SVideo vs Composite Cables

[stevendm]

I am new to video capturing so please bear with me.

I need to connect my camcorder and my ATI AIW Radeon card. Should I use the SVideo cable or the composite (yellow) cable for video? I know that either way I have to use the RCA type cables (red and white) for the audio.

Thanks

Steven

[flaninacupboard]

if you're only ccapping from a camcorder, im sure composite cables will suffice. although youll certainly do no harm using the s-video connector.

[JHebert]

Use the S-video cable instead of composite. The S-video cable seperates the luminance and chrominance parts of the video signal and should give you better quality captures. By the way if you have a DVD player you should also use S-video or component cables instead of composite for the best picture quality.
I assume this is for an analog camcorder like Hi8 or VHS-C. If you have a digital camcorder like Digital8 or MiniDV you should use a Firewire/1394 card instead of an analog connection for the best quality and to avoid recompressing the video.