Capturing from S-Video -- the Grey Question

[Athlon]

Hi guys

I am using my gainward GF4 golden sample hooked up to a VCR to try to capture video, i am using Ulead Video studio 6SE, and intervideo wincoder, but when i choose input source as S-Video i get an image, although its black and white, but when i switch to composite the picture is colour. I am guessing if i get the input from S-Video then the image will be better ??

many thanks for any help

[Tommyknocker]

How is the capture card hooked up to VCR?

[Athlon]

Hi Tommy

thanks for replying

there is a scart out box on the VCR, which splits the signal into composite, S-Video, and audio, its connected to the Card with an S-Video cable, thats allows a composite signal, and an S-video one.

make sense !?!?

[vhelp]

athlon,

sounds like you need to set up your software cap app to PREVIEW mode
instead of OVERLAY. Turn off OVERLAY. I could be wrong, but whenever
you use (usually) S-Video as your input source, OVERLAY doesn't work
properly and will only give you B/W signal of video.

ie, when using AVI_IO or VDUB, is S-Video is selected as my source, and
I have OVERLAY on, it w/ be in B/W.
However, if I first:
* turn on or select PREVIEW in any of these two capture apps, and THEN
select S-Video, my video is color.

S-Video?? Well, I'm affraid you're guess kind of wrong.. ..
As for S-Video being the better quality, you're slightely confused as
many others here. In any case, w/ standard VCR mode, S-Video vs. Compsite
yields no difference. Now, perhaps, if you had/have an S-VHS AND, am
using an SVHS tape (recorded in SVHS mode on your S-VHS VCR, and of
course, in SP mode) you may see a difference. But to be quite honest
w/ you, even so, you really wont notice much difference between the
two for sources coming from a regular/standard VCR. Try not to ware
yourself out on this issue though.

In my expience, S-Video tends to create even more noise for VCR sources.
I said, in my experience.

-vhelp

[The village idiot]

Since you mentioned scart.... make sure your software is set to capture PAL video. Not NTSC. But you probably know that already.

[Nelson37]

S-Video is designed to give better seperation and less crosstalk-type interference than coax or composite. It is generally accepted to be superior to anything except component, as a cable type.

However, simply having the connection available does NOT, in and of itself, offer any improvement to your basic equipment. You can't polish a turd.

The black and white image does sound like a PAL problem, I am in NTSC land but I have seen this described many times. Although why it would work in composite is odd, are there different settings for each connection type?