Video Capture Hardware

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:21 pm

I've been thinking that I might want to start recording gameplay videos, but I don't know a whole lot about video capture hardware.

What type of solutions are out there and what type of price ranges are we talking?
I run Windows XP, btw

Post by **Mozgus** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 9:58 pm

You are entering a world of pain. I've owned half a dozen sub-$100 capture devices over the years, and no matter how highly rated they were, they all had serious issues I couldn't tolerate. Maybe I just have high standards.

Post by **racketboy** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:39 pm

What about stuff for more than $100?

Post by **HoboJoe** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:22 am

Buy a tripod....a cheap camcorder....BAM - video recording for anything youll ever need <.<

Post by **racketboy** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:36 am

HoboJoe wrote:Buy a tripod....a cheap camcorder....BAM - video recording for anything youll ever need <.<

Already have that -- I need direct feed.

Post by **max** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:12 am

A friend uses the Dazzle 100 capture card, he says its really simple to use.

Post by **Majors** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 9:34 am

I have an ancient Intel Smart Video Recorder, PCI video capture card that has been great to me. Takes composite and s-vid, uses your line-in for sound. It took me about 3 years to find some software to use it because Intel has given up support for it but luckly I found an opensource project that supported the bt??? chipset (Vista is a no-go, only XP/2K). I forget the name of the software, but it supports any codex you have installed plus lots of size & sound options. I can get the name of it if you want.

I can steam straight to the HD with no problem, playback is smooth. I've had friends that had issues with some USB and PCI cards not being able to capture smooth.

Post by **kevinski** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 10:16 am

racketboy, I recommend getting a Neuros OSD. I use it to record my videos, and it works quite nicely. You'll need to get an external hard drive or SD card, but those are pretty inexpensive. Also, be sure that your video editing software is capable of editing .mp4 files. (I recommend Sony Vega Movie Studio, preferably the Platinum Edition.) Price varies, so check out different sites like Amazon and NewEgg. The software on the Neuros OSD is always being updated, so it's always improving. You can easily update the software via its ethernet connection, as well.

Post by **manillaungol** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 12:29 pm

You might find something of use here.

http://www.adstech.com/default.asp

Post by **Hatta** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 2:56 pm

I have a Hauppage WinTV PCI that I got for about $60 5 years ago. It should do what you need, it has S-Video and RF inputs and a phono plug for line in. It's BT878 based so it's supported out of the box in Linux, I can't imagine it would be hard to find drivers for XP. It doesn't do MPEG2 encoding on the board, but that's not really necessary with a reasonably fast PC. I've mostly used it for digitizing old family videos (VHS). Unless you're building a DVR box too, I don't see any reason to go with a fancy card. You can get these things for stupid cheap on ebay these days, give it a shot.