Best way to record to S-Video from HDMI?

[latreche34]

The setup below in the pictures is my current setup using a HDMI to S-video converter, HDMI source --> HDMI adapter --> VCR S-video in --> S-VHS tape recording, the output picture is doll and I couldn't get the picture to fill the screen in both PAL and NTSC, this could be due to a cheap HDMI device, or I'm doing something wrong, is there any good HDMI adapters out there that tested to be accurate?
Note: VMC-1 is not involved in the recording process.

[sanlyn]

S-video circuitry can't carry a wide screen image. It's standard definition only (or less). S-video doesn't have the bandwidth or resolution to do so. Whether you have a cheap s-video converter or an expensive one, your JVC won't record wide screen and won't output wide screen.

HDMI from what source?

[latreche34]

I'm aware of the aspect ratio and resolution, HDMI doesn't mean always 16/9, I wasn't expecting someone to think that I'm recording my favorite shows to an analog VCR, It's just for fun and testing purposes, With the actual adapter I'm getting little tiny black bars all around the 4 sides of the display, not those the ones you get when you convert a widescreen to a full screen, I will post a picture when I get time, My laptop doesn't have any other options that I can play with it has 3 modes, Output as duplicate screen, as a secondary screen or as a main screen which all 3 modes gave the same result, also tried different screen resolutions and no difference.

[msgohan]

The windowboxing (black bars on all sides) is likely intentional, particularly if the converter is being sent a PC resolution rather than a standard video resolution. It's so that one could display a PC or similar output on a CRT with overscan, without the edges of the actual picture content appearing cropped.

Better converters ($$$) would give you the option to enable/disable this. But the quality is always going to suck if you're sending it anything other than exact standard def resolution. Another complication is progressive input with interlaced output, and only a fraction of HDMI devices support interlaced standard def IO.

Overall, this is a bad idea even for testing, IMO. Getting an acceptable result takes too much money and time investment to bother.

[latreche34]

Fear enough, Although with my old VHS VCR I was getting a full 4/3 frame with the exact same adapter, I recorded Tom & Jerry from the restored version on the Blu-ray, The recorded tape looked way better than a commercial Tom & Jerry VHS sold in stores.