Best S-Video to HDMI adapter for use with S-VHS VCR?

[KPackratt2k]

Hello, I'm looking for recommendations for a good S-Video to HDMI adapter that properly accepts the S-Video output from an S-VHS VCR.

Up until a couple years ago, I was using a Toshiba DVD recorder with an S-Video input for digitizing VHS footage from my Mitsubishi HS-U795 S-VHS VCR. Although it worked OK for me, people have been saying that the MPEG-2 compression that DVD uses isn't good enough to preserve every detail from a VHS capture, so I bought a Pyle brand capture device that includes Composite, Component, and HDMI inputs. When capturing Composite video from it, it deinterlaces it at 30p rather than keeping it interlaced or deinterlacing to 60p (at least when capturing to SD card). Because of this, I'm using a generic Composite AV to HDMI adapter to capture VHS footage at 720p60, but even that's not satisfying enough for me because there is no S-Video input on that either, so I'm wasting my VCR's potential.

I bought a generic no-name S-Video to HDMI adapter on eBay a while ago, and although it worked, the image it produced from the S-Video output of the VCR had dot crawl indicating that it was treating it as if it was a Composite video signal. In addition to that, it had a severe ghosting effect on the image (imagine the 3-chip SNES RGB output issue, but 50x worse). I would've sent it back, but my dad wanted to use it for his modded Atari 1200XL computer on a Panasonic 3D HDTV (without S-Video), so I kept it just for that purpose.

Does anyone have recommendations for S-Video to HDMI adapters for use with an S-VHS VCR? If not, what about a capture device with an S-Video input and compatibility for both macOS and Windows? I saw ThriftyAV's video about the UCEC Pro USB capture device and noticed that its box indicated compatibility with both macOS and Windows, so I thought that's be a good backup plan. Unfortunately, a commenter on that video has tested this capture device with a Mac and found out it deinterlaced at 30p using a Blend algorithm (much like the two USB capture devices I've tried previously), so that's out for me. Really, the only capture device I can think of that would fit the bill for me is an Elgato capture device, but I don't know if those can preserve the interlacing.

Hopefully someone can help figure out a solution to my problem here.

[azmun]

Hmm, not sure how many options you'd have but I'd guess it would be very limited. Have you considered or looked into the Retro TINK 5x Pro?

[kitty666cats]

An old ATI All-In-Wonder video card + Windows XP + VirtualDub is a popular option if you have space, $ and time to throw together a dedicated capture PC. DigitalFAQ has guides for this method. Try looking around there & VideoHelp. Also Doom9 and LaserDisc forums could have useful info. PixelFX Morph may end up being a great option, RT5X is good if you have one you use for games already… etc

[orange808]

Don't use a video game processor for video. An DVDO iScan HD+ will accept svideo and output digital 480i. Maybe try one of those, get a raw capture of the 480i video, and handle all your deinterlacing in post production. That's certainly not the only option, but it was actually designed with VCR video in mind; it's also nice that it outputs 480i and won't force deinterlacing on you. Chroma subsampling won't make any worthwhile difference and the comb filter doesn't matter because it handles svideo properly.

If you prefer a machine that deinterlaces and outputs 480p, get a good Faroudja. Upscale the 480p in post. Don't use the machine to upscale.

[kitty666cats]

Don't use a video game processor for video. An DVDO iScan HD+ will accept svideo and output digital 480i. Maybe try one of those, get a raw capture of the 480i video, and handle all your deinterlacing in post production. That's certainly not the only option, but it was actually designed with VCR video in mind; it's also nice that it outputs 480i and won't force deinterlacing on you. Chroma subsampling won't make any worthwhile difference and the comb filter doesn't matter because it handles svideo properly.

If you prefer a machine that deinterlaces and outputs 480p, get a good Faroudja. Upscale the 480p in post. Don't use the machine to upscale.

The Sony HandyCams that use Faroudja tech are also pretty damn good (some have the usual AV outputs *and* AV inputs one can use for separate decks of different tape-types, as far as I remember…). Obvi those output over DV and not HDMI, but digital is digital.)

[KPackratt2k]

Don't use a video game processor for video. An DVDO iScan HD+ will accept svideo and output digital 480i. Maybe try one of those, get a raw capture of the 480i video, and handle all your deinterlacing in post production. That's certainly not the only option, but it was actually designed with VCR video in mind; it's also nice that it outputs 480i and won't force deinterlacing on you. Chroma subsampling won't make any worthwhile difference and the comb filter doesn't matter because it handles svideo properly.

If you prefer a machine that deinterlaces and outputs 480p, get a good Faroudja. Upscale the 480p in post. Don't use the machine to upscale.

The problem is the 480p60 captures from my capture device tend to look like crap (at least when recording straight to SD card) and 480i from Component and HDMI gets even worse treatment than 480i from Composite by having its frame rate quartered down to 15 FPS. When I tested 480p capturing from my DVD player via Component, the resulting recording had some compression artifacts despite the bitrate being reasonable for 480p (IIRC it was 5-6mbps), so I would like to upscale to 720p60 to minimize compression artifacts as it records that resolution at a much higher bitrate and I couldn't detect any noticeable compression on the 720p60 captures.

Anyways, I just bought another upscaler on eBay, but this one looks like it has better build quality than the one I used, so fingers crossed this one performs better. If not, I'll try to track down the upscaler that ThriftyAV reviewed in one of his videos as that one actually worked properly with an S-VHS VCR through S-Video.

An old ATI All-In-Wonder video card + Windows XP + VirtualDub is a popular option if you have space, $ and time to throw together a dedicated capture PC. DigitalFAQ has guides for this method. Try looking around there & VideoHelp. Also Doom9 and LaserDisc forums could have useful info. PixelFX Morph may end up being a great option, RT5X is good if you have one you use for games already… etc

Luckily I have a few spare Windows XP desktops and a Socket AM3 mobo to spare for another one. If I can't find any better options, I might build a capture rig out of that. I currently don't have a RetroTink 5x, but if I ever get one I might give that a try to see if it's any good for my capture device.

[orange808]

Fair enough.

Silicon Optix Image Anyplace IA-100
Faroudja deinterlacing, proper svideo processing, and 720p output.

[Galgomite]

I have tried many ways to get a signal into an Atomos recorder without much luck. A method I was very happy with was a Retrotink 2x line-doubled into a cheap hdmi capture device and recorded on OBS. As I recall, straight 480i didn't work but the the line doubled product had no drawbacks. Good luck, I hope you find something great.

[NJRoadfan]

Most every "cheap" x-to-HDMI adapter is terrible. They all screw something up somewhere along the line. The RetroTink 2x is unsuitable for VHS capture duty, it WILL drop frames due to the inherit unstable frame sync on video tapes. I paired it with a AVT-8710 full frame TBC and it worked fine, but I just might as well use my analog capture cards at that point.

The RetroTink 5x might be a promising option with its "triple buffer" option (which appears to work like an "infinite window" full frame TBC), but without 480i HDMI output, its a non-starter for archival capture. Really, you need a device that does straight analog-to-digital pass-through of Rec.601 YCbCr 480i/576i video. No de-interlacing, resizing, or "processing" (smoothing, sharpening, etc).

The reason why I'm on the hunt for a decent analog-to-HDMI adapter is that the "good" capture cards aren't getting any younger and maintaining WinXP era hardware is going to be a pain soon. Also, the good full frame external TBCs aren't being made any more and only going up in price. A device that can take composite or S-Video in with a built-in full frame TBC and pass that unmolested to HDMI (or SDI for that matter) output would be an ideal solution. It removes the reliance on legacy computer hardware as there are TONS of HDMI and SDI capture solutions out there.

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of ThriftyAV this appears to be his recommended list of stuff, though not sure if it's what you were referring to and I'm quite skeptical about the "thriftiness" of any one-click device with a built in monitor... https://thriftyav.com/featured-items

Please keep us updated because I'm interested in this kind of non-legacy reliant, properly-interlaced (or properly deinterlaced, as the case may be) capture too.