Tv-Capture Card
Tv-Capture Card
I'm piecing together a new PC and I'm looking for a good tv-capture card. I'm looking to do video reviews of games for my site and I need something that will do a good job of recording games off my tv. Anyone have any suggestions for a good card that will get the job done?
Re: Tv-Capture Card
If you are looking to play on the computer itself, then get a software encoded capture card, aka, anyting around $50. If you want high quality stuff, its best to hit record on the computer, split the video, and play it on your tv. Then you can get the hardware encoded cards, the Happauge WinTV 150 and 250's are awesome for that.JJG wrote:I'm piecing together a new PC and I'm looking for a good tv-capture card. I'm looking to do video reviews of games for my site and I need something that will do a good job of recording games off my tv. Anyone have any suggestions for a good card that will get the job done?
What you want mate is a gamebridge!
Ebay Link
It's cheap and effective and it can record anything that uses s-video or 3-phone cables as long as you plug it to a USB port. Also you can watch what you are recording on the computer monitor so you can play and record at the same time and it records in a DivX format as well (high quality!). If you are lucky you can pick one up for roughly $10 although the average price is roughly $15.
I use the 1400 model to record my new video game review show, it's fantastic. (the device not the show... har! har! har!
)
edit: Oh by the way don't be put off when people say "FOR XBOX" on the product, all gamebridges work will anything that has a 3-phone or s-video cable going out of it!
Ebay Link
It's cheap and effective and it can record anything that uses s-video or 3-phone cables as long as you plug it to a USB port. Also you can watch what you are recording on the computer monitor so you can play and record at the same time and it records in a DivX format as well (high quality!). If you are lucky you can pick one up for roughly $10 although the average price is roughly $15.
I use the 1400 model to record my new video game review show, it's fantastic. (the device not the show... har! har! har!
)edit: Oh by the way don't be put off when people say "FOR XBOX" on the product, all gamebridges work will anything that has a 3-phone or s-video cable going out of it!
Last edited by Danny on Wed May 16, 2007 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A word of warning: Apparently there are two versions of Gamebridge, one for NTSC (which can only use real NTSC) and one for PAL (which can only use real PAL). The PAL version does NOT support PAL-60, that means you can't record anything in 60Hz mode. That makes it pretty much useless for European gamers. Searching the internet, I have also come across complaints about poor audio quality and possible lag. Last but not least, Adaptec's customer support appears to be horrible.
With the device I got the PAL 60 hrz thing is true (i.e I does not do it!) but then again it does NSTC 60 hrz which is what most last gen (PS2 etc) games use anyway. The lag and audio thing I've not noticed in all honesty.Ceph wrote:A word of warning: Apparently there are two versions of Gamebridge, one for NTSC (which can only use real NTSC) and one for PAL (which can only use real PAL). The PAL version does NOT support PAL-60, that means you can't record anything in 60Hz mode. That makes it pretty much useless for European gamers. Searching the internet, I have also come across complaints about poor audio quality and possible lag. Last but not least, Adaptec's customer support appears to be horrible.
Might be considered a shameless plug here but if you want some idea what the recording quality is like I've posted some reveiws on youtube recently. Check out the CvS2 and World Poker 2 reviews as they were recorded with the device in question but is not the best of quailty thanks to makinmg the video in WMM and the youtube restrictions and also me recording the game in 50hrz
To be honest in my opinion there is really not that much to complain about. If anyone can name another way to cheaply record stuff off the TV for $10 that's as easy as this then I'll tip my hat to you. Fact is that this is a cheap TV capture card, if you want the best quality then go for a more exspensive card but if you just want to record stuff then this is for you.
Yeah the lag is spot on. The only thing about those vids are the boarders (a PAL problem) and that they are blured slightly due to me having to drop the resosultion size down and quality of the video. I've got DVD qauilty versions of the same movies which I'll post on my new website when it's up.JJG wrote:I think the real test would be to record Burnout Revenge, that might be the first thing I do.
I checked out one of your reviews and the quality really isn't bad as far as lag or anything.
I'll br doing some Shmup reviews using this capture device hopfuly soon.
For USD 10.00-15.00, I'd say that looks pretty good. 
Thanks to the original poster and Danny for all of this, I'm going to be taking a look at this product. Thanks also for the warnings Ceph, it's nice to hear the possible downsides to such an interesting product; I mean, I was looking at the Matrox RT products (USD 1000.00~2000.00) and it's my understanding that those are sort of considered as "entry level" video capture devices, so... as long as this "GameBridge" records video as well as a regular sub sandwich with chips and a drink, then it could be good!
(I'm not saying that they've both meant for the same purpose, but that I could get either a sandwich or this device with the funds.)
This thing is two years old? I wonder why I never noticed it before... also, I was thinking that I'd use a splitter (or video-out of a VCR/TV) to send output to this device while playing on an actual TV. If it actually works well enough as advertised, though, then I could see it being a pretty useful addition to anyone's PC toolkit.
(Edit- Apparently can give your CPU a full workout, and doesn't work in GNU/Linux, yet. I'm still looking into it, but I wanted to mention that.)
Off-topic; Danny, I rather enjoyed those reviews! I look forward to taking in some shmup reviews as soon as you get the chance.
Thanks to the original poster and Danny for all of this, I'm going to be taking a look at this product. Thanks also for the warnings Ceph, it's nice to hear the possible downsides to such an interesting product; I mean, I was looking at the Matrox RT products (USD 1000.00~2000.00) and it's my understanding that those are sort of considered as "entry level" video capture devices, so... as long as this "GameBridge" records video as well as a regular sub sandwich with chips and a drink, then it could be good!
(I'm not saying that they've both meant for the same purpose, but that I could get either a sandwich or this device with the funds.)
This thing is two years old? I wonder why I never noticed it before... also, I was thinking that I'd use a splitter (or video-out of a VCR/TV) to send output to this device while playing on an actual TV. If it actually works well enough as advertised, though, then I could see it being a pretty useful addition to anyone's PC toolkit.
(Edit- Apparently can give your CPU a full workout, and doesn't work in GNU/Linux, yet. I'm still looking into it, but I wanted to mention that.)
Off-topic; Danny, I rather enjoyed those reviews! I look forward to taking in some shmup reviews as soon as you get the chance.
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