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NarcissisticJay · Jul 30, 2008

Hey GAF!

I've started to look into making some HD videos of my console gaming the same way I do with my PC gaming. I guess a highlight reel so to speak. So many resistance / cod4 / MGO moments I cant relive thats killing me! I've done some basic research and I have an idea where to start.

Does anyone have a HD Video Capture card that they have and can recommend me based on features and performance?

Thanks in advance for your help.

vumpler · Jul 30, 2008

True HD? Mother of god the bandwidth and filesize would be way to big. I couldn't really imagine that.

I use the HAVA HD Platinum and love it. Its wireless and auto converts to mpeg2 on the fly. Its not HD but it's DV and you get to play your console in HD still.

http://mattplays.com/ uses the Hava HD platinum as well for his DV recordings. Go check em out, see if its good enough for you.

NarcissisticJay · Jul 31, 2008

Hmm, I was thinking a PC card. Not sure now !

ckohler · Jul 31, 2008

I've asked this before here but I could never figure out a way to do this in HD that was both affordable *and* let you still play the game at the same time. This card was the closest I came:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/

urk · Jul 31, 2008

Blackmagic Intensity Pro.

You need to pair it with striped disks in order to capture full resolution. I've been able to capture at 1280x720/30fps with two striped SATA II 32MB drives. It has A/V pass through, so you can play while you record.

This should give you an idea of the quality you can throw up online. MGS4 spoilers, ahoy.

http://vimeo.com/1215625

For the PS3, you'll need to pick up the Component AV cables because they use DRM that squash your ability to capture over the HDMI connection. The console also makes it a complete pain in the ass to switch between A/V outputs. You have to do it all manually. The 360 will feed everything automatically without any user intervention. Super easy to set up. I picked up a powered Component splitter to make it a bit easier. Cost me fifty bucks.

I've also had trouble finding hosts for my files. I was using Vimeo, but they squashed gaming content. Vuze converts everything to shitty MKV.

NarcissisticJay · Aug 1, 2008

urk said:
Blackmagic Intensity Pro.

You need to pair it with striped disks in order to capture full resolution. I've been able to capture at 1280x720/30fps with two striped SATA II 32MB drives. It has A/V pass through, so you can play while you record.

This should give you an idea of the quality you can throw up online. MGS4 spoilers, ahoy.

http://vimeo.com/1215625

For the PS3, you'll need to pick up the Component AV cables because they use DRM that squash your ability to capture over the HDMI connection. The console also makes it a complete pain in the ass to switch between A/V outputs. You have to do it all manually. The 360 will feed everything automatically without any user intervention. Super easy to set up. I picked up a powered Component splitter to make it a bit easier. Cost me fifty bucks.

I've also had trouble finding hosts for my files. I was using Vimeo, but they squashed gaming content. Vuze converts everything to shitty MKV.

Spent an hour or two reading up and the one you suggested is the one I went with. Seems like it does everything Im looking for.

Im not too familiar with using two striped drives, or what that even is really.

Also, if you use the analog (component) for the 360, couldnt you just use the passthrough of the card as opposed to getting a powered spiltter?

or is it only HDMI > HDMI passthrough?

Thanks for the advice.

wolfmat · Aug 1, 2008

urk said:
I've also had trouble finding hosts for my files. I was using Vimeo, but they squashed gaming content. Vuze converts everything to shitty MKV.

How about http://beta.vreel.net/ ?

Forsete · Aug 1, 2008

I also have the Intensity Pro.. I think the quality is superb for such a low cost card compared to some of the others out there.

Since I dont have RAID-drives I capture via Motion JPEG which for now is good enough.

Some samples
Army of Two: http://vimeo.com/768431
DMC4 demo: http://vimeo.com/637549
Pixeljunk Monsters: http://vimeo.com/646674

Profile: http://vimeo.com/user321185

Vimeo compresses the hell out of these videos though. :/ Some direct grabs instead.

I have the PS3 hooked up via component to the card (Sonys official component cables, the cheap component cable I got first was rubbish, the colours were bleeding and the image very fuzzy), then I have my TV hooked up from the HDMI output port on the card, that way I can sit in the sofa playing the game with no delay in the input of the controller, very nice.

yeoz · Aug 1, 2008

urk said:
I've been able to capture at 1280x720/30fps with two striped SATA II 32MB drives.

Any reason why you aren't capping at 60fps? I've been doing it and compressing in realtime using huffyuv. Although with my current setup there's a single dropped frame every fifteen minutes or so that I can't figure out how to prevent, but, usually that's not a big deal for me as my clips tend to be under ten minutes for youtube.

urk said:
I've also had trouble finding hosts for my files. I was using Vimeo, but they squashed gaming content.

Squashed gaming content? What do you mean?

yeoz · Aug 1, 2008

Oh, and one word of warning about the intensity, since I'm on my third one now... Don't ever disconnect/connect cables from it (especially HDMI) when your PC or consoles are on, as you risk shorting out and killing the card.

On my first card, sound stopped working after I plugged in an HDMI cable and shorted something. Blackmagic replaced it (after a lot of bitching at customer service). On my replacement, after about a year of use, I killed the thing plugging in a live HDMI cable (ha! you'd think I'd learn after the first time!). Totally surprising me since the PC crashed at the same time, and letting the magic smoke out at the same time, and I went "FUCK

".

Warranty had expired so I bought a new one, which is working fine so far, and now I power down everything before plugging/unplugging cables. Don't usually plug/unplug stuff enough for this to be a problem though, but, better safe than sorry.

Bought both of mine originally from B&H, since they are local to me in NYC..

edit: adding pic of the damage done to my old card, you can see where it burned out

double edit: still totally recommend the card, it's the best card on the market for what it costs. Heck it's the only card on the market in it's price range. Just be careful with it.

edit, heh, i just killed my third intensity pro. shorted it out plugging an hdmi cable to it. i'm an idiot.

urk · Aug 1, 2008

yeoz said:
Any reason why you aren't capping at 60fps?

Squashed gaming content? What do you mean?

The console games I've been capping run at 30.

Vimeo does not allow any gaming content anymore outside of machinima. They said all videos of gameplay already uploaded will be removed beginning Sept. 1 and any new videos will be immediately deleted from their servers.

NarcissisticJay said:
Spent an hour or two reading up and the one you suggested is the one I went with. Seems like it does everything Im looking for.

Im not too familiar with using two striped drives, or what that even is really.

Also, if you use the analog (component) for the 360, couldnt you just use the passthrough of the card as opposed to getting a powered spiltter?

or is it only HDMI > HDMI passthrough?

Thanks for the advice.

Nope, you can do pass through with the card. I have all of my systems, including my PC, hooked up to the same monitor, so I needed the splitter to keep from having to swap cables.

Striping is done in the OS. It allows data to be written across a stripe of drives, increasing the read/write speed for any given data stream. You have to have it to capture uncompressed video or the drives won't be able to keep up and you will have dropped frames.

I get away with two drives, but they are fast and they are also dedicated. The OS is on another drive set altogether. Blackmagic recommends that you use at least three drives in a striped configuration.

yeoz · Aug 1, 2008

urk said:
Vimeo does not allow any gaming content anymore outside of machinima. They said all videos of gameplay already uploaded will be removed beginning Sept. 1 and any new videos will be immediately deleted from their servers.

@#$%! I had been planning on uploading stuff there, since youtube has been spotty for me lately.

urk · Aug 1, 2008

http://vimeo.com/blog:140

The Vimeo staff has decided that we are no longer going to allow gaming videos on Vimeo. Specifically, we are no longer going to allow game walk-throughs, game strategy videos, depictions of player vs player battles, raids, fraps, or any other video gaming videos that simply depict individuals playing a video game. Videos falling into this category will be subject to deletion as of September 1st; new videos of this type will be removed.

NarcissisticJay · Aug 1, 2008

Should get the card in a few days. Sadly I only have a single HDD so Im going to have to look into upgrading that.

Forsete, how many HDDs are you using to capture with motion JPEG?

Anyone record Directv or any TV using this?

One last thing, can you play back your captured video through the HDMI out? Thanks!

Forsete · Aug 10, 2008

NarcissisticJay said:
Forsete, how many HDDs are you using to capture with motion JPEG?

Just one internal SATA HDD. Its usually fast enough, though it can start to drop frames after about 10 minutes. It works well enough for me.

One last thing, can you play back your captured video through the HDMI out? Thanks!

Nope, dont think so. At least I havent found a way to do it.

Dabookerman · Aug 10, 2008

Jesus Christ. This card is £200. That's too much.

I need a HD capture card.

NarcissisticJay · Aug 11, 2008

From the time I spent online, to get a pure passthrough with HDMI and full scale capture... its about the best bang for your buck

Blimblim · Aug 11, 2008

dabookerman said:
Jesus Christ. This card is £200. That's too much.

I need a HD capture card.

You are not going to find a cheaper HD capture card than this for the moment. Believe me, I know

I'm still not going to mention what type of card I use personally, but the Intensity captures some great quality videos if you have the right hardware behind it, mostly a RAID0 array with at least 3 hard drives. Using MJPEG simply kills any benefit you could have by using such a HD card in the first place.
For various reasons I'm currently giving the Hauppauge HD PVR a try right now, and while you'll never get uncompressed quality, at 13.5 Mb/s the H.264 stream it outputs is at least better looking than the MJPEG codec used by Black Magic. It's also really painless to set up.
I expect the Hauppauge will be cheaper when it's officially released in Europe since it isn't aimed at the pro market, but if you import it it will also cost around £200.

Borman · Aug 12, 2008

Its good to note that you can use any codec with the Intensity Pro if youre computer can handle it, and are using OSX (and Final Cut for that matter)

DrEvil · Aug 12, 2008

I also have the Intensity Pro, and I love it.

my quadcore captures at 720p 30fps without much issue (I also have 8gb of ram and 2 tb worth of harddisks...), but yeah, the ability to use any codec is awesome..

Judderman · Aug 12, 2008

I'm guessing this would be the thread to ask about this but what would I need to stream myself playing on sites like justin.tv/ustream.tv? What programs, hardware, etc.

Tony Rocky Horror · Oct 4, 2008

Hmm I'm going to go ahead and kick this topic to ask some questions regarding video-capturing. I'm thinking about starting to do this, but HD is not a requirement for me. I AM playing my 360 on a HD-ready tv via Component cables. What's a good idea to do for me? Can I still be playing through those cables with HD on and capture the standard 480p(?) resolution?

dagZ · Oct 21, 2008

also looking for a way to record in SD and play in Full-HD still.

looked at the Hava HD.

anymore info about that?

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