Budget game capture device /TV card

[Zeromemory]

Hi everybody,

I'm interested in purchasing a budget capture card or TV card for my retro consoles,

Basically, I'm not interested in consoles with HDMI output, so consoles Wii, PS2 and generations below that ...

Any suggestions?

If it can go into 50 euro budget, that would be great.

[Xer Xian]

There was a time when £80 or so could buy a rebranded XCapture 1 (Startech something), that would cover everything from 240p to 1080p30 pretty well through all the most common video signals, but those days are now gone.

Failing that, I *think* the Elgato Game Capture HD (not HD60) may be your best bet for your budget (but looks like it doesn't support 240p through Component, only Composite/S-Video). I've never had experience with it though. I did buy a Hauppauge HD PVR once - it was crappy enough to warrant an immediate dump on ebay.

There are a couple options from Avermedia as well (the live gamer portable has a PC-free mode if that interests you, but it only has a Component in - beside hdmi of course).

All these devices support both analog and digital inputs, so should you decide to digitize your signal to achieve a better quality (by pre-processing with an OSSC or similar) you'd be covered already.

[Zeromemory]

Thank you for the answer, but i still need to convert the signal for HDMI input (I'm taking in consideration the stuff you suggested).

Most of my consoles use RF / composite / SCART, and only Wii uses component.

I'm not intending to stream, I would use it for basic video capture.


Which would be the cheapest solution setup with good results?

[Xer Xian]

Again, the Elgato HD supports analog signals.. component out of the box and composite/s-video through a separate adapter. Most Avermedia products support at least component beside hdmi. Component would cover PS3/2/1, Wii/Wii U, Xbox 360 and more if you use HD Retrovision cable or an RGB to Component transcoder (I'd save some more and directly get an OSSC though).

Unfortunately I can't speak about capture quality for any of the two though. Let's see if someone else chimes in with some impression and/or different suggestions (I'd be interested as well).

[FinalBaton]

Would you consider an S-Video card, Zeromemory?
This might be your ticket for a 50 Euros card...

The Startech SVID2USB23 is upposedly a good S-video capture card. Well for video, at least. (I'm not 100% sure it can capture at 240p@60, or if it insteads treats it as 480i. Maybe you could ask Startech themselves)

https://www.startech.com/AV/Converters/ ... SVID2USB23

[Makinx]

http://www.ezcap.tv/usb-game-capture-de ... pture-card

The EZ cap is about 27 pounds. Don't expect a high quality capture for that money, but at least it handles 240p signals without modification.

[Zeromemory]

Thank you for all the answers,

I have the opportunity to buy used Hauppauge HD PVR Gaming Edition for around 30 euro.

Is it any good?

[Fudoh]

The Hauppauge won't record 240p and it won't record off-spec rates, so even line doubled 15khz at anything but 59.94Hz it problematic.

[Zeromemory]

So Hauppauge is out of the question then.

Since I will be using it mostly for recording / capturing games during some retro competitions (Mario kart 64, SF2, Tetris), maybe above mentioned devices will suffice.

I will be uploading them to YT eventually, so I'm concerned about the quality.

I'm willing to go a bit above the 50 euro if necessary, so maybe Elgato isn't a bad option.


Too bad there isn't any cheaper option for scart RGB though.


If anyone has any experience with these cheaper devices, please share.

[Fudoh]

The best budget option with acceptable quality and rather good compatibiliy is a used Elgato HD (60-70 EUR from ebay) along with a 30 EUR Scart RGB to HDMI upscaler.

This way you can record component and HDMI sources on the Elgato directly and 240p composite and RGB Scart through the additional upscaler.

The results are solid. Not Framemeister like, but much better than any USB recording stick would provide. Videos like this one are recorded on the Elgato + cheap RGB/HDMI converter combo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT5rrz4emLQ

When you buy an used Elgato HD make sure the analogue adapter cable is included.

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Any cheap capture cards that do s-video? My main setup currently uses that, so it would be a lot easier to record that way. All I would have to do is find a way to duplicate the s-video then send to capture.

[P1kas]

Any cheap capture cards that do s-video? My main setup currently uses that, so it would be a lot easier to record that way. All I would have to do is find a way to duplicate the s-video then send to capture.

The GV-USB2 is supposedly pretty good. I know that several speed runners use it.

https://www.amazon.com/DATA-connection- ... ds=gv-usb2

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Any cheap capture cards that do s-video? My main setup currently uses that, so it would be a lot easier to record that way. All I would have to do is find a way to duplicate the s-video then send to capture.

The GV-USB2 is supposedly pretty good. I know that several speed runners use it.

https://www.amazon.com/DATA-connection- ... ds=gv-usb2

It definitely looks decent. Whats the best way to split a s-video signal so I can have one going to my CRT and this? Something that has no lag and doesn't really reduce quality. From what I see it seems I need a AV Distribution Amplifier. One that has composite/svideo and rca jacks would be nice.

[DMoney]

dbl post (delete pls)

[DMoney]

Not sure if my previous post is stuck in limbo or not, but I bought this one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010EIK6K6

It gets the job done and there's no visible quality loss afaik.

[Ex_Mosquito]

I picked up this one off EBay recently for £4.79 delivered. It's nothing special (obviously..) and only captures in 240p / 480i @30fps, but the results are pretty incredible for the price.

https://youtu.be/SZn6jPtrB98

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252327583850

[Zeromemory]

I've ordered GV-USB2 since I've read some of the reviews, and it look it will suit my needs for retro consoles.

I will give you a small review after I test it.

[Ex_Mosquito]

Ah nice, same sort of thing as I have but a little more expensive. Does it do 60fps capture? I can't seem to find any details on it.

[Extrems]

It is capturing 60 fields per second, which are interlaced into 30 frames per second.

Use a deinterlacer in double frame rate mode for 60 frames per second.

[Ex_Mosquito]

Ah really? Could I do that to mine then?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252327583850

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Not sure if my previous post is stuck in limbo or not, but I bought this one. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010EIK6K6

It gets the job done and there's no visible quality loss afaik.

Yeah I saw that one just wanted to make sure it was decent. I was looking on ebay at used Extron AV amp distributors and they look pretty awesome but there were a few problems. Almost all had no ac adapters, used bnc connectors so I would have to make a cable, or just had S-video no rca jacks. The rca jacks really isn't a killer for me as all my consoles have s-video except AV Famicom but still a bummer.

I'll have to get it.