Capture Cards

Introduction

A capture card, or TV card, or TV stick, allows you to watch and record your video games or TV on your desktop or laptop computer. As well as capturing audio and video from many game systems right from the NES to modern game consoles, capture cards can also accept input from video players such as VCR's (which is one way to transfer your video tapes to your computer which in turn could be put onto DVD).

Capture cards that have a TV tuner are able to display and let you record TV programmes provided a good enough aerial is connected, however, in the UK you will probably still need a TV license just as if you had bought a TV, even if you don't watch TV using it. Something else to consider is that in many countries there is a digital switch over in progress in which the analogue TV signals are being swapped with digital ones, so you may not be able to watch TV on TV cards with an analogue tuner, but you can still use them with video players and game systems that can output audio and video through an RF connection (which is what the TV aerial would be connected to). There are also TV cards which contain both an analogue and digital tuner but are, not surprisingly, more expensive.

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New: Elgato game capture HD

DVD Maker USB 2.0 Capture Card (21/11/12)

Capture Card Types

Apart from the distinction of whether a capture card has a TV tuner or not, capture cards can be split into two main types which are internal and external. Internal capture cards typically use the PCI slot in a desktop computer and in theory should give the best performance but requires the user to open up their computer to install the device and limits their use to desktop computers; also, they are not so easily transferable to another computer.

External capture cards usually have a USB connection which allows them to be used on both laptops and desktop computers, provided the computers meet the minimum specification required by the capture card. They might not perform as well as internal capture cards, especially if the older, slower, USB version is used.

There is another type of capture card, which is designed with laptops in mind, as it uses the PCMCIA/cardbus/PC card connection and offers plug and play just like USB but with possibly better performance. These capture cards will only work on laptops that have the right type of cardbus connection.

Have a look at this photo to see the various types of capture cards:

On the left is a DVD EZMaker USB Gold capture card by AVerMedia which can be used on both a laptop and desktop computer, provided they have a good enough hardware specification to use the capture card (fast enough processor, plenty of RAM, and so on). It does not have a TV tuner as it is more designed for recording from game systems (NES/PS1/XBOX etc) and video players (a VCR for example), by using either the red-white-yellow connections (stereo audio and composite video), or S-video and the audio connections. As the capture card can handle the audio, along with its USB connection, it is a very good choice for a laptop.

In the middle is a TV card designed for desktop computers as it uses the PCI connection; it has an analogue TV tuner and a composite video connection (the yellow connector when part of the red-white-yellow triplet lead found on many entertainment devices). As the TV card has no audio connections, the audio from your game system or video player has to be routed to the line in of your sound card.

On the right is an AVerTV cardbus plus TV card by AVerMedia which is for use with laptops only as it uses the PCMCIA/cardbus/PC card interface. It can receive FM radio, analogue TV, and has the red-white-yellow connections (stereo audio and composite video) and S-video connections so it can be used with game consoles and video players. If you do get one of these capture cards you have to make sure that your laptop has the right cardbus type.

Using a capture card

You will need to follow the instructions that came with your capture card to install it using software drivers and some form of physical connection (e.g., PCI for an internal capture card or USB for an external capture card). The game system or other device (such as a VCR) is then connected to your capture card using one or more sockets on the capture card, which may be RF (just as a TV aerial might be connected to), composite video with stereo audio (usually coloured yellow, red and white), or S-video. However, some capture cards do not have any type of audio input if not using the RF connection and instead require you to connect the audio to the line in of your computer's sound card, often needing an additional cable or an adapter to convert between the different audio connectors. As most laptops do not have a line in connection, you will need a capture card that has an audio input connection if you want to be able to hear and record sound from your games.

Even after installing the software drivers for your capture card you will need to use an application to view and record whatever device you have connected to your capture card. A specialised program may have come with your capture card for that purpose or you could use other software (which may be better anyway) such as VLC media player, Media player classic or Windows movie maker (pre-Vista versions only). VLC media player has advance features but can be tricky to use with capture cards; Media player classic is probably the easiest to use with capture cards but lacks lots of options; Windows movie maker is ideal for recording using your capture card and then adding titles and so on but the newer versions do not support most capture cards.

DVD Maker USB 2.0 Capture Card

For some reason my DVD EZMaker USB Gold capture card causes flickering when used with my new laptop even after trying updates and so on to try to fix the problem. So I bought from Maplin a DVD Maker USB 2.0 Capture Card which has RCA connections (yellow/red/white) for composite video and audio, as well as an S-Video connector.

The capture card works with Windows 7 including the 64-bit version and supports NTSC and PAL A/V input formats. Bundled with the capture card were the PowerDirector (V5) and PowerProducer (V4) software. PowerDirector can be used for capturing A/V using the capture card (or others) and PowerProducer is for burning your recordings to DVD.

One thing to watch out with this capture card is that the audio from the RCA sockets is routed to a stereo jack connector which needs to be connected to the line-in of your computer to be able to hear and record the audio as well as video. Many laptops don't have a line-in input but it's possible to use the microphone input on some computers. This is described below for Windows 7 but should be similar for other versions of Windows.

Right-click the sound (Speakers) icon on the taskbar and select Recording devices. Click on the in-built Microphone selection and click the Properties button. Select the Listen tab and click the 'Listen to this device' checkbox. Click the 'Apply' or 'OK' button and then connect your capture card and A/V source (games console, etc.) and turn it on. Bring up the microphone properties page again and adjust the settings as you listen to the audio. You may need to lower the 'Microphone' and 'Microphone Boost' settings on the 'Levels' tab page. Also, you may need to turn off certain effects on the 'Enhancements' tab page. Don't forget to click the 'Apply' button to save your changes.

Note: if you have additional audio hardware connected to your computer (e.g. wireless headset) it may confuse your recording software even if you select the in-built microphone for the audio source. Thus it's best to disconnect wireless headsets, etc before using the capture card.

Elgato game capture HD

This capture card is able to record HD A/V either from HDMI or component and output the stream via HDMI to a TV or monitor as well as on the computer screen, to overcome the A/V lag with viewing the preview on a computer. Both Mac and PC are supported provided they meet the spec (2GHz dual core CPU and 4GB RAM). Simply connect the capture card to your computer via mini USB and then download and install the capture software.

While the capture card is designed to record from game consoles you could also record from other equipment as long as it outputs either component or HDMI. For the PlayStation 3 a special lead is provided which works with the PlayStation when set to output using component, which avoids issues with HDMI being blocked because of HDCP preventing copying of movies. This same lead also enables viewing and recording of SD signals by connecting the composite plug of the source to the red connector of the aforementioned lead. Note that even with SD there is still lag so you will need to use the HDMI out socket and the SD video will be scaled to a more HD resolution (recordings will likely be lower than HD but better than the original SD source).

You can view a screenshot I took of Dead or Alive 5 on the Xbox 360 using the capture card:

The screenshot is 1280x720.

While I'm pleased with the screenshots and the video recordings I've also done I have had a number of problems with the capture card. Upon first try it froze up my computer but disconnecting the USB cable restored control of my laptop. Also, at times the computer will complain that the capture card isn't connected but that seems to have been caused by a bad USB lead. Another, but very minor point is that it would have been nice for the capture card to have a power LED to show that it is connected to the computer.

A very helpful feature of the capture card is that you can pause the live streaming on the computer and rewind a certain amount and then take screenshots or record. This is handy if you missed the opportunity to record something that happened earlier or just for games when it isn't possible to take screenshots while playing the game.

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