PEXHDCAP aka Micomsoft SC-500N1 Capture Card Review

A big thanks to SDA forum user Tranquilite who originally discovered that these capture cards were identical.

StarTech PEXHDCAP aka Micomsoft SC-500N1 - Image courtesy of Amazon.com

This will be a really short review as most of the points I make have already been said for the upgrade model. To put it simply, this is an amazing capture card.

You may not have or want to invest the money in the SC-512N1-L so let me go over what this card lacks compared to its bigger brother.

1. No 1080p60 support. This is simply because the card runs at Gen1 PCI speeds.
2. No Composite or S-Video support.
3. No pass through feature. It's back to the good old splitters and distribution amplifiers.

What some people might find good about this card is the inclusion of a proper HDMI input instead of relying on a HDMI to DVI adapter like the upgrade model.

If you actually think about it, you aren't sacrificing too much features in getting this capture card. Trying to capture 1080p60 in a normal scenario is still out of the question for most people. Ideally you would want to be capturing your retro consoles with SCART RGB so the lack of Composite and S-Video is not that big of an issue. If you already have splitters/amplifiers then you don't have to worry about the no pass through feature.

You basically have two choices here. Either buy the PEXHDCAP now or save that money and invest in the upgrade model at a later date. Both choices I highly recommend but it is up to you to figure out if the missing features of this model are going to hurt you down the line.