Video Capture on Ubuntu/S-video, with HVR4000

[PFB]

Hi - first post here, so hoping someone can help me as I'm a bit stuck!
I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 with a Hauppauge HVR-4000 TV card (which includes video capture), and a GTX-650 graphics card.
All has been running fine for years, but never used the s-video on the HVR4000 card or tried to capture video.
So I wanted to try this. I've got a scart (for the VHS player) to s-video (for the capture card) adapter.
This adapter works fine when plugged into my TV (which also has an s-video in) - with picture in colour and sound coming in through separate phono plugs.
Whenever I try an capture the video on the computer - whatever software I use, whether Mythtv, TVTime, OBS player, the picture is always black and white.
I've tried all different settings on TVTime but nothing fixes it. Sound is also distorted as if the level is too high.
Can any help as I really would like to capture some VHS tapes, and thought the HVR4000 card would do it - and this was one of the reasons why I chose that card (all those years ago)!
Thanks for any help.

[Brad]

A regular VHS machine (not S-VHS) will only output composite over SCART. It should work if you use composite instead.

The TV may be recognizing that the signal on the luma pin is actually composite and decoding it for you.

[PFB]

Thanks - I did wonder about that, but selecting composite for the input doesn't work (just dark with some flickering colour).
The cable I have is supposed to be SCART to s-video.
If the VHS player does only output composite, would the cable need different wiring - and could I do that easily without breaking the cable, or would a new cable be easier?
Thanks again.

[oln]

You should only need to connect a RCA cable between the yellow RCA jack on the adapter to the yellow RCA on the capture card. S-Video out is (almost) only something you find on Super-VHS decks and some DVD-recorder combo decks, and in those cases one has to set the VCR to output S-Video over scart in the menu or with a switch somewhere. Note that some Adapters are input only, if they're bi-directional there will normally be an in/out switch on it. (also there are RGB and component Scard -> RCA adapters, you don't want those for this purpose).

Also, a useful tool in linux to check video capture input is Qv4l2 (readily available to install from official ubuntu repositories/software manager.) It doesn't do capturing properly, but it's very useful for testing and checking settings etc.

[PFB]

Thanks for info.
The adapter is definitely supposed to be SCART to S-Video - out only.
I did try various phono connections. I have a phono to S-video adatper as well ie composite to S-video - but nothing seemed to work, but bizarrely, the next time I booted up I had different input options in TVTime - rather than TV, S-Video and Composite, I now had Composite 1, 2 3 & 4.
Composite 3 works fine for the picture so full colour.
Brilliant.........except now, I have no sound!

I haven't tried Qv4l2 - I'll try that next to see if that helps work out what's going on.