S-VHS to HDMI converter?
 

Sorry if this subject has been covered before, but I was thinking of buying an s video to hdmi converter, but was wondering if anyone has had any experience with these. How good are they really, and also do they remove macro vision. I have an older Av amplifier and when I use it to convert the s-vhs signal to component output it triggers the macro vision causing the picture to jump like crazy. Thanks.

Are you talking about playing VHS retail tapes? You didn't say.

Yes. It's been discussed many times, here and elsewhere.

They're garbage. Really.

No. To do that with your AV receiver, you'll have to hook up a frame tbc between the player and the receiver or HDMI device.

One solution is to get to Walmart or B&H Photo and get a DVD\VCR combo with HDMI out. Sad to say, the VCR sections in those units isn't very good, and any "new" combo unit you buy today might be cosmetically different but they're all Funai units inside.

There's no such thing as a decent cheap HDMI converter. It's not possible. Good ones are about $600 and up. My Denon receiver does a pretty good job with its Anchor Bay chip, but it was $800 new. Amazon sells a couple of very expensive HDMi converters, but they're not as clean as premium units. Don't even think about the cheap stuff. If you can find a used Denon or Yamaha AV receiver from a couple of years back with s-video input and HDMi out, you're better off.

I thought macro vision was an analogue technology, would not that be gone when it is converted to hdmi?
I was talking about retail tapes. Thanks.

Most HDMI-compliant devices will set the HDCP copy protection flag on HDMI output if they detect a copy protection flag from the input source. DVD also used Macrovision-type copy protection, and the analog outputs on those DVD players transmitted analog Macrovision data. The HDCP flag would affect recording, not display.

You should be able to play a DVD player through an a/v device with HDMI output. Nowadays if I want to display a VCR Macrvision'd tape on my HDTV I feed it into my old DVD recorder and out via s-video, which goes thru my a/v receiver, which outputs HDMI to an HDCP-compliant TV. Of course no device fed by that HDMI output would be able to record that signal without problems, but display-only seems to work with my setup. It's been a while since I used that setup for VHS because all my copy-protected retail tapes were captured for DVD encoding a long time ago. Frankly, I never did hook the VCR directly to the AV receiver's rear input -- it was easier to just plug the VCR into the front of the DVD recorder.

Back in the CRT days, if I hooked up a Macrovision'd tape to my old analog CRT, the display via s-video or composite would go haywire unless I stripped Macrovision with one of those cheap video stabilizers. The picture looked like crap until I got a real tbc.

I don't recall where you're located. Are you in PAL country or NTSC?

HDCP strippers are cheap and fairly easy to obtain if you know what you're looking for. Even the latest HDCP 2.2 can be stripped from Ultra HD sources for under $50. Or so I hear. I only have strippers for up to 1080p60.

I actually find bypassing the digital protection much simpler and more reliable than analog copy protection.

Well for one, I am not trying to copy pre-recorded vhs tapes, what would be the point of that? What I am trying to do is take out the interference macro vision is causing to my converted picture, like I experienced when converting to component through my AV amplifier. It gave me a jumping picture and when switching on the tbc in the vcr it stopped jumping but left a distortion at the top of the picture.
Will a Panasonic DVD recorder take in through its front s-vhs inputs, my vcr picture and upscale it out of its hdmi socket? Will this do it with better quality than a £25 converter? I was going to buy one of these.
http://www.amazon.com/Tendak-Composi.../dp/B00V2ULHBS
But from what you say these are bad, but they all seem to get mixed reviews. They could be getting better over time but who knows. I am in the UK. Thanks.

Scalers, at least the really good ones are a bit expensive. HDFury makes some models but those start around $300-up. With VHS, the macrovision has to be defeated before running the signal anywhere else in your equipment chain, so you must get a full-frame TBC. No way around it.

And, knowing that VHS has pretty low resolution, its going to look like crap when upscaled to HD. Macrovision is an analog technology, basically an artificial signal that's still in commercial DVD's (known as Copyguard). That's why DVD/BD players now are coming without the analog connections.

Either way, as suggested your best bet is to get a full-frame TBC (the ones in VCR's are line based and doesn't remove everything) and add that to your chain. That will eliminate the MV problem for good.

The point would be to transfer material that was never released on another format, obviously.

Previously you said:
So if I'm understanding correctly, you are trying to play pre-recorded tapes that may include Macrovision through your equipment chain, but not capture them for posterity?

As noted, good external scaling tends to cost money. In particular, deinterlacing is an extremely complex process. With these Chinese boxes that won't output SD, you're forced to use their (typically awful) deinterlacing and upscaling.

The PAL Panasonic DVD recorders do allow you to output SD, interlaced.

That's right just play them, not record or capture them, I like the sound from these old analogue tapes better than digital tracks, to me they always sounded better.

i was looking for a S-video to HDMI for the longest time to convert my S-video SNES game console to work with my HDTV and I'm so glad I found this box,

It works awesome and I can play all my old skool games I loved when I was a kid.

What does "awesome"mean? I'm skeptical because upscaling low-resolution material using what amounts to CAt6 wire has never worked awesomely in my experience nor have I seen any proof anywhere that it's better than the upscaling you can get from your TV and good capture processing. If "awesome" means you can see motion and hear sounds, that's not awesome. The Biblical burning bush and the parting of the seas are awesome, but SD to HD needs a sample to prove your point.

:hmm:

:hmm: indeed. At a glance, it looks like spam. Just in case, link un-linked. We'll be monitoring this user.

Not sure why you would want to use S-Video on the SNES anyway if you are going to shell out some money for it, as it can outout RGB with the right cables.

For SNES, I was looking just last week at one of those multi-cart systems (NES, SNES, Genesis, etc) for true HDMI output. It's essentially console emulation, with real games, true HDMI output.

Forget the name of it ... they have it at Gamestop.

I'm not a gamer, but I have all my classic 70s/80s/90s games still. Back when games were actually fun! :)

On Topic: There are dozens of $30 composite/s-video to HDMI adapters on ebay that work for simple viewing. They likely de-interlace and scale all input video to 1080p or 720p, quality might not be fantastic though. A "good" adapter would allow the option to just digitize the 480i signal and let the viewing device deinterlace/scale.

This is getting off topic but......for SNES, I use RGB output to a RGB capture card. For scaling to modern TVs I use a community created/supported device called the Open Source Scan Converter. It upscales RGB and component sources up to 1080p via HDMI without the lag, something that (overpriced) converter listed above can't do.

There is also a new SNES clone console called the Analogue Super Nt which outputs in HDMI. It isn't emulation either, but an accurate FPGA re-creation of the original hardware.

https://www.analogue.co/pages/super-nt/

Ouch! $189 is steep. :mad4:

I was seriously all set to buy one ... but that price? Erm. I may just to my original console for now.

The OSSC plus a RGB-SCART cable is the route I went. You can use the OSSC on more then one console/computer. Currency rates aren't in our favor at the moment though.

https://www.videogameperfection.com/...rce-converter/