Should I use a Diamond VC-500 device?

[nzcncf]

Hi,

I would like to convert S-Video to USB, which connects to a Windows 7 PC. Should I use Diamond VC-500 device, or should I use an PCI (or PCI express) video card to get the best quality?

We need to have best possible quality on screen, as this is for a medical software. I have previously tried quite a few different devices, such as EZCap, EasyCap, etc. They are easy to use, but the image quality is not good enough.

Thanks

[SameSelf]

Image quality not good enough for medical software??? Excuse me, ***cough***, but you do realize that S-Video is for standard definition video which is only 720x480 interlaced with bandwidth limited chroma channels, right? I would think any medical imaging software these days would be HD/4K and up with full chroma channel sampling (4:4:4) which would necessitate capturing over something like SDI, not S-Video and USB.

[usually_quiet]

Hi,

I would like to convert S-Video to USB, which connects to a Windows 7 PC. Should I use Diamond VC-500 device, or should I use an PCI (or PCI express) video card to get the best quality?

We need to have best possible quality on screen, as this is for a medical software. I have previously tried quite a few different devices, such as EZCap, EasyCap, etc. They are easy to use, but the image quality is not good enough.

Thanks

A better capture device than the ones you have tried (either USB or PCI) could only make a small improvement in the quality of the video you see on the screen using S-Video as the source because S-Video only provides SD interlaced video. By today's standards that sort of video is not high quality.

What other video connections are available?

[nzcncf]

Thanks for you reply!

Video output normally is either S-Video or Firewire, mainly S-Video

[SameSelf]

Firewire output is often associated with HD video. Have you tried that?

[usually_quiet]

Thanks for you reply!

Video output normally is either S-Video or Firewire, mainly S-Video

Firewire can provide either standard definition or high definition video. Typically FireWire is used to transmit an already encoded video stream. Are you trying to capture video from a DV or HDV video camera of some kind?

[nzcncf]

We have to handle both S-Video and Firewire from camera, and display image on screen. Ideally we would like to have camera output as HD, however this is not the case.

Using S-Video as an example, I could find some cheap converters like Diamond VC-500. I was hoping PCI (express) card can improve the quality.

As usually_quiet's comment above, this might not have big improvement. So I am wondering if anyone has experience in using PCI card to get better image quality. If not, we then have to live on the current device.

Thanks everyone for the help.

[lordsmurf]

Without knowing the camera in use (assuming medical training video), this conversation has (so far) been pointless.
The issue is simply SD (max 720x480/576)
vs. HD (720p, 1008p)
vs. UHD (4k)

What you have for source, combined without output viewing, determines ingest hardware needed.
Rarely does Firewire mean HD, unless using an old HDV camera.

If this is simply software displayed on a screen, no medical videos, just connect the laptop to an HD projector.
Recording the HD 16x9 output with Blackmagic HD 16x9 should work fine, with the right connections (HDMI, component).