Soldato
I want to record some video (and audio!) of my games but I am struggling quite a bit.
Ideally I want to record a VGA video signal (dreamcast and PC) and analogue audio through a 3.5mm cable. This seems quite hard to track down as VGA capture cards are redonkulously expensive; much more expensive than HDMI capture cards.
I started off with my random capture card I got with a cheapo gumtree PC I picked up at some point.
It can do PAL-I (?) S-video and composite video at 25fps. The quality is really quite terrible! It needs audio to pass into the card, then from the card into the PC's line-in slot (I didn't have any success sending the audio via the PCI bus).
It would preview audio and video with quite good latencies in a OP Windows XP PC (it only has drivers for XP). However it wouldn't record audio via my Realtek HD Audio / Azalia sound chip in the motherboard I was using, so recorded video was silent. I'll give up with this card.
VGA (or DVI that can also do VGA) cards are hundreds of pounds so I thought I could grab a cheap VGA to HDMI adapter from eBay and then use a "cheap" consumer capture card (i.e. Avermedia HDMI capture device of somekind)
I actually picked up a Blackmagic Intensity Pro. I got it for £44. It has a wide range of SD inputs (and outputs) as well as HDMI in and out.
The HDMI adapter arrived, tested it out and... nothing. Turns out it is a HDMI > VGA adapter. Eugh
It was even listed as such on eBay!
Today the VGA to HDMI adapter arrived. Hooray I can connect up my Dreamcast to HDMI! Or not...
I've now got a female to female VGA adapter on the way!
I got the card installed and tried out the software. It works fine but doesn't do any auto detection. My PS4 shows up as a flickering screen as the card can't do 1080p (I only want it for up to 720p really).
My dreamcast can show up using S-Video, but is again locked to 25fps. I'm beginning to think that these cards can't do any interlacing so will all show 25fps not 50. But it can do 720p 60Hz :S Also I don't get any frickin' sound! The manual makes no mention of needing to route the output audio and video anywhere, so I'm thinking thats for pass-through back to the TV rather than to get any sound at all recorded...
I am also a bit nervous that I can't customise what resolution it needs to detect. It's limited to PAL, NTSC, PAL and NTSC Progresive, and then a range of 720p and 1080i resolutions... but I am going to want 640*480p I'll just have to try it when my adapter arrives.
Ideally I want to record a VGA video signal (dreamcast and PC) and analogue audio through a 3.5mm cable. This seems quite hard to track down as VGA capture cards are redonkulously expensive; much more expensive than HDMI capture cards.
I started off with my random capture card I got with a cheapo gumtree PC I picked up at some point.
It can do PAL-I (?) S-video and composite video at 25fps. The quality is really quite terrible! It needs audio to pass into the card, then from the card into the PC's line-in slot (I didn't have any success sending the audio via the PCI bus).
It would preview audio and video with quite good latencies in a OP Windows XP PC (it only has drivers for XP). However it wouldn't record audio via my Realtek HD Audio / Azalia sound chip in the motherboard I was using, so recorded video was silent. I'll give up with this card.
VGA (or DVI that can also do VGA) cards are hundreds of pounds so I thought I could grab a cheap VGA to HDMI adapter from eBay and then use a "cheap" consumer capture card (i.e. Avermedia HDMI capture device of somekind)
I actually picked up a Blackmagic Intensity Pro. I got it for £44. It has a wide range of SD inputs (and outputs) as well as HDMI in and out.
The HDMI adapter arrived, tested it out and... nothing. Turns out it is a HDMI > VGA adapter. Eugh
It was even listed as such on eBay!Today the VGA to HDMI adapter arrived. Hooray I can connect up my Dreamcast to HDMI! Or not...
I've now got a female to female VGA adapter on the way!
I got the card installed and tried out the software. It works fine but doesn't do any auto detection. My PS4 shows up as a flickering screen as the card can't do 1080p (I only want it for up to 720p really).
My dreamcast can show up using S-Video, but is again locked to 25fps. I'm beginning to think that these cards can't do any interlacing so will all show 25fps not 50. But it can do 720p 60Hz :S Also I don't get any frickin' sound! The manual makes no mention of needing to route the output audio and video anywhere, so I'm thinking thats for pass-through back to the TV rather than to get any sound at all recorded...
I am also a bit nervous that I can't customise what resolution it needs to detect. It's limited to PAL, NTSC, PAL and NTSC Progresive, and then a range of 720p and 1080i resolutions... but I am going to want 640*480p I'll just have to try it when my adapter arrives.
