Am I recording S-Video?

[digicube]

I connect my digital TV to my SVHS VCR via composite video and start recording on a SVHS tape, am I recording S-video?

My digital TV doesn't have a S-video out, only S-video in.

If I have a Digital to Analog TV converter and connect to my SVHS VCR via coaxial, and start recording on a SVHS tape, am I recording S-video?

Composite cable can support 400 lines as it is used by laserdiscs.

I also found out that DVHS tapes are basically high grade SVHS tapes, you can use SVHS tapes to record HD TV. A 120min SVHS tape is roughly equivalent to 300mins of DVHS tape. Very cool.

[KarMa]

S-Video I guess stands for "separate video" which has the luma (black/white) and the chroma (color) carried on separate wires instead of on one wire like composite. SVHS stands for Super VHS and does not have to go hand in hand with S-Video. Just S-Video is a wire that usually has less interference and would probably provide a better signal for recording onto either VHS or SVHS. SVHS has roughly double the horzontal luma resolution vs VHS, allowing for more accurate recordings.

With your current set up, I would not recommend recording the coax but stick with the composite.

[digicube]

I'm trying to record the best video possible on SVHS tapes. What setup would that be? DVD to SVHS VCR via S-video cable? I'm curious about the capability of SVHS tapes. I think it can be better than laserdisc video quality.

[KarMa]

Seems like Laserdisc and SVHS have similar luma resolution but Laserdisc has more chroma resolution. VHS and SVHS have the same chroma resolution apparently.

Usually s-video is the best option if available.

[Brad]

Seems like Laserdisc and SVHS have similar luma resolution but Laserdisc has more chroma resolution. VHS and SVHS have the same chroma resolution apparently.

Yup. LaserDisc is natively composite and probably noisier, but well-presented LDs should look better overall than any S-VHS recording except perhaps a B&W movie.

[JVRaines]

SVHS stands for Super VHS and does not have to go hand in hand with S-Video.

They are not the same thing, true, but JVC developed the s-video connection to support the enhanced resolution of Super VHS when it debuted in 1987.

[digicube]

Is Betacam better video quality than laserdisc and DVD?

[Brad]

Going to assume you're referring to the two analog Betacam formats.

That's... arguable. You can read some of the technical details here. Overall, the answer is: No, not inherently -- but there are circumstances where it will look better.

• Standard Betacam and Betacam SP have worse maximum horizontal luma resolution than LD and DVD. They suffer from artifacts common to tape-based formats; in particular they are famously prone to dropouts. However, the Betacams and LD have higher vertical chroma resolution than DVD, especially with fully-interlaced 29.97i or 25i content.
• LaserDisc is a composite format with a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and actually extracting that max luma res is nearly impossible due to the difficulties inherent in comb filtering. Rainbow artifacts are the most pronounced in the highest-resolution areas of any scene.
• DVD varies greatly with compression quality. A well-compressed DVD could beat any analog format in full-motion playback, but if you grab individual frames to compare to Betacam SP, it shouldn't be difficult to find frames that look worse on DVD since it uses interframe compression.

P.S. I was wearing this when you started this thread yesterday.

[digicube]

I'm curious what digital TV recorded on Betacam SP would look like. Too bad betacam equipment is too expensive and bulky for consumers to play around with.