeed an adapter like the one you mention... but it's a S-Video (male) to RCA (female) one, so I can't use it with the S-Video cable I already have. I'd need to buy another RCA cable, and I haven't been able to find any that are as long as I need (due to how my house is set up, I need really long cables to connect the VCR with the computer). So I guesss I'll buy instead an adapter that is the opposite (RCA male to S-Video female).

[Arachnotron]

Chances are that when you hook everything up with the s-vid cable and set the card to capping composite, it will work anyway. The same pin on the card is used for composite or the luma part of s-vid, depending on what you select on the device tab of your capture driver.

On the VCR side, scart uses the same pin for composite and luma too. So if you set the driver to composite but use a svid cable, the luma wire is used for composite and the chroma wire is ignored.

[PaulJBis]

Now you tell me!!! :eek: Now that I've already spent the money in another cable... You were right, the S-Video one worked once I set up VirtualVCR correctly.

(Now, does anyone want a 10m. RCA cable really cheap? ;) ).

[zilog jones]

10m!? You do know you may lose significant quality from cables that long? I wouldn't go longer than 2-3m...

[PaulJBis]

Well, yeah, I suppose there might be some quality loss. But the way my house is set up, it's either that or carrying the entire computer (and 19' monitor) to the TV room each time I have to capture something. Plus, from the captures I've already done, quality looks acceptable to me.