Capturing VHS to minidv tape

[Marcus Martell]

Hallo dvinfo friends, i need your help.
I'm tryng to capture the vhs footage with my old Sony FX1 connecting the VHS recorder to my camcorder trough S-video. The problem is that the image that my camcorder capture from the VHS are coming in Black And White.
I even tryed to connect the single yellow cable frome the xit of the VHS recorder to my Sony camcorder and....the image is still in black and white.
Any idea?
Thank you so much for your kind help

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Camcorders are not designed to record from other sources. They sell inexpensive analog to digital capture devices for this purpose.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...2855/KBID/3801

[Steve Game]

Originally Posted by Marcus Martell

Hallo dvinfo friends, i need your help.
I'm tryng to capture the vhs footage with my old Sony FX1 connecting the VHS recorder to my camcorder trough S-video. The problem is that the image that my camcorder capture from the VHS are coming in Black And White.
I even tryed to connect the single yellow cable frome the xit of the VHS recorder to my Sony camcorder and....the image is still in black and white.
Any idea?
Thank you so much for your kind help

Is your camera an FX1 or an FX1E? The FX1 is an NTSC/30i camera whereas the FX1E is a PAL/25i version, (normally sold in 50Hz countries). If your footage on VHS is not outputting the correct colour system for the camera, it won't recognise the chroma modulation, either through S-Video or CVBS.
I have used my FX1E to transcode old PAL VHS recordings directly into a firewire DV signal and recorded it direct to DV tape. The majority of camcorders don't encode analogue signals, especially European models because the levy of a higher import tariff on recorders would make them slightly more expensive than those without where they were classed as just cameras that recorded through the lens.

[Paul R Johnson]

You’re just recording composite with component that’s all. Back in those days it’s was common for some equipment to be two circuit component, I.e. separate chrominance and luminance channels. You need to do like for like, so this also includes the colour format. NTSC and PAL mismatches were also producers of black and white footage. The yellow cable/socket normally signifies composite, so if it produces no colour Steve’s comments seem spot on, and the colour missing is a mismatch of systems. You also need to say where you are, because in the UK for tax reasons, Camcorders always had recording restrictions from external sources. They were imported as replay devices, not recorders which were in a different import category. Input sockets were frequently missing, but as worldwide products grew, recording was limited with software. Removing the PAL record facility would be enough to keep the tax down.

Pro cameras suffered too I still have my old JVC 5000 camera, but it’s a 5001, and does not have an external record facility. The E in a model number instead of A can be a good clue. Composite into a component input is black and white, if it locks at all, and the chrominance signal into a composite input does the same thing. We also have additional confusion with S-VHS, where that’s different from VHS and that muddies the water too.

[Vince Pachiano]

Can I ask a silly question?
Why are you trying to put a really old tape format onto an less-old tape format?

Anyways, it's gonna be a 3-step process
1a. Capture the Analog VHS video.audio onto your Computer (preferably in AVI format
1b. If not captured as AVI, convert the capture to an AVI format using tbd
3. Write the AVI file to your miniDV using freeware WinDV

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Vince Pachiano

Can I ask a silly question?
Why are you trying to put a really old tape format onto an less-old tape format?

It doesn't make sense, that's why I suggested simply getting an analogy to digital converter to capture to a computer. From there you can do whatever you want. Commonly on forums people acquire free old tech or have odd ideas on saving money. In the past digital tape was an inexpensive way to archive video footage but now that hard drives have gotten so cheap there's no point.

[Andrew Smith]

I had it in mind to mention that, when coming back to some DV format content, I had noticed that the video quality is a bit soft in detail compared to more modern codecs. Pretty amazing since at the time the format arrived it was like the gates of Heaven opening when compared to analogue formats of the day.

Recommend capturing direct to something better than DV as a codec, even if it's merely VHS.

Andrew