Radeon VIVO monochrome S-Video Input

[sanzoghenzo]

Hi all,
first of all thankyou for the massive amount of knowledge of this forum (and the main site of course)!

I'm trying to capture some old VHS with my old P4 2,4GHz 1GB Ram Sapphire Radeon VIVO 9000 (ATI powered, it has the rage theatre chip).
First I hooked up my VCR with a (crappy) composite cable, but I wasn't satisfied.

I ordered this this Scart to S-Video cable, and today I tried to make it work. All I get is a monochrome (black and white) image in Vdub, VirtualVCR and Dscaler.

The same cable used to link the same VCR with my LCD TV (S-Video input) works fine with full colors.

The S-Video port on the graphic/capture card is the traditional 4pin type.

The capture settings are ok, everytime I boot my pc I have to set PAL_B because it always starts with NTSC format. I saw There's a fix for this behaviour, but I have to edit a bios rom and then flash it. I'm not sure if the rom that I found is the right one form my card, so I don't want to mess up things more. I can live with that little problem, but not with B&W pictures!

Anyone knows of a solution for this problem?
thanks in advance!

[Asmodian]

This is usually because the card is still in composite mode where it expects the chroma to come in on the same pins as the luma. You just need to switch to s-video capture mode.

Composite and s-video use exactly the same signal for luminance (B&W) but the chrominance (color) is either added to the B&W signal as a modulated subcarrier for composite or separated from it with its own wires for s-video.

[Ghitulescu]

As I said long time ago, there is only one VHS VCR that has S-Video I/O, a Samsung multi-format. All other do not provide this signal. PERIOD. Any cable or converter is nothing else than wasted money. They will convey only the luma (B/W signal) and discard the chroma, as they cannot understand it.

If you like, it's like connecting your VCR to a HDTV TV set and expect the image to be like Planet Earth, in the end it's HDTV, right? Wrong.

So, revert to composite video or use a S-VHS VCR, they have S-Video I/Os.

[sanzoghenzo]

Originally Posted by Asmodian

This is usually because the card is still in composite mode where it expects the chroma to come in on the same pins as the luma. You just need to switch to s-video capture mode.

Forgot to say, my radeon vivo has separate composite and s-video ports, and I have to set S-Video input to see something (in black and white). So this is not my problem.

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

As I said long time ago, there is only one VHS VCR that has S-Video I/O, a Samsung multi-format. All other do not provide this signal. PERIOD. Any cable or converter is nothing else than wasted money. They will convey only the luma (B/W signal) and discard the chroma, as they cannot understand it.

So the reason why my hdtv sees colors when I use VCR's SCART -> HDTV's S-Video is because it reads the composite signal on pin 1? This makes sense.
Too bad I didn't find your advice before buying the cable! (I searched only for a radeon problem....)

So, revert to composite video or use a S-VHS VCR, they have S-Video I/Os.

Ok, to few money to buy a new VCR (that would serve only for a week, after that I don't want to see a VHS anymore ).
I'll try to return the cable and buy a better composite cable instead.
Thanks very much for your help!

[dannotto]

If your vcr has only SCART connector and S-Video connector is missing then is impossible to capture from S-Video input with color. Scart can have composite, S-Video or RGB but S-Video signal is available only in S-VHS player. Regular vcr can send through SCART only composite signal. That cable can`t separate luminance from chrominance. To get Y+C signal from composite source an active device with comb filter is needed.

[Mounir]

You're probably feeding a pal60 signal to this card (aren't you?) hence the black and white; try pal60 in dscaler if that's the case

if the vcr is pal , the tape ntsc then the signal is pal60 without a doubt.

If not probably it's a problem with the cable or vcr (loose svideo connector)

[sanzoghenzo]

Originally Posted by Mounir

You're probably feeding a pal60 signal to this card (aren't you?) hence the black and white; try pal60 in dscaler if that's the case

if the vcr is pal , the tape ntsc then the signal is pal60 without a doubt.

If not probably it's a problem with the cable or vcr (loose svideo connector)

I'm in PAL world (Italy).
But Ghitulescu is right, I cannot find any information about my VCR outputting S-Video through SCART, so I have to move back to composite. I have some meters of good quality coax cable, need to buy some good rca connector and solder it!

Just for curiosity: is there a (not so expensive) capture card that can work with rgb scart? and that works in USB or firewire (so I can use my macbook pro only)?

[Ghitulescu]

I doubt you have RGB either RGB is very expensive and almost futile for a VHS VCR, there are however some VCRs that have RGB out, like high end Philipses and Thomsons.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=84501

[sanzoghenzo]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

I doubt you have RGB either RGB is very expensive and almost futile for a VHS VCR, there are however some VCRs that have RGB out, like high end Philipses and Thomsons.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=84501

In my VCR settings I read "TV OUT: RGB" with the option to switch to progressive, but it works only for the DVD player (it's a combo from Philips, DVP3350V). The manual says "RGB output" in the specifications.
(It has also rca component out, but it's only for the DVD part.)

Anyway, it's just a curiosity, I can live with the quality I got with my current rig, if there's nothing I can do on the cheap! thanks a lot to all!

[Perepandel]

I'm more with Asmodian. I doubt the TV set would play images in color when feeded with this SCART to S-Video it there wasn't separate luminance and chrominance signal levels. Why in the world would the TV set decode a composite image feeded through an S-video cable?

I've seen video cards (in fact I have one) with TV-out with an option for "composite over S-video", even with its own cable (a sort of RCA in one side and S-video in the other), probably to save a few cents in connectors. Maybe he has an option like this in his capture device and it's set to expect a composite signal from the S-video connector.

[sanzoghenzo]

Originally Posted by Perepandel

Maybe he has an option like this in his capture device and it's set to expect a composite signal from the S-video connector.

As I said above my card has two separate input and two separate output. So there's no need to route composite over s-video. Plus, I cannot find such an option.
If you look at the vcr manual you' ll find that s-video output is not contemplated.

Still, I agree with you:with plenty of composite inputs, why my tv is ready to read composite on the s-video port?

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by sanzoghenzo

In my VCR settings I read "TV OUT: RGB" with the option to switch to progressive, but it works only for the DVD player (it's a combo from Philips, DVP3350V). The manual says "RGB output" in the specifications.
(It has also rca component out, but it's only for the DVD part.)

Of course you have RGB-out and maybe S-Video out, too, on your gear. The tragedy is that these work only for the DVD part (it may be however that the OSD is output as RGB, but nothing else). Have you tried to use the digital-out audio with your VHS ? It's the same thing.

[pandy]

Originally Posted by sanzoghenzo

Just for curiosity: is there a (not so expensive) capture card that can work with rgb scart? and that works in USB or firewire (so I can use my macbook pro only)?

Various cards from Blackmagick Design support RGB capture.

I doubt that any VCR is capable to output RGB (if yes then probably only those equipped with digital video processing)

In theory any VCR is capable to output and record separate Y and C signals - this is because internally (on tape) C is stored independently from Y - so even for VCR without S-Video, separate output for C and Y can be created (however this imply hardware modification i.e. C and Y must be taken from internal circuitry of the VCR).

[sanzoghenzo]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Of course you have RGB-out and maybe S-Video out, too, on your gear. The tragedy is that these work only for the DVD part (it may be however that the OSD is output as RGB, but nothing else). Have you tried to use the digital-out audio with your VHS ? It's the same thing.

I write my sentence in a wrong manner. What I wanted to say is that I have to set "TV OUT:RGB" to use VCR and DVD, and "TV OUT:PROGRESSIVE" if I want better quality, but only for DVDs, on SCART.
Also the manual talks about RGB output for VCR+DVD and progressive/composite only for DVD.
I don't think it's an oversimplification of Philips because the manual talks about composite out (VCR has RCA composite/audio outputs also).

That said, I got the refund from amazon and the composite cable I built gives me better colors (but same noisy chroma channels) than before.