6 replies to this topic

[Aaants]

Hello,

I'm looking for a 1080p video capture card to record game footage for youtube. At the moment I'm recording with a camera - the quality isn't very good and many people don't like it. Example:

http://www.youtube.c...=1&feature=plcp

Fraps is not an option, because it has several things that I don't like. The capture card should be able to record 1080p at 30FPS, it shouldn't affect my PC's performance (FPS) and also would be good if it could record in 1080p not depending on what resolution I'm playing the game at (for example if I play at 1920x1200, it still records 1920x1080).

Is there such a thing?

I found this myself - http://www.blackmagi...klinkhdextreme/
Example video - http://www.youtube.c...h?v=mvj9RlniBts

Would this suit my needs? If yes, are there any cheaper options?

Thanks!

[Challenger]

Unless you want to record 3D then the cheaper Intensity Pro should be fine.

You'll probably need to have your source at 1080p when you want to record. I was looking through the spec for both devices and it seems they are designed for standard video camera inputs only - 480p 720p 1080p etc. You should really be using 1080p however you record anyway so you are not using scaling for YouTube.

Also note the intensity cards have to go into a second pc so it doesn't affect your gameplay. You'll also need lots of storage as raw video creates large files!

[Sykes]

To expensive imo. Robazz makes ALLOT of gameplay video's and he uses the HD PVR, I think that will suit your needs.

Link with specs of the HD PVR
http://www.hauppauge...data_hdpvr.html

Edit: Robazz also uses the Intensity Pro.

Edited by Sykes, 19 February 2012 - 12:01 PM.

[slamscaper]

MSI Afterburner can now record gameplay in full HD. It works great for me and I can't imagine why anyone would not want to use it (after all, it's free). The only drawback to using Afterburner for recording is that the compression it uses is not the most efficient, so transcoding your recordings with another free program would be a good idea.

Edited by slamscaper, 19 February 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[Aaants]

@ Challenger - If I need to play in 1080p for recording that wouldn't be a big problem, fortunately it isn't much smaller resolution than 1920x1200. I have a spare PC that I could use with the card so that wouldn't be a problem. How big files does it create?

@ Sykes - Does Robbaz use it for recording PC game footage also or just PS3/Xbox360? One thing that makes me a bit confused is that there are no tutorials, advertisements etc. showing how to set up HD PVR or Intensity Pro to record PC game footage, only PS3/360... how would it work with PC? What and where would I need to connect?

@ slamscaper - MSI Afterburner would affect performance by using CPU's power to record I think.

[HaCkEr]

How do u record with those? Arent they only for Xbox and PS3?

[Challenger]

HaCkEr, on 19 February 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

How do u record with those? Arent they only for Xbox and PS3?

LOL of course not... in fact Black Magic are a producer of pro quality video gear used in TV studios and stuff for live feeds from cameras.... it's just they do a very good job for console recording.

Aaants, on 19 February 2012 - 04:31 PM, said:

@ Challenger - If I need to play in 1080p for recording that wouldn't be a big problem, fortunately it isn't much smaller resolution than 1920x1200. I have a spare PC that I could use with the card so that wouldn't be a problem. How big files does it create?

One thing that could be an issue as I'm not 100% familiar with the device is you may have to but a hdmi splitter as it will only capture at 1080p30. I'm not sure if it will output at 1080p60 which is what you'll want to play live with.

If your recording in raw your talking about Gigabytes per minute so you need to make sure you have a vary large, very fast array on the recording machine.... also note it cannot be just any old "spare" pc... you need horsepower there!

Quote

@ Sykes - Does Robbaz use it for recording PC game footage also or just PS3/Xbox360? One thing that makes me a bit confused is that there are no tutorials, advertisements etc. showing how to set up HD PVR or Intensity Pro to record PC game footage, only PS3/360... how would it work with PC? What and where would I need to connect?

You'd need to take a HDMI feed (or DVI-HDMI converter) from your computer to the recording one and into the Intensity Pro. If your monitor cannot do HDMI audio you'd also need to figure out a wat to record and listen live to that as well.

Your really getting into High-end video capture here. Recording a console is easy as 720p60 is easy with the intensity pro and you don't have to bother with the audio.

I think you should really experiment more with the software and the hardware in your computer before resorting to buying capture hardware.

First thing you need to make sure is whatever capture software you are using that it records onto a separate HDD/SSD array from your games/windows drive. The biggest issue with capture software is recording game footage needs a load of throughput and this slows down the capture process on a slow HDD and subsequently your game fps. You also need to make sure your actually recording RAW footage. Fraps DOES NOT do this by default and hence requires lots of cpu usage to do the on-the-fly compression. RAW footage will of course put more stress on your file storage but the game will have more of the cpu available to it when recording.

I've personally used Fraps with a separate SSD array (with RAW recording) and could record at 30fps with the game showing negligible fps drop. For older games recording at 60fps was possible (and even 60fps 3d was possible!)

You should also try out Dxtory http://dxtory.com It will record to multiple file stores so you don't need to create an array (hence the r/w operations would not be hampered by a poor raid controller.)