XCapture-1 or Framemeister?

[FakeGamerGuy]

I recently picked up the StarTech USB3HDCAP and, after going through all the posts about it's... interesting behavior out of the box, I'm pretty happy with it for the most part. That said, switching inputs while streaming isn't exactly streamlined, and a lack of passthrough makes playing on a TV while streaming/capturing a much more complicated and expensive process. While trying to figure out the best course of action (which I decided was running everything through SCART into the DVI input) I started to wonder if I would be better off getting a Framemeister instead.

So here's what I had in mind. I would need to buy one SCART cable for every console I plan on connecting, a SCART splitter and component converter to connect the console to the TV (currently an HD CRT), and a Sync Strike to simultaneously do its sync stripping magic and give me a d-sub output to connect to the capture card. I haven't done a whole lot of research into pricing everything out, but I'm guessing the splitter and converter would be somewhere around $50 combined, and the Sync Strike came out to about $56 with the clear enclosure and PSU, and then there's shipping on top of that. Another $20-ish for a SCART cable (we'll just use one to keep the math simple), I'm looking probably another $150-ish just to get started. With this solution I would be getting awesome quality 240p RGB video to both my computer and my TV, but I don't get upscaled 720p or 1080p video to my LCD TV.


With this solution I get upscaled video to my PC via an Elgato capture card that I already own and to my TV (which I would need to buy since I don't want to play retro games on my plasma). Assuming I returned the USB3HDCAP for the $185 it cost me, the cost of upgrading to the Framemeister is ~$175 which is pretty dang close to what I would be paying for all the misc. hardware for the other solution.



And yes, I left out the cost of the TV, because it's something I want to replace my CRT with anyway.

Hoping to get some input from people who have used either hardware before on pros/cons or information on anything important I missed. I would be totally open to the OSSC, too, but I have no idea when that's going to be available again.