Video8 captures look worse using S-Video than Firewire?
 

About a month ago I thought I had it all figured out when I decided to capture my old Video8 videos on my Sony DCR-TRV460E using Firewire and WinDV. The captures were good and better than the ones I did a year prior using Elgato Video Capture and composite cables. Recently I read about S Video being better for analog video and all the info about TBCs.

Anyway I have gone through the VirtualDub guide from Sanlyn and Lordsmurf and attached my settings below. Just captured one of my old tapes and found that there are some weird lines on it that make it look worse than the Firewire capture. I believe its something to do with interlacing but I am not sure, interestingly if I watch both clips in VLC and go to Deinterlace mode > Yadiff 2x, nothing changes on the S Video capture but the Firewire capture does deinterlace and become smoother.
I have tried using Huffyuv and Lagarith and get the same result, though I am preferring lagarith as I can play it back in VLC easily.

Current setup is:
Sony DCR-TRV460E > S-Video into DVK-100 Cam1 in > S Video Out of DVK-100 to I-O data GVUSB2
I have tested with and without the DVK so I dont think thats the issue.

Below are some screenshots of VDub and a quick side by side sample, the left is the S-Video and right is Firewire.

I would attach a longer video but obviously the file size will be a problem, but whenever theres motion I get the pixelated/ jagged edges and a bit of a blur, like theres frames missing or something.
Any ideas?

They're not weird lines, that is standard interlacing, where the second field appears slightly after the first and appears as jaggies.

VLC Player is obviously automatically deinterlacing the DV file better than the AVI. In VLC, if you force deinterlacing (Video>Deinterlace = ON), you'll see the S-Video version will be much better and on a par with the DV file, if not better.

At the most basic level, you can deinterlace both (remember that that DV file-all DV files- is interlaced exactly like the analogue AVI file) with VDub's deinterlace filter (Yadif, double frame rate, TFF for the analogue AVI and BFF for the DV AVI) or you can use Handbrake or even better still, AVISynth (extremely difficult to set up; uses basic code) but the best deinterlacer.

Thanks for the response, your VLC trick worked and there was a difference, I also have run both the DV and the S Video videos through Hybrid with QTGMC deinterlacing and I think the S Video one does look better, though the difference appears relatively minor to be but even I can see that there more saturation and maybe a little bit more sharpness, though I am colour blind so I would imagine the difference is more than my eyes are able to see. I presume S-Video is normally the go to for analog video instead of firewire if maximum quality is the preference?

Oooo, you're taking a bit of a risk asking things like that around here! :D

As with a lot of things in life, it's a tradeoff, but yes, if it's an analogue source eg V8, an analogue process through S-Video will be the preferred workflow for best quality. NTSC DV AVI (4.1.1. colour) is lower quality than PAL DV (4.2.0 colour), so certainly in the NTSC case, analogue is recommended.

Also recommended for PAL.

Traal, that topic is about VHS, a different kettle of fish to a V8 tape played in a Sony TBC-equipped camcorder. FWIW, I've tried PAL DV verses AVI as per the OP's scenario, and I can hardly tell the difference. Certainly not worth getting in a tizz about (not that I am suggesting you are getting in a tizz ;)).

I know the comment is in jest, but others may not read the humor between the lines. :D

- NTSC DV is a thorough butcher job, adding (macro)blocks, blurring, and both altering and reducing the colors. It's only a few shades better than low-end infamous cards like Easycap (aka Easycrap).
- PAL DV is more similar to DVD quality (MPEG-2@4:2:0), but different axis for 4:2:0. It still adds blocks, and is lossy, but doesn't really butcher colors.

DV is 1990s tech, and those ADVC boxes literally had Pentium II minimum specs (or Mac G3)..

So it's not case of "OMG, don't talk about it here!", but rather that we'll let you know how ancient and limited the device is, and that better quality hardware (lossless capturing) has been available for 20+ years.

That's really it. Sort of. In video, tradeoffs compound. So if you're using a crappy VCR, no TBC, and a not-recommended capture card, quality will lousy, often an unviewable mess. Using a DV box makes quality cameras/VCRs and TBCs more important than usual.

VHS ~ Video8
S-VHS ~ Hi8
DV ~ Digital8 (digital)

The differences between the 8's are negligible. The same advice applies to both.

But that said, the optics quality of home camcorders sucked. So I can see how PAL users might consider DV 1:1 (or close), when the camera is decent, TBCs in workflow. Hi8 color fidelity does tends to be a wee better that S-VHS, mostly due to the cameras and optics. When you add up all the variables, the net output can be fine. Noting that "adding up the variables" is not something novices can do -- but that why we're here, to help guide the newbies on it. We know what they don't know that they don't know!

Thank you for the responses everyone, much appreciated. I am in the UK and therefore a PAL region. From what I can gather here you’re saying that the difference between the S-Video and FireWire here is more negligible but S Video will still deliver a slight improvement for analog, obviously Digital8 and MiniDV would bee best captured via FW. I was going to post this as another question but I’ll just ask here quickly:
I’m considering getting an ES15 since I’ll be doing lots of family analog tapes including VHS/VHS-C and I already have a DVK-100 in my workflow and I know lordsmurf says they are one of the more viable TBC alternatives. Would I use the ES15 all the time as a pass through or only use it on tapes where the frames are dropping or there are sync issues?