Does S-Video out and S-VHS matter for VHS source?

[Tone Def]

Everything I want to capture comes from regular VHS sources. My question is whether or not getting a VCR with S-Video out will improve my capture quality, and furthermore, whether or not an S-VHS VCR with S-Video out will improve it even more.

Everything I've done so far has been using normal composite video out and I want to see if I can do any better source wise.

[akbor75]

an s-video cable is only useful with an s-video vcr. otherwise you will get b/w output.

[Tone Def]

I'm not talking about the cable, I'm talking about the quality of the output of an S-Video out versus RCA composite video when the source material is VHS.

[danylab]

Hi,

For me, I find the quality better with a s-video cable. I'm using an SVHS deck in which I can play regular VHS tape. I don't know if there is VHS deck with a svideo connector. You can see it clearly when you watch letters scrolling, always sharper.

danylab

[vhelp]

evening all.

tone,
In short, for VCR (VHS) sources, no. You needn't bother w/ it.
It's ben my experience so far, that going S-Video w/ VHS will at most,
only end up adding MORE noise to your source. You are actually
better off going/looking w/ out S-Video options. Also, SV will not
help any (if at all) w/ VCR capture projects.
I would do numerous captures of RCA vs. SV and the one final encode by
the RCA capture always required less bitrate, due to the lesser noise.
But that in the SV captures, MORE noise was added.
I guess it would depend on your capture projects, but it's ben my
experience that SV will not add to your level of quality and will most
certainly require more bitrate in your encoding projects as thus.

However, its also ben my experience that out of the three VCRs I have and
tested, (Sharp, Sony and JVC SVHS) the JVC model outperformed that final
capture quality of the Sharp and Sony (though I stopped doing Sony tests
and mostly tested the Sharp)
NOW, when I say the JVC, I DON'T MEAN the SV output. I'm talking about
just capturing via the RCA plugs from this VCR. NOT SV.
It seems to be pretty damn good at the RCA output on this model. But,
when I hook up Sharp and do capture tests, the quality is not as good,
and at best, gives me a slight blurry or softness. And, no, I don't
think the JVC sharpness is contributed to the SV thing, but that only its
just a well designed unit (to an textent, generically speaking)
The model I have is the older one, the HR-S3910U model, bought at CC for
$169 last year. It's funny... at first, I was getting pretty bad quality
in my past, prev. capture from it (JVC) and now, it's producing much
better quality. It's prabably partly due to my finding, between the
SV vs. RCA capturing so far.

So, I doubt that you will notice much in your capture quality from an
SV setup. But, if you really want to the best quality, even if it's
from a VCR (VHS) source, my advise is to test as many VCR brand and models
as you can (yeah, like you really can) and pick the best that yields the
best final capture quality. Now, you may not be able to go out and buy
all sort of brand etc., but maybe you know a number of people w/ VCRs
that you COULD borrow and test quickly. In any event, do use a good
VHS tape, ie a store bought one, for a much better guage in quality testing.

Another important factor in this process, is the capture device.
* what kind is it ie, analog, dv or hardware, etc.
* quality of this device
* YOUR level of experience in: using it, capturing, encoding, authoring
etc, etc, etc.
Won't happen over night. Anybody (myself included) can recommend a
good capture card (or device) but in the hands of a beginner, is no
match for a definative ruling on quality (pretty anal)
But, I hear the DC10+ is a good card for VHS source, hint, hint

VHS source:
You be the judge on weather or not the SV is better than the RCA when
you capture from it. Even if it DID (loosely) your final judgment will
have to be made from the final encode. This is where it really counts.
* SV - Look at your bitrate. Did it use a lot of it?
* RCA - again, Look at your bitrate. Did it use a lot of it?
... can you fit more on a CDR w/ the SV or RCA?
etc., etc.
It all adds up, but for a beginner like yourself, you really wont be
able to pick all these things up till you've developed enough experience.
That's gonna take some time. Don't assume that you'll get the answer
here and think that over night, you'll be churning out a bunch of great
looking CDRs. . . you won't! ! !

Good luck.
-vhelp

[PigOnWing]

I would first like to state that I'm _not_ an expert regarding SVHS and regarding S-Video captures, so if anyone knows that some of the facts Im' stating are wrong, by all means please do correct me.

And now for what I believe I do know.

S-VHS and S-Video are not interchangable terms. And they do not necesseraly have to do with each other.

S-Video is a connection type, which seperates the Luminance from the Chrominance data. On composite connection, the Luminance and Chrominance signal are both 'travelling' on the same wire - there are two 'connections' on an RCA cable - signal and grounding. On S-Video, they are seperated, and use seperate wires - there are four 'connections' on an S-Video connection - Chrominance and its grounding, Luminance and its grounding.

S-VHS is using higher resolution than VHS. More lines.

As far as the way the signal is encoded, aside from the fact that it is supposedly encoded 'better', I do not know if it's encoeded differently - that is, if the Luminance/Chrominance signals are seperate on sn S-VHS rather than VHS.

There was a discussion, a while ago, regarding Laserdisc output - if it's better to use the S-Video or Composite out. Although I really have no experience with neither S-VHS, S-Video or Laserdisc, I think the answer lies within the claim "it's basically a question of where do you have better decomb [seperation of Y/C] filter - on your player [LD/VCR] or your receiver [TV/Capture card]". If you've got a better decomb on your VCR, then you'll get better picture using S-Video - probably on normal VHS tapes as well. If you've got better decomb filter in your capture card, then you'll probably get better results using composite, even from S-VHS tapes.

My 2 cents spread over smaller change.

-- Piggie

[BJ_M]

piggie -- you are right except on the laserdisk vs vcr .. laserdisks store thier information in composite form as do VHS tape .. s-video as used on s-vhs machines store thier picture info seperate Y/C .. hence that debate about decomb on the laser disk ..

if you have S-VHS machine ... but play a VHS tape in it ... you are depending on the tape player to seperate the Y/C , which may be good and may be bad depending on the player ..

it is a fact that you could get better quality captures from s-video IF the source in the machine stored thier pic info in seperate form (beta SP is a good example - you will far better quality from the Y/C output than the comp output and then again you would get better quality from the componet output as the pic is stored in componet anyway) .

OR if the machine was able to do a good quality seperation of the VHS source .. but as vhelp has stated, often this is not the case on consumer decks.

no mater what you do -- good cables are a must and any s-video cables that come with decks are simply throwaway quality.

[Xesdeeni]

There are two issues that separate composite and s-video signal qualities:

1. bandwidth limit of luminance to make room for chrominance (decreased horizontal resolution)
2. interference of luminance and chrominance (chroma crawl)

If the source was composite (over-the-air, VHS, etc.) then composite vs. s-video won't make a difference for #1, since the resolution was limited to begin with, in order to be compatible with a composite signal (although quality video gear will actually notch filter the luminance instead of low-passing it).

But, in the analog world, the more time that the luminance and modulated chrominance are kept together, the more often they interact. Physical connectors, slightly differing cable impedences, etc., cause these signals to interact more, increasing the effect of #2.

BJ_M points out that to convert VHS to s-video, the VCR must separate the luminance and chrominance. But if you are using a composite connection, this will still need to be done in the TV, after having passed through at least two connectors and at least three lengths of cable (within the VCR, between VCR and TV, and within the TV). Assuming the quality of your TV and VCR are comparable, this allows for more interaction between the luminance and chrominance.

So whenever possible, use s-video cabling even for composite sources. The quality should not be any lower (it's always possible to have a faulty or lower-quality device, but it's normally improbable), and it will often be higher.

Xesdeeni

[House de Kris]

BJ_M - you may be correct about laserdisk storage of information in the composite form, but VHS records the luminance and chrominance separately. So, playing back a plane-jane VHS tape on a machine with S-Video connections should indeed yield better results than a composite connection.

[BJ_M]

House de Kris - yes , but an assumtion is made that the original VHS tape was recorded on a VHS machine or dubber whcih introduced the effects of the comp signal .. plus on true s-vhs tape you have almost double the Y C values. (this isnt true if you have one of the s-vhs decks with "ET" technology)
even playing it back on s-video will yield no greater quality than how it was made when the source was comp to begin with..

but you are right -it non the less it is stored seperate.

i advocated anyway using also the s-video cable in almost all cases except on a few consumeer decks as i mentioned where the quality was worse on vhs sources (i wonder if they were outputing true Y C ? or there was cross talk problems)

Of course this whole point is rather redundant right now with d-vhs and also you can buy s-vhs decks with firewire I/O on them.


Sony SVO-2000 my fav. s-vhs deck still , got 2 at home ..

[dvfan]

Hi since you are talking about SVideo, can someone tell me why when i try to capture with Svideo from my DV camera or DVD deck the video comes out in Black and White? is there anything i can do to fix it?

[rhegedus]

At the risk of sounding stupid , surely the answer depends on the type of tapes that your recoding is made on?

If it helps, I know that a lot of the Hauppauge cards will only capture stereo sound if you're using an s-video connection. I've used SCART to s-video without any noticable loss in quality.

Regards,

Rob

[VideoJockey2002]

To: dvfan

Hi since you are talking about SVideo, can someone tell me why when i try to capture with Svideo from my DV camera or DVD deck the video comes out in Black and White? is there anything i can do to fix it?

Go to: http://tvtool.info/index_e.html

• Click "FAQ" (in top frame)
  Click "Cable-FAQ" (in middle frame)
  Click selection number 3: "How it can be that I get a b/w picture only? (in middle frame).

This might answer your question and it will also give you a schematic diagram of the S-VHS pinout. It will also describe how to make an adapter that will allow you to connect to S-VHS jacks in order to get color back. When he uses the word condensator, you may want to substitute the word capacitor. The capacitor value he specifies is 450 picofarads. Just walk into the electronics store and ask for a "450 picofarad capacitor."

You may also want to click around in the FAQ area for other tutorials. It's a site full of good information.

vj2k

[Jester700]

It seems there's a misconception in this thread that standard VHS doesn't store luminance & chrominance seperately on the tape. It does. The big difference between VHS & S-VHS is that S-VHS has a greater luminance bandwidth. With the greater bandwidth, S-VHS machines include s-vid connections as their effect will be more noticeable. With VHS the difference may not be noticeable, so the extra expense isn't warranted. But that doesn't mean the signal on tape itself is composite - it isn't.

[yg1968]

BJ_M,

I have searched the internet for an S-Video VCR with Firewire but have not found any.

I am more or less surprised because this seems like an unlikely combination given that S-VHS is analog and that firewire is a digital output.

I would be surprised to see firewire on anything but a D-VCR (or a digital camcorder) which are still very expensive.

[BJ_M]

there are several -- here is a real nice one :

JVC SR-VS30U Dual Deck or the JVC SR-VS20u (about $600-$800)

With MiniDV and S-VHS recorders integrated in a single unit, the SR-VS30U provides a complete high-performance solution for editing MiniDV projects, finishing to S-VHS, or dubbing to or from either format. Easy integration with most NLE systems, convenient built-in editing features including automatic editing from MiniDV to Super VHS/VHS, plus outstanding picture quality, PCM digital audio, robust tape transport mechanism and many other features make this powerful dual deck today's most versatile video production tool.
Reads SMPTE Time Code
Enhanced Non-Linear Editing Capability
IEEE 1394 In/Out of S-VHS/VHS or DV Decks
DVCAM Playback Capability
Simultaneous Record or Play of 2 Independent Sources
Professional Assemble & Insert Editing Functionality
One-Touch Dubbing (MiniDV to and from S-VHS/VHS)
DV Input/Output (IEEE 1394 compliant)
Advanced Jog Dial on VCR
64-Program "EasyEdit" (MiniDV S-VHS/VHS)
High-Resolution Super VHS Images
MiniDV, S-VHS, VHS, & S-VHS ET Formats

[yg1968]

Those are dual S-VHS and miniDV decks (which explains the firewire connection).

They are a bit expensive but they are an interesting combination. Although at that price, you are better off buying a miniDV camcorder with a "video in" and using it as a VCR.

[SingSing]

In short, for VCR (VHS) sources, no. You needn't bother w/ it.
It's ben my experience so far, that going S-Video w/ VHS will at most,

This is not true. For older movie that I can't get on DVD.
I backup the copy into Video Tape.

I get the best result by using SVHS to VHS-ET(SVHS on normal tape) backup with s-video cable. Most SVHS tape deck has noise reducing circuit
that is good for source. The svideo cable reducing bleeding and loss of
certain color ( red ).

Even VHS to VHS-ET can show you a better result. You can really see
trhe different on a large screen. You can't tell the different on TV like
the 27" Sony.