Preferred composite cable for VCR>TBC?
 

Do you have preferred composite cable or tips on what to look out when picking one out or does it not matter?

Thanks.

Composite? Good shielding, gold tip doesn't do anything. Well-shielded is often thick, but thick isn't always well shielded.

Same for RCA audio.

3 feet max runs.

s-video needs good shielding, but it less prone to noise than composite/RCA. Main issue with s-video is how good/bad the head grasps. I've seen too many tight cables damage TBCs and VCRs, joints get unsoldered from boards, too much force required to insert/remove.

Since you are using TBC I assume you are capturing analog tapes and not LD. I think the most important thing to do if quality is important to you is to use a player with S-Video (S-VHS, Hi8), Composite throws out 40% of the original quality on tape, Trying to get 0.5% back using better shielding is kind of waste of effort.

Budget workflow, composite-only TBC.

I don't know that I'd agree with those %. Composite, although not as good as s-video, is also not necessarily bad. Most bad and blurry/smeary composite is due to the exact hardware device itself, not the carrier. Cables can introduce excess noise, and it's definitely more than <1%.

It does if the composite signal is passed through equipment that uses simple Y/C separation methods, especially with S-VHS material. For example, use of quality comb filters to split the Y/C signals should result in substantially less quality loss although there still will be some.

The analog broadcast video signal has a round 4.5 mHz of bandwidth for the luminance information, S-VHS close to 5 mHz, VHS more like 3 mHz. but with a composite signal the area above about 2.7 mHz contains the chroma information. Using simple low-pass/, notch, and high-pass filtration to separate the chroma will reduce effective luma bandwidth.

In theory gold plated connectors reduce the incidence of corrosion at the connector, and might be a benefit for cables used in harsh environments. For most users is is mainly a marketing gimmick. It is more important to use shorter cable runs, keep signals cables separated from power cables, avoid environments that are electrically noisy, and use a common ground to avoid ground loops.

But if a VHS or Video8 video cassette is played back in a S-VHS or Hi8/D8 deck/camcorder via S-Video output using a S-Video cable there is no comb filter needed, The Y & C signals are separated at the origin.