Capture using S-VHS VCR

[blidge]

I'm wishing to convert my VHS collection to DVD. This includes TV recordings, pre-recorded VHS cassettes and camcorder footage.

My current captures have all been done using the composite input on my capture card but I also have a S-VHS input.

My question is this. If I used S-VHS VCR to do my captures via the S-VHS input on my card what sort of quality increase would I see over the composite input?

I realise that my source material is in VHS as opposed to S-VHS format but would I see some sort of increase in quality because of the input being used and also would the S-VHS VCR technology be able to pick up more detail from the source recordings??

S-VHS VCR's have dramtically decreased in price recently some I'm wondering if it's worth a purchase?

Any feedback or details of experiences would be useful.

[Digitizer]

Good question. Yesterday I bought myself a JVC SVHS recorder for $150. I am very happy since now I can do REAL captuing. I'd be careful with your old tapes though. The rule of thumb is that tapes looks worse on different VCR brands. That said, my other VCR that only *plays* SVHS tapes has better quality of its own VHS recordings than the SVHS tapes done on the JVC. It may not be true the other way around, because my old tapes looks just about as, well, bad. I have yet to conduct tests on quality of SVCD done from SVHS recordings, but from what I see now, it is going to be very good. The old VHS unit (now in trash) sucked at quality - picture was all over the place. And even though my capturing SVHS unit is connected through regular RCA cables to my card, the quality is exceptional, the picture is clear and stable. I understand now that my old VHS had been a huge quality bottleneck and I refuse to convert my old TV recordings because of this
Also, I doubt that an SVHS unit may "pull" more quality from your old VHS tapes. But since the units are so cheap, I don't see any way in which you can regret buying one.

And where da heck is the spell-checking button?

[loudanddeep]

Ok,
I have a questions for you...
I am planning on getting a SVHS vcr and capture from it as well ~ lot of old videos...

What are you capturing with?

dp

[vhelp]

to all,

try and not make the same mistake as some of us have (I myself have)
in getting those S-VHS, thinking you're gonna get great quality out of your old
tapes. In short, you not!!

The only time you'll benefit from these S-VHS units is when you use the S-VHS
tapes themselves, and you MUST use the SP mode to records in on these
tapes, NOT the EP mode. I repeat, NOT the EP mode!!
Also, you source will have to be in pretty good condition, ie, Satalete or DVD
Cabe, well, maybe, if it's Digital Cable, yes.
Also, given the above conditions, recording quality will also depend on the
quality of the material recorded on the sources, ie, if it were recorded on the
DVD or Satalete, etc.

Also, please don't go thinking that all those store bought VHS tapes of those
movies will come out looking great on SVHS too. They will only look as good
as they were intended for VHS. In other words, they were encoded
to VHS standards, NOT SVHS. If all those $5 and $9 movies you (or others)
bought were done on SVHS, the price would much higher, like DVD priceses.
I've ben there, and done it too!

Senario:
--------------
* given the above, lets say you wanna record a 70's tv show. Case you don't
know, the quality of these shows are not that good. So, even though you record
them on your SVHS and SVHS tape in SP mode, don't expect the quality to be
perfect, though better then VHS.
* However, if you, again, given the above, record, ie, an MTV clips, say, ie, the
new Creed video onto one of these SVHS units onto an SVHS tape in SP mode,
you'll get excelent quality and when you capture it, it will look great.
* it all depends on many factors. But, you have to be astute to know these
things, and you probably aren't and will more than likely be dissapointed.

You can still capture from your SVHS unit, and get pretty good results for an
CD you just pop in to your DVD instead of popping a clumsy VHS, bla, bla, bla.

I have the JVC HR-S3910U model
My first recorded TV show was Star Trek Enterprise. And I still have it. (priceless)

Good luck!

-vhelp

[uteotw]

VHS = 240 horizontal lines
SVHS = 400 horizontal lines (or Hi-8 or S-Video)

Capturing VHS tapes on SVHS VCR using the S-Video connection is not going to improve the quality very much.
I believe the playback to be as good as the VHS source can be , that's all.

I recently captured VHS tapes on a VHS VCR using a composite connector and overall the result (XVCD) was very good after applying a couple filters in VirtualDub.

Recording on SVHS tapes, and then capturing the using the S-Video connector will be far better than using VHS/Compiste.

[TurboRunner]

Hi,

I have brought an SVhs Philips VCr which is excellent it even records svhs on a normal vhs tape.

But the others are right you won't get better picture quality playing a normal vhs tape through an Svhs player or a normal VHs player.

But if your player is old a new vcr one could do a better play back job as there is a big difference between my crappy old 2 head vcr to my new 6 head svhs vcr(both the same brand).

But before doing if you've got a friend that has a newer vcr than yours you could ask him if you could see the difference in quality between you old vcr to his new one and if there is a difference it maybe time to buy a new one.

When looking you should maybe take a tape to the shops to see which vcr plays it better.

And another thing don't go spending too much money when who knows those standalone dvd recorders may come down in price in a couple of years.

[homerpez]

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I can't speak for that player personally, but I think you're talking about Quasi-SVHS recording... I have a JVC model, which does this... really, it's not all it's cracked up to be. To get "real" SVHS recording, you do need a "real" SVHS tape to record on, and you must do SP speed, or else.

If you plan on doing extended recordings (like you're going to watch 3 or 4 hours of TV you missed, and you're just going to record over it), use VHS at EP, not your SVHS.

[SiCN]

Or else, what?

[Digitizer]

Or else the quality is going to be 1/3 of true SVHS. I tested the quality of SVHS tape vs. digital cable capture. Basically I taped same segment as I was capturing it. Then I captured the same segment from tape, converted to SVCD and cooked both parts back-to-back on CD.

I only could tell the difference between the two because I knew which one was worse. Quality degradation is not even near VHS. And, oh yeah, I have an HDTV set. You can see everything on it. I am sure that an ordinary TV would not show any difference in quality. I just found out my ATI TV Wonder has an S-Video input. Hehe, it rulz

[LavaJockey]

Don't believe them. Even a regular VHS tape played back on
an SVHS VCR will often look, and capture, better. Here's
why: SVHS VCR's often have S-VIDEO output. The S-VIDEO
output is much better than the composite output. I have
captured the same regular VHS tape via the S-VIDEO and the
composite output jacks on an SVHS VCR. S-VIDEO definitely
looked better.

[House de Kris]

LavaJockey is correct, in my opinion, that even regular VHS should look better over an S-Video connection as compared to a Composite connection. Both VHS and S-VHS record the video information as separate luma and chroma signals. With an S-Video connection the separate luma and choma are sent individually to the destination (your capture card). With a Composite connection, the luma and chroma must be combined in the VCR and the separated with a comb fiter at the destination. The more conversion and processing a signal must endure the more possibility for degradation.

But what are the expected improvements by using an S-Video connection compared to Composite? Dot crawl comes to mind first. But, if you are making a VCD (which throws out half of the fields anyway) I'm not sure if this would be an issue at all. Also, differential phase and gain errors should be less. Meaning, hue shifts due to white level should not be an issue. In other words, you may get higher quality colors.

That said, I've never done a comparison between S-Video and Composite connections for capture.

[homerpez]

I think you all were comparing apples, oranges, and hand grenades. We're not talking the same things here.

I was only commenting on how to RECORD with an SVHS VCR, NOT playback FROM one.

Yes, all the things said about S-Video vs. Composite are technically true, though I personally don't run mine that way (I do S-Video from my Digital Cable box directly, and Composite from the VCR). Ideally, you should use S-Video cable for any input capture. VHS, SVHS, Digital box, or otherwise.

Whoever said you might see improvement playing back a VHS tape on an SVHS VCR, that may also be true too. I was not unhappy at all with VHS playback on my SVHS unit. While it doesn't effect resolution, you can get quality VHS playback on a quality SVHS VCR.

The only thing is, the two topics aren't related. I was talking only about RECORDING on SVHS tape.

The fact is, when you do "Quasi-SVHS" RECORDING on a plain VHS tape, it simply doesn't work as advertised (lots of noise). The fact is, if you try recording SVHS in EP mode (low speed), it will be horrible quality. It must be on SVHS tape, in SP mode.

Hopefully we sorted out the apples, oranges, etc.