MiniDV camera no s-video out, bad adapter quality?
 

Hello there, pals. I'm new to this forum, but I've been reading quite a lot to understand more of the process of capturing video, as I wanted to save some old footage that I have on VHS and Mini DV. I've recently purchased a second-hand Pinnacle 510 USB, and it has been of great help to capture my videos. I was having problems to get the S-video input to work, and I found the solution in this thread - which was using the small "Crossbar thing" tool.

But I have a different issue now; here it is: My Mini DV camera does not have an S-video out, but a P2 jack where I connect a P2 to RCA cable. I was able to find an RCA to S-Video converter, so I could transfer the videos through the S-video connector, and it worked - it was clear that the edges of things in general were sharper, and overlay texts looked far better than they did through the RCA jack, but some odd artifacts showed up - I'm not even sure this is how I should call them. They look a lot like some moirè artifacts. I have attached a video sample to better illustrate the situation, as well as a pic of the adapter I used. Though my camcorder has a firewire port - which is going to be used soon, I was also interested in solving this issue so I could do the same signal "separation" with my VHS-C camera. Thanks in advance if anyone is willing to help!

Details about the capture:
Camcorder: Samsung SC-D381;
A/V out using an RCA to S-Video adapter, so I can hook it up to the capture device through the S-video input;
Video captured through VirtualDub2 build 43702, originally using Lagarith lossless codec and compressed with XVid codec; deinterlaced using Yadiff, TFF.

-- moved from http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/vide...e-video-2.html

Artifacts are expected when passing a composite signal to an S-Video input via a passive electrical adapter like that.

For S-Video output of VHS-C, you must play back on a S-VHS VCR or S-VHS-C camcorder.