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I'm going to retire my 15 year old 40" Mitisubishi and have a 50" GT30 Panasonic on order from Independence Audio-Video. When it comes in they will deliver it and take the HEAVY Mitisubishi to my garage where it will sit unused. It still works fine but I have no other use or room for it in our home. I have a somewhat elaborate video system with 2 JVC S-VHS VCRs, Sony Super Beta VCR, Sony Hi8 VCR,etc( all with S-VHS outputs). Anyway, I was looking at the GT30 manual last night and I did not see any S-VHS inputs on it. Is that right? I have repaired other LCD TVs plus I have 4 other LCDs and they all have S-VHS inputs. I have done lots of reading on the GT30 and never saw any mention of this. I know I can use composite video but S-VHS would be better. Any ideas without spending lots of money? thanks
Follow Ups:
At some point you are going to want to transfer your S-VHS tapes to DVD. There are various ways of doing this and various kinds of equipment available, including DVD recorders that have a VHS recorder-player built in. The tricky part would be finding a DVD recorder with an S-video input. I do not know of any.
One of the problems is that conmsumer DVD recorders that record beyond a standard definition DVD do not exist (long story). Since that is true, it makes no sense to have an S-video input on a DVD recorder, since its an ordinary composite video signal that gets recorded to the DVD anyway Having said that, the quality of a standard def DVD can be quite good if the composite video signal being input is good.
I really like the suggestion of another responder below to get a Denon HT receiver with an S-video input on it, feed your S-VHS recorder through that and then feed the video output from that to a DVD recorder and also to your new TV set via HDMI. That allows you to transition into some of the new connectors and formats while in theory at least maximizing video quality along the way. The Denon should do a good job of converting S-Video to HDMI.
All this upscaling/downscaling stuff is tricky, and what looks really good versus not so good often involves an experiment. I do a lot of recording of premium cable channel movies to DVD using a Toshiba DVD recorder. To my eyes at least, the 6-hour setting gives video indistinguishable from the 2-hour setting, which means I can typically fit 3 movies in a single 25-cent DVD. Even better, these DVDs work great on a laptop computer, and I can even slide them to an internal or external hard disk since each 2-hour movie occupies only about a gig. In contrast, a commercial DVD movie typically is 5 gigs, and moving them to another storage device involves having to get rid of the copy protect in addition to dealing with the large file size.
David
And just pitch all that SVHS crap.
Seriously, are you going to watch it? Ever? It's just clutter.
I was having this conversation last night with a friend of mine in the same boat.
Clutter doesn't do anything for you but prevent you from moving on to other, far better options.
"Lock up when you're done and don't touch the piano."
-Greg House
And slowly walk away.
Get a Blu Ray player and join the 21st Century.
HDMI perfection!
We'll have to agree to disagree about global warming until the next global cooling scare comes along
Some A/V receivers should upconvert S-Video inputs to HDMI. That doesn't appear to include current Pioneer models, but at least one Denon receiver includes a couple of S-Video inputs, the AVR-3312CI.
There's outboard scalers like the DVDO iScan; the more basic models don't cost much on eBay, if they'll work with your TV or receiver.
... Sooner or later you need to bite the bullet.
Just a thought.
Good luck
:)
Smile
Sox
I have a Denon AVR-5600 receiver which needs to be updated also and I had just checked out the AVR-3312CI on the internet which was priced at what I wanted to spend, so I guess that needs to be my next purchase. I wasn't sure that receiver would upconvert my S-Video equipment but I thought it might. Getting rid of my older video equipment is not a real option with me, considering my vast investment in tapes, laser discs, and all my video recordings of family. Of course I know the picture quality won't be as high. Thanks for your response.
I spotted an AVR-354 at a local pawn shop & what piqued my interest was that it did TrueHD & Master Audio, 7.1 and upscaled, and only $225...
Anyway, what applies to your situation is that this receiver has a whopping 3 S-video inputs, and a Faroudja scaler. Only 3 HDMI inputs, though. Refurbed units seem to be fetching around $350 on eBay. It sounds like it's somewhat buggy, and firmware upgrades must be done using a quaint old RS232 cable. But, the overall rating at Amazon is quite high. See the AVSforum thread for in-depth info. Maybe you can find one locally. Although the paucity of HDMI inputs means I'll be leaving that one for someone else. Plus, I've been wary of HK ever since I saw heaps of refurbished ones on eBay back when I was shopping for a DD/DTS receiver.
I'm gradually upgrading my core laserdiscs to Blu-ray. In every case the Blu-ray has been a fraction of the price I paid for the laserdisc, although sometimes the extras aren't included. So...
I've been looking at used DVD recorders... there's currently 9 at the same pawn shop. Good for quick backups of standard-def content. Some of those laserdiscs may be succumbing to "laser rot". And rubber rollers and belts inside laserdisc players and VCRs are deteriorating.
Unfortunately for you S-Video has been largely abandoned in favor of the Component and HDMI high resolution formats even though composite video is still supported (go figure). I'm not aware of any S-Video to Component or HDMI converters but either way you're not going to be able to enjoy what your new display is capable of picture-wise. I have a Panny 50G25 in my bedroom that looks spectacular with hi-def content.
Tubes and vinyl are preferred.
Cheers, Jeff
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