video cable and other questions

[spiffy]

Hi everyone,

I have a Sony SLV-998HF VCR -- don't have access to a SVHS deck -- so I am thinking about using one of those cables where one end is composite connector and the other end is s-video connector, in an attempt to get a slightly better picture. I have tried it with an adapter (S-video male/composite female, plugging into the s-video port of the USB capture device), but for some reason I can't get any video signal except black & white noises. I am wondering if a direct cabling will solve the problem? Does anyone have any experience with this type of cable?

Total newbie when it comes to capturing; got a VHStoDVD 4.0 Deluxe with software and USB box, but not entirely satisfied with the authoring software and picture quality. Bought a Diamond ATI TV Wonder 650 USB last night, but haven't opened it yet. Still debating on whether to actually go with the internal card route... My main task at hand is trying to preserve a PBS program that was taped from cable probably more than 20 years ago; but also have a lot of VHS tapes to review later.

I do have a fairly good PC at my disposable: i7 920, 6GB of RAM, Radeon 56XX, Win7 64 bit.

Any advice/suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[edDV]

Composite to S-Video won't improve quality, it will make it worse. Composite needs to be electronically Y/C separated ideally with a comb filter. VHS is limited to 3 MHz luminance bandwidth so a notch filter in the capture device will also work.

If you send composite to both S-Video luma and chroma pins you will get a high frquency crosshatch in the luma and severe color moire. Don't do it.

The Diamond ATI TV Wonder 650 USB has a 3D comb filter applied to the composite input. I have one. It works well.

[spiffy]

Thanks for the info, edDV! I guess I'm not going to worry about the s-video connection then.

However, since my post I've been reading people saying the 650 USB does not have Win7 64 bit support -- on AMD's site, only the PCIe internal version of the 650 is listed as having Win7 64 bit driver (Catalyst.) Do I have other hardware options (with the same performance) if I can't find the internal card?

[edDV]

I don't know about 64 bit issues. It works fine so far with 32 bit Vista and Win 7.

[jagabo]

Win7 64 bit has built in drivers for the ATI 650 USB. Don't install the ATI drivers or software.

[spiffy]

Win7 64 bit has built in drivers for the ATI 650 USB. Don't install the ATI drivers or software.

I already have a Radeon HD card in my system, using ATI driver -- will that cause problems?

[jagabo]

Win7 64 bit has built in drivers for the ATI 650 USB. Don't install the ATI drivers or software.

I already have a Radeon HD card in my system, using ATI driver -- will that cause problems?

I don't remember. I know that Windows Media Center was able to use the card without installing ATI drivers. I don't remember whether I tried installing the ATI drivers or not.