Capturing 360/PS3 footage

Smooth

Smooth

Smooth

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7 Jan 2005
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Does anyone here have any experience with this?

Ideally I'm looking to capture 1280x720 video and screenshots.

How good does my setup need to be to capture and edit HD footage, do I need Quad-Core, 4GB of RAM and a 1TB RAID or can I get by with less?


Also what capture card would you recommend, I've only really found 2 candidates for this so far:

BlackMagic:
http://www.gear4music.com/Blackmagic_Design_Intensity_Pro_Cardsefv_2.html
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/06/28/237244.aspx

Epiphan:
http://www.epiphan.com/products/product.php?pid=1
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/epiphan_vga_2_usb_review/

The Blackmagic has the bonus of being able to capture footage at full 1080p, but it is highly dependant on the system.

The Epiphan is external and USB based, which is a bonus. It can capture video easily at 640x480 but has a tough time at higher resolutions and has issues with motion for framecaps.
 
Why you want to do this?

You be best looking ino Digital Video and Editng Forums for other alternatives even if the B Magic is highly rated.
Chances are a MAC with the appropiate hardware will be the best or more professional option. Also going to need a lot of RAM and a high spec machine to do it justice.
 
I am just trying to grab a lot of footage & screenshots for various uses.

A high-spec machine wont be a problem, I was just wondering how good it needed to be in people's experience.
 
A few eeks ago there was a thread where someone wanted to do the same and he (they) worked out you need a very hefty harddisk setup to record 1280x720 uncompressed as it neede up to 170MB/sec speed IIRC but maybe with a hardware card like you mentioned that isn't needed as the stream is compressed on-the-fly?
 
To capture uncompressed at 30fps would need around 80mb/s I reckon.

What type of hard-disk setup would I need to get this speed?
 
So what about games that run @ 60 fps?

Gamersyde games website sometimes offer 720p 60 videos.
If anything contact them and see if they will indulg or give you some kind of idea on the equipment needed.

Do remember the hardware you looked at is so incredibly low tech compared to the video/editing hardware available for pros. Saying that the limatations you will encounter may still be well within your requirements.

Personally i would advise you consider you to get a cheap standalone DVD Recorder with hard-drive. It may not be HD but its very easy to use. Do first edits on the machines hard-drive, burn to disc and rip to PC. From there you can get all the captures you will need and do final editing on the PC.
 
I have got very good results with an inexpensive VGA to TV converter. Check them out below.

http://stage6.divx.com/norm360/video/1716607/PGR4---SSC-Ulimate-Aero-TT

Do a google search for "CS13762" for the device in question.

Otherwise if you want to capture in pure HD it's going to be very expensive. Check out this PDF for an example - http://www.thedvshow.com/downloadvault/xboxfcp.pdf - uses a Kona LHe PCI Express based card that fits into PCI Express Macs such as the Power Mac G5 Quad and costs ~$1750.
 
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Okay, cheers.

The other thing I'm going to need is a Component/HDMI splitter so I can capture on one screen and play on the other.
 
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There's going to be a some delay on the screen when capturing, I'm not sure how playable it will be.

I'm looking at just getting a Component splitter like this: http://www.cyberselect.co.uk/product/803
along with a PS3 component cable as it will be cheaper than getting an HDMI splitter and the 360 I will be using doesn't have HDMI output anyway.

For Blu-Ray capture I can just plug the HDMI straight into the Blackmagic card.
 
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Smooth said:
There's going to be a some delay on the screen when capturing, I'm not sure how playable it will be.

I'm looking at just getting a Component splitter like this: http://www.cyberselect.co.uk/product/803
along with a PS3 component cable as it will be cheaper than getting an HDMI splitter and the 360 I will be using doesn't have HDMI output anyway.

For Blu-Ray capture I can just plug the HDMI straight into the Blackmagic card.
Click to expand...

You'll want one with optical audio on all ports won't you? That one only supports stereo sound.
 
Why don't you get a 360 Elite, that way you can use the HDMI out on that as well.

Although I don't really understand your need to capture in HD. As nice as it is, it's going to take up lots of space, be harder to edit, and ultimately if you come to publish it online you'll either lower the resolution/bit-rate to the point where it's no longer HD worthy, so you might as well use SD.
 
norm said:
Why don't you get a 360 Elite, that way you can use the HDMI out on that as well.

Although I don't really understand your need to capture in HD. As nice as it is, it's going to take up lots of space, be harder to edit, and ultimately if you come to publish it online you'll either lower the resolution/bit-rate to the point where it's no longer HD worthy, so you might as well use SD.
Click to expand...

He wouldn't need an Elite, all the new Premiums also feature HDMI.
 
An HDMI switch box is quite pricey, it's cheaper to get a component switch and a PS3 component cable.

Quality wise there's not much difference in my experience.
 
Okay, now I'm looking at speccing an entire PC for capturing and converting HD footage.

What would write-performance be like with 4 drives RAID 5 and does anyone have any specific drives/raid controllers they would recommend?

Most of the footage will probably be converted into h264, could I get a encoder/decoder card for this or should I go for a quad core?
 
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