Question / Help Problem using S-Video source with video capture unit and OBS in Fedora 29

zug134zwang

New Member

Apologies if question is a duplicate. Before posting I did browse this forum for queries containing "S-Video".

Inside of Fedora 29, I am using OBS studio with the Elgato Video Capture unit,
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0029U2YSA/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.
Cable box sources are the audio and video composite cables (red, white, and yellow) as well as an S-Video cable,
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003Z9RTWU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1.
I discovered that specifying the input source as composite works fine, while specifying the input source as S-Video results in black and white video only (no color).

Why does the S-Video input lose the color in OBS and can this be remedied in OBS?

T
he remainder of this query is:

1. Hardware and Operating System specs
2. OBS settings
3. Windows 7 experiment to verify hardware, cables, and cable connections

1. Hardware and Operating System specs

  • os : 64 bit fedora 29 and 64 bit Windows 7 professional
  • : each on separate internal hard disk -
  • : dual boot via the F12 key at power up
  • cpu : Intel I5-4440 Processor BX80646I54440
  • mobo : (64 bit) Gigabyte H97 SATA Express M.2 SSD UEFI DualBIOS DDR3
  • : 1600 LGA
  • memory : 32 gb : 2 x [G.Skill F3-1600C10D-16GAO Ares 16GB (2x8GB)
  • : DDR3-1600Mhz Memory RAM]
  • psu : corsair cx series 600 watt
  • hdisk : 2 x 1tb internal western digital wd10ezex sata
  • video card : none - I use mobo's onboard video at 1920x1080.
  • sound card : none - I use mobo's onboard audio


2. OBS settings

I was unable to find clear instructions re installing a pvr backend to serve as the "driver" for the elgato video capture unit. Therefore, I simply plugged it in to a usb port. The Fedora 29 system beeped, indicating that it recognized that a new device had been added. I then started OBS, set preferences, added a new scene, and within this new scene, added a new source:

OBS version : 22.0.3

preferences
: file - settings - output - recording = mp4 format
: file - settings - output - recording - recording quality
: = high quality - medium file size
: file - settings - audio - desktop audio device
: = monitor of built in audio analog stereo

new source
: video capture device v4l2
: OBS "registers" this as device = Elgato Video Capture V2

input : composite
video format : YUYV 4.2.2 (this was the default, which I left unchanged)
video standard : NTSC
buffering : use buffering

This works fine. Changing the input to S-Video creates black and white video.

3. Windows 7 experiment to verify hardware, cables, and cable connections

I booted into Windows 7. Within Windows 7, I successfully installed the elgato video capture unit, both hardware and proprietary software. Using the
proprietary software, I found that:

1. Specifying the video source as composite worked fine; I recorded 60 second audio-video mp4 files from my cable box with no problem.
2. Specifying the video source as S-Video had the same result - good video.

From this I surmised that:

a. The elgato video capture unit - hardware - is okay.
b. Both the composite and S-Video cables and all of the cable-connections are fine.
 
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