When to switch to S-Video

[Pat Brown]

I am going to try some hardware restoration of some old tapes. I will be capturing them onto my computer through my canopus card which only accepts S Video. The VCR I will be using is composite output only. I am wondering if it makes any difference if I switch the cable to s video before going through my TBC, proc amp etc., or after. Can anybody help me with this?

[dvd3500]

Since your tapes are recorded in VHS you won't see a qulaity improvement and a good composite to s-video converter will do the trick for you.

[gshelley61]

Don't one of those simple composite to s-video adapters... you will wind up with terrible Y/C separation artifacts like dot crawl, etc.

Let your TBC do the Y/C separation filtering, then send the s-video output from the TBC on through the rest of the signal chain. They generally have very good to excellent quality multi-line digital Y/C separation filters.

[SingSing]

For getting improvement with (S)video, you most likley need (S)VHS quality VCR with noise reduction circuit.

[Pat Brown]

Don't one of those simple composite to s-video adapters... you will wind up with terrible Y/C separation artifacts like dot crawl, etc.

Let your TBC do the Y/C separation filtering, then send the s-video output from the TBC on through the rest of the signal chain. They generally have very good to excellent quality multi-line digital Y/C separation filters.

Yeah I was planning on using a Monster SCVC converter. It's passive but supposed to do a decent job. Would a TBC 1000 convert the composite to S Video? If so I wont even worry about the converter. Either way it seems like you all are telling me that it doesn't matter whether this conversion takes place before or after stabilization, color correction, etc. Thanks for the replies.

[heman28]

Hello I don't know if this will help you out or not but I use a vcr that only has composite out and I use the rca video cable to go into my AVT8710 and the rest of the chain I use Svideo and it does a fine job. I used one of the rca to svideo adapters and man it had dots all over the screen and I would not reccomend one of those. Also I have used it also with a Datavideo tbc1000 and with other devices and it does a really nice job. Hope that helps you out. I have also use my jvc svhs vcr straight svideo and its not really much different then what I statated above.

[Pat Brown]

That does help. I am using a Sima color corrector right now and it does not support signal switching. I have been looking at a TBC1000. If it converts composite to S-Video then that is all I will need. If anybody could confirm this I would appreciate it.

[guns1inger]

Yes, the TBC1000 can convert composite input to s-video output.

[Pat Brown]

Great, that's what I'll use then. Thanks for all the replies.