Analyzing Micomsoft's Histogram Levels

I decided to look at Micomsoft's histogram using VirtualDub. I should have really done this sooner for the reviews but if I am being honest, I only really found out about how useful this could be yesterday.

In video capture terms, a histogram basically tells us how well the default driver is getting to our 16-235 levels and identifies any clipping. If we see any red, this means that the capture device is clipping those values and it's bad.

Let's start out with the basic HDMI connection. The card should be able to do this easily. The PS3 is configured to output Full range (0-255) and the driver has been configured to accept 0-255 input (shrink option). Click to enlarge all pictures.

0-255 captured at 0-255

As we can see, there is no red and the histogram is perfect. Now let's see what happens if we change the driver to accept 16-235 content (bypass).

0-255 captured at 16-235

As expected, we enter clip city. Let's now set the PS3 to Limited range and see what happens.

16-235 captured at 16-235

This just confirms that bypass is only acceptable for limited range content. There is a very slight clip in the low range but it's nothing to care about.

That was digital, we expect it to be fine. The real tests come from analog signals. I only had Component at hand via my Wii but I'll try and add others soon.

First of all we need to crop out the sides just in case we get bad 0-16 values. Here is the result for Component video set to bypass in the driver.

Don't mind the weirdness of the Wii video. It's an issue with VirtualDub as you need to select preview for the histogram to work properly. The screenshot shows what I would consider heavy clipping in the low range. Let's see what setting the driver to shrink does.

No clipping can be seen what so ever. It does look like we are no longer hitting values near 16 or 235 but it's a good start to manually adjusting the Proc Amp.

Thanks to Kadano for testing VGA: http://imgur.com/a/CfwC4#3

Current VGA recommendation is Bypass at Brightness 140, Contrast 140 and Saturation 140.

Elgato - Component capture issues on v2.0

Around the time the HD60 came out, Elgato unveiled new updated software (v2.0). At the time I didn't think much of it and updated. I'd only really been using HDMI so I never saw an issue until now. Today I had a need to capture some Wii Component video for a friend. Once the main menu came up I instantly said to myself "this looks wrong".

I decided to capture 2 games to compare (Donkey Kong Country and Clock Tower). I then downgraded to version 1.42.24 which I know to be correct and recaptured the same scenes. Here are the results.

Clock Tower:

v1.42.24

v2.0

Overlay comparison is here: Click

Donkey Kong Country:

v1.42.24

v2.0

Overlay comparison is here: Click

Second comparison:

v1.42.24

v2.0

Overlay comparison is here: Click

As you can see, the newer version is a mess. I thought I would clarify that I was using the latest 2.01.56 software when I say "v2.0". Luckily you can still download v1.42.24 on the Elgato website but if for some reason they ever remove it, I have mirrored the download on my Google Drive which you can download here.

New Micomsoft Drivers - XCAPTURE-1 users read!

Since Advantech rolled out the July 2014 driver for the internal cards, nothing else has surfaced for the Micomsoft products. They promised a new driver at CEATEC but nothing else has been announced. This is probably because they are focusing all their resources on the XCAPTURE-Mini.

However, today I found a driver slightly newer than the Advantech (127 to 128 revision). You can download it here. Lumens just looks to be a reseller company for Yuan products and others.

What is different you ask? Ummm... well nothing that I can see. All the problems I have documented previously still exist (100% CPU for Windows 7, 0-255 and 16-235 being swapped, bad RGB color capture). I also can't see any other options that didn't exist in the Advantech driver. Feel free to try it yourself and comment. Maybe I missed something.

The main reason I am posting this is for you XCAPTURE-1 users. My earlier suspicions were correct in that the UB530 from Yuan uses the exact same chipset and drivers as this device (CY3014 is the identification code). These drivers are about 7 months newer than what Micomsoft has on its website. Driver link here. Let me know how they work out for you.

Credit to achmetha who posted the XCAPTURE-1 new driver link on the OBS forums. It didn't take long for me to find the internal drivers.

Micomsoft/StarTech - 0-255 and 16-235 Capturing

One of my friends on the shmups and SDA forum (blizzz) was having some issues with full range captures on the SC-500N1. When I originally tested this, I was only concerned with getting limited range content to capture properly as my TV was limited to 16-235. After about 15 minutes I figured out what the problem was. The driver settings are labelled incorrectly. If you are capturing full range content, select 16-235. If you are capturing limited, select 0-255.

Additionally, selecting RGB capture in AmaRec is bad. The colors are completely off. Stick to YUY2 until a new driver is released to fix these problems.

Elgato Game Capture HD Review

Elgato Game Capture HD - Image courtesy of Amazon.com

A big thank you to Elgato for supplying me with a review unit.

I've always used DirectShow capture cards, so I was really not sure what to expect from this device. First, let's talk about the contents:

1. The unit itself
2. USB cable
3. PS3 Component cable
4. Component breakout cable (the same one that is bundled with the StarTech PEXHDCAP if you are wondering)
5. HDMI cable

The PS3 Component cable is a nice addition. This stops you having to buy official Sony cables. The breakout cable will allow you to connect any Component system to the Elgato. You can also attach Composite to the red connector but I'd highly recommend moving to S-Video for retro systems. In order to capture from S-Video, you will need to purchase the Analog Video Adapter from the Elgato Store.

One of the best features of this card is the lag less pass through when using Component to HDMI. I am able to input my Wii at 480p Component and output 480p over HDMI without lag. This stops the need of having to buy Component to HDMI converters or messing around with those Wii2HDMI adapters. You can also power the Elgato from any USB port (on a TV for example) so it's also a great option if you just want a Component to HDMI converter. If I did have to make one criticism of this, it would be the lack of a dedicated Component adapter for the Wii like the PS3 has. This is probably superfluous to requirements due to the Wii U but users who don't want to spend money on buying a new console might feel a tad annoyed.

I downloaded the latest drivers from Elgato's website (as of writing 1.42.23) and connected the unit to a USB port. That was pretty much all the setup process entailed. I was really skeptical about how well a YV12 4:2:0 encoder would match up to what I had been using. My previous capture setup involved 4:2:2 Lossless capture via Lagarith or UT Video.

While configuring the device for 720p capture, I noticed something interesting. If you have the "Preserve Source Format" option ticked, you can happily record a maximum 26.3 Mbps at 59.94 fps. However, untick this option and you are left with a maximum 15.0 Mbps at 29.97 fps. I am all for being able to record at 29.97 (let's face it most of the games on PS3 and 360 are all 29.97 anyway). I don't see the reason for substantially lowering the bit rate though. They should keep the 26.3 Mbps option for 29.97 fps content. Let me explain why this would be a good idea.

Here is a raw BMP file with 59.94 fps: Click
Here is one with 29.97 fps: Click

As you can see the 59.94 capture is clearly better. The 29.97 is much more "blocky" (especially the bottom left side of the tree leaves). If they allowed you to allocate 26.3 Mbps for 29.97 content, it would look even better than the 59.94 video since the bit rate isn't being allocated over as many frames.

The 1080p capture option is very nice. A 1080p 59.94 source is recorded at 29.97 with 30.0 Mbps. I forgot how great 1080p video looks on my TV as it's always been at 720p. Since the Elgato can be pushed to 30.0 Mbps, the user should be able to select the maximum 30.0 Mbps for at least 720p. Even 480p is limited to 15.0 Mbps. I would like to see that lifted to 20.0 Mbps so a consistently high quality file can be captured even in very high motion game play. Regardless of capture bit rates, it is nice to see that the Elgato correctly captures HD colours (Rec. 709). The device also properly handles 16-235 and 0-255 video which very few DirectShow capture cards actually do.

In comparing the capture quality to something like the Blackmagic Intensity Pro (HDYC UT Video Lossless), you can see some very slight degradation in quality with the Elgato but it's hardly anything to complain about (since the bit rates are substantially less).

Blackmagic BMP: Click
Elgato 26.3 Mbps BMP: Click

I am more than happy with the capture quality of the encoder but as said above, I'd like to see the bit rates slightly increased.

Now let's talk about interlaced content. I connected up my SNES and was told that the capture would be 720x480i at 59.94. This is completely wrong. It should be 720x480i at 29.97 (weaved capture). If you untick the "Preserve Source Format" option, the software will capture a deinterlaced 640x480 image at 29.97. This is also wrong as then you would be losing half the frames (old systems are actually 60 fps). I can see why they probably did this though. Most people won't care as it's only if you would be submitting a run to SDA would you ever need the full 60 fps. If you want to use this device with interlaced content/retro games for SDA, you should look elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, it still works with 240p material, just other devices handle it better.

If the above issue does get fixed, there is also another problem with Composite and S-Video in the black levels. The capture filter for the Elgato looks to only support the basic "NTSC_M" (USA at 7.5 IRE). This is a problem because many retro consoles such as the US SNES are just basically Super Famicom (NTSC-J) consoles. This is why you can play Super Famicom games in a US SNES. Since these are NTSC-J consoles, they also output the black level at NTSC-J standard (0 IRE). This could be fixed by giving an option to choose between 0 and 7.5 IRE when the user selects Composite or S-Video (put it in place where the user selects between Standard and Expanded for HDMI).

The last thing to talk about is live streaming. Since the Elgato has native XSplit and OBS support. it's easy to set up and get going. Due to the preview delay, I had to delay the microphone to match the game. I got it to sync up with my microphone at a setting of 1400ms. This seems like the standard to use from videos and tutorials I watched.

Everything works well with the live streaming. However, speedrunners have extra issues to contend with. Ideally we want to capture a high quality local recording and live stream at the same time. There is currently no way to do this with the Elgato. The only workaround would be to local record in the Elgato software and then screen capture the preview window inside XSplit or OBS. That's not exactly a good solution, especially if screen real estate is a problem. I would really like a way for the Elgato to work similarly to AmaRec's Live feature where you take a DirectShow source that can then be added to as many applications as you want while still being able to record in the software itself.

Showing timers/splits on stream is also another problem. Not only will you have to sync up a microphone, but you also have to delay the timer in WSplit (or similar program). If you are curious how to do this then right click and go to Configure in WSplit. For start delay input something along the lines of 1.4 (aka 1400ms to make it the same as the microphone delay). A big thanks to SDA user Vid3odrome for the solution to timing splits and the Elgato together.

There is also a slight issue with editing the files. The .ts files can be imported into programs such as Sony Vegas but they have no sound. The included MP4 converter fixes this and won't touch the quality. However, I noticed a peculiar issue with the frame rate detection in Sony Vegas. It is detected as 59.908 fps (this should be 59.940). This isn't a big problem but I would definitely like Elgato to check this one out in case video/audio sync becomes a problem for very long recordings. I also tried other Elgato MP4 recordings and they also seem to slightly deviate from the standard 59.94 detection in Sony Vegas. I should also note that if you are using SDA's encoding program (Yua) then you only want to feed it the MP4 files as even the frame rate of the progressive .ts files are not being properly encoded.

I also discovered what I can only assume is a bug. The HDMI pass through can be toggled between Standard (16-235) and Full (0-255) in the Elgato software. However, it always defaults to Full on power up. This can be fixed by opening the software but the problem is if you close the software, the pass through goes back to 0-255. The only way to keep the pass through in 16-235 mode is to keep the software open. I hope Elgato can fix this to where the software "remembers" the 16-235 choice on exit or even when it is powered up.

That's pretty much everything I have to say on this capture card. Even with the issues I mentioned, it's a really stunning unit. Highly recommended if you want to use progressive content and hopefully the points I raised can be fixed in a future software update.

Capturing and encoding video for SDA - Interlaced

Introduction

If you're new to speedrunning or maybe just looking for ways to improve your own setup, this guide is for you. This part of the guide will focus on capturing interlaced video from Composite and S-Video outputs. If you don't know what those connectors look like then see below:

Thanks to makify.com

Every console besides the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will work with interlaced video so it's really important to get right if you are on a limited budget. The red and white cables carry stereo audio and naturally they can be used with S-Video. If your console supports S-Video, I highly recommend tracking down a set of good S-Video cables as they produce a much better image. Be wary of purchasing cables that have both composite and S-Video attached as the S-Video picture is more than likely to have this really bad checkerboard image.

Before we get to the hardware, I want to talk about a big issue that only speedrunners will face when capturing video... lag. No matter what capture card you have, it will always have a certain degree of lag on the preview window. Depending on the game and the player, you might be able to handle the lag no problem. If you can't then we get on to the subject of splitting the signal to your TV and capture card simultaneously. I'll let the SDA Knowledge Base explain this.

Capture cards

Now we can discuss capture hardware. This guide will primarily be aimed at virtually any capture card that has DirectShow drivers (this includes the EzCAP, Dazzle DVC 100 and the AVerMedia C027/H727). If you don't have a capture card then you may want to look at the EzCAP or Dazzle as a good starting point (both USB based).

EzCAP on Amazon.com
Dazzle DVC 100 on Amazon.com

The Dazzle link is technically for the DVC 101 but it has the same purpose. The prices on Amazon for the Dazzle are very expensive for just an SD capture device so you might want to go for the EzCAP or pay a little bit extra and get the AVerMedia card (obviously Desktop only).

Before you insert your capture card you should install the drivers. You can get the EZCAP ones here and the Dazzle here. I guess it's time to mention this will be for Windows only... sorry Mac/Linux.

Software and codec installation

Let's take care of the software now. Download the latest SDA encoding program version from here: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/yua3.html. It's a simple executable file so requires no installation once extracted.

Now let's go grab our video codec (just download the latest build): x264vfw. Just follow the simple installer instructions.

Next we have the capture program. I've moved completely over to AmaRecTV as it's much easier to use than VirtualDub. The latest version is 3.10. You can get it here. I've also mirrored it to my Google Drive here.

Just extract the folder to your desktop and we're done with software installation.

Configuration of AmaRecTV

Open the amarectv folder and run AmaRecTV.exe file. You will be greeted with a popup box on your first startup. Just click OK. First go to the General tab.

Click to enlarge all screenshots

Here you can configure where the file is stored and change the name.

Now go to the Graph 1(Device) tab and configure it as shown below (I'm using the AVerMedia as an example).

If you are in the USA then always choose "*w= 720, h= 480, fps=29.97,  fcc=YUY2, bit=16". This tells AmaRecTV to capture a 720x480 video at 29.97 fps in the YUY2 colorspace. This setting will work for old retro consoles and also newer consoles. If you are in a PAL region with a PAL console then you want to choose "*w= 720, h= 576, fps=25.00,  fcc=YUY2, bit=16".

For audio always choose "*sample= 48000, bit=16, ch= 2". This will record video at 48,000 Hz which is the best you can realistically do. If for some reason you do not have this then choose 44100 but do not go below this.

At the Graph 2(Preview) tab don't forget to choose Not use under Deinterlacing.

Once you get more experienced with capturing video you may want to configure settings in Preview (particularly useful for live streaming) but for offline capture we will not cover it here.

You can skip over to the Recording tab now.

Under Video Compressor, select Other Codec then click the Update Codec List button. Select x264vfw and then click Setting.

Configure x264vfw as shown below then click OK.

I've went with CRF 14 as a great starting point (you can lower it to something like 12 if you want better quality). Bear in mind though that CRF 16 is pretty much lossless quality to the human eye. If you really want lossless, you can configure it in the drop down box under Rate control (the lossless setting is still better than Lagarith). Bear in mind that this configuration favors compression over editing capability. I'd do some test captures and see if you can live with the slow frame seeking. If it's a problem you can add --keyint 10 to the "Extra command line" box. This will improve frame seeking but at the cost of some compression.

Now go to the Advanced tab.

The only area we are concerned about is Record Setting. I always uncheck Use Null frame as it has no use from what I have seen. If you have a one hard drive setup, you might want to look at increasing the Buff Size from 128 to something like 256 or even 512. This should drastically decrease the chance of dropped frames. Now just click Apply and OK.

You should now be greeted with your console on the screen. Don't worry if it has lots of these weird lines going on the picture, this is what interlacing is and we will fix it with Yua. If the video is in black and white then you might want to change the capture filter. Press c to bring up the configuration box and click Graph1(Device). Click the Device Setting button and change the video standard to NTSC_433. You can also set the video standard to one of the many PAL options if needed. I have ordered an official EzCAP many years ago that would not give me a color picture regardless of what I did so be wary of that.

Up at the top left you can press the red play button to record (default shortcut is Ctrl+Z) and your video will be saved to the hard drive at the location and filename you specified in the General tab. You stop the recording the same way (starting and ending the recording will be confirmed with a beep from AmaRecTV). You can change the recording key in the Hotkey tab if you want. As stated earlier, if you need to get back to the configuration page for any reason, just press c.

Encoding with yua

We will now convert our x264vfw AVI source file to MP4 with x264 video and AAC audio to be submittable for SDA. The easiest way is to use yua which was downloaded earlier.

Load up yua and you will see something similar to this:

Click and drag your captured video into the program and yua will begin to examine it. This may take seconds or minutes depending on the length of the video.

You now need to refer here for the game you decided to run: https://kb.speeddemosarchive.com/DF

For an example, if your source video is Super Mario 64, this is D4 F2 and 3D according to the above page. Set this up in yua as shown below. If your game is not listed post a quick sample of the source file here and it will be identified for you: https://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/whatre_the_d_f_and_fdp_for_this_game.html

If you do have a D4 game (basically retro consoles like SNES/NES) you will need to choose from 5 boxes.

1-pixel shift
alternate 1-pixel shift
no change
de-deflicker
alternate de-deflicker

Scroll through the video and choose the one that looks more natural and not as "jumpy". If in doubt ask on the forum with a small sample source file for someone to tell you what to use. I can tell you it will most likely be no change.

Below are notes on each section of yua for your understanding.

Input type

This will always be interlaced when using composite or s-video (as we are now).

Field dominance

In 99% of cases this will always be top field first. I've only really seen some DVD recorders use bottom field.

Aspect ratio

If it is an older system this will most likely always be standard. If you are capturing from a newer console such as a PS3 then this might be widescreen.

Dimensions, Framerate, Decimation

This was discussed earlier.

Misc

Self explanatory.

Output

You will need to encode the qualities that yua indicates (LQ, MQ, HQ).

StatID

This is the "logo" at the start of the video which indicates runner name, game and time. Look at other SDA encodes for examples.

Output folder/filename

You can set where yua will save the encoded videos and give it a filename.

Post the quality test

Refer to here when creating a quality test thread: http://forum.speeddemosarchive.com/post/how_to_post_a_video_quality_test..html

It should pass easily under a post from either nate or ballofsnow.

When it passes you can now record the speedrun in full confidence and achieve the SDA quality standards.

1080p60 Capture over USB2

I thought it would be quite interesting to see what kind of quality you could capture at data rates for USB 2. There are two main reasons I thought of this idea. Not everybody has the knowledge or confidence to install an internal hard drive. Additionally, some people may just have an external hard drive that only has a USB 2 connection.

The best codec for this has to be x264vfw. Not only does this give us the best compression ratio, it will also allow us to modify the CRF value in order to hit the data rates we need. USB 2 advertises 480 Mb/s but you will never get close to this. A more realistic target is 200 Mb/s. For the testing process, I was looking for a quantizer value that would never go above a peak bit rate of 200 Mb/s regardless of the scene. Like my lossless comparison, Super Street Fighter IV is the source material.

 After thorough testing, this is my configuration:

Click to enlarge

I settled on a CRF value of 16. I was able to set the CRF to 14 but I was getting ever so close to 200 Mb/s. You might be asking, why not just use 14 then? The problem is that the 1080p60 material I own is very limited. There might be material other people have where they do go over 200 Mb/s with the 14 value. Choosing a slightly higher value means that even if people do find a harder to compress scene, it is still likely going to be under 200 Mb/s. I should reinforce I am talking about peak bit rates here. It is very uncommon that you will even go near 160 Mb/s.

You may also see I have enabled extra command line use (--keyint 1). This is to improve frame seeking in Sony Vegas and similar editing programs. You can read about this here.

Happy 1080p60 capturing over USB 2!

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.

Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/DVI Capture Card Review

Updates since the review was posted:

Check out the histogram for this card here. Current HDMI, Component and VGA capture settings included.

I get asked about locations to buy this card so here is a table which I'll try and keep updated.

Location	Available?	Price	Has passthrough?	All adapters?
Sabre PC	Yes	$200	No	Yes
Ebay via sintronusa	Yes	$229	sintronusa does.	Misses the DVI to HDMI adapters
Solaris Japan	Yes	$287	Yes	Yes
Star Tech (PEXHDCAP60L)	Yes	$210-220	No	Yes

Also about the 100% CPU bug mentioned in this review, I eventually figured it out. Read more here.

Below is the original review with updates where necessary.

Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/DVI

First, let's talk about the video inputs of the card. Composite, S-Video and Component are handled by breakout cables. You will receive two of each (more on that later).

DVI is inbuilt on the card while HDMI and VGA are handled by adapters. I should also note that the HDMI to DVI adapter also carries audio (only stereo sound is currently supported).

Connection wise, that is pretty much everything you will need. The card also operates at Gen2 PCI speeds so it is able to capture 1080p at 60 frames per second. It also supports 15kHz-31kHz over VGA which is very useful for SCART RGB capturing from retro consoles.

The driver is only compatible with Windows 7 and 8 but for most people that won't be an issue. The latest drivers can be downloaded from the official Yuan page here. The driver itself is one of the easiest I have ever used.

Choosing between the different video inputs is a breeze. The driver comes packaged with a program called VideoKeeper2 but don't bother to install this as much better alternatives are available. The driver is fully DirectShow compatible and Micomsoft even suggest that you use AmaRecTV. Of course this obviously means that the card works effortlessly with XSplit and OBS for your streaming needs. If you look at the driver screenshot, you will also see it has options for video deinterlacing. Although it is nice to have, I always set it to "Weave (None)" because it is typically better to deinterlace in post processing or use AmaRec's built in deinterlacer.

If you look at the capture card, you will notice it is a two slot design. The top slot is for video and audio pass through. Unlike the Blackmagic Intensity Pro, this is actually lag less and does not alter the image in anyway. This will save you having to use splitters or distribution amplifiers. This was a big selling point of the card for me as it cut down on my cable mess significantly. I will say that I can play perfectly fine from the preview window. Tests I've done show the preview latency is under a frame.

Now let's discuss the most important aspect of any capture card, the video quality. Luckily the YUY2 (YUV 4:2:2) color space is used so many of the best lossless codecs will work (Lagarith, Huffyuv, x264vfw, UT Video).

Update: I discovered that RGB capture is now available in the February 2014 driver. See the driver changelog here. However, RGB capture has some serious capture issues. Stick to YUY2 for now until it is fixed.

Below I will talk about each video input and give advice along with a sample video so you can see the quality for yourself. Due to bandwidth issues these have been slightly compressed. Please make sure your media player can play 4:2:2 encoded files.

Composite: This card has the best composite capture quality I have ever seen. This is probably because it has a 3D comb filter. There is little to no dot crawl and very little rainbow effect. One thing to note is choosing the correct black level for your console. Most of the time you want to go to the driver and select NTSC_M_J under the Video Decoder tab.

720x240 is supported over both Composite and S-Video but the capture frame rate is always 30 fps. You must capture at 720x480 and deinterlace to get the proper 60 fps.

Click to enlarge

Sample video here. AmaRecTV's retro game deinterlacer was used.

S-Video: The S-Video quality is amazing. Just like composite, this is the best S-Video capture I have ever seen. It actually makes other cards like the AVerMedia C027 a joke in comparison.

Click to enlarge

Sample video here. AmaRecTV's retro game deinterlacer was used.

Component: The best thing about the component input is that it supports 240p. This means you can actually capture PS1 games on the PS2 using component video.

For my testing I used the Nintendo Wii with 480p Virtual Console titles. Lots of other cards mess up Component capture in some way, usually in brightness (e.g. AVerMedia). This card lacks somewhat in color reproduction over Component (reds lack vibrancy etc) and cards like the Intensity/Elgato are slightly better in this regard. However, to call the capture quality of this card bad would be a vast disservice. It's in the top 3 cards for Component capture.

Click to enlarge

Sample video here.

HDMI: Obviously amazing since HDMI is digital and you can't really mess it up. However, it has a feature that is missing on most other HDMI capture cards. You can also toggle between limited (16-235) and full range (0-255) capture. For proper 16-235 and 0-255 capture please click here. There seems to be a bug where if you are displaying Full range content you need to select 16-235 and for Limited you need to select 0-255. Maybe a mislabel in the driver?

Since most people are probably curious about it, I wrote a whole separate article on 1080p60 lossless capture. Due to bandwidth and playback concerns, I will just host a 720p sample.

Click to enlarge

Sample video here.

VGA (SCART RGB): You will need a sync stripper like the XSYNC-1 or Sync Strike to capture SCART RGB from your retro consoles. There is a small issue with color shift when capturing from these sources. This can be fixed by ticking "Color horizontal Adjust" and setting it to Type-C in AmaRecTV's Advanced tab. I've made a screenshot comparison of Type-C on and off here. It's hard to see the difference from that comparison but trust me, use Type-C. I enabled AmaRecTV's scan line doubler for the screenshot (remember to choose 720x240 in the Device tab).

Click to enlarge

Sample video here.

The only thing that could make this capture card better would be the ability to capture Composite and S-Video at 60 fps while in 720x240 mode. This would bypass the need to deinterlace and you could simply use the scan line doubler. There is however one small issue that many users have reported from the SC-500N1 that also happens with this capture card. Whenever previewing video or just being in the driver, the C1 state of your CPU gets disabled which will increase the temperature until you leave the driver or the capture program. This can easily be fixed by going to the power options in Windows and resetting the power plan. It does get slightly annoying having to do this all the time though. Update: As said at the start of the review, this bug is now fixed.

If that feature was added and that small CPU issue was fixed, this really would be one of the best capture cards on the market. The card isn't exactly cheap (as of writing it's about $350 total).

In conclusion, if you do just want an all in one solution and want to forget about capture cards, get this and never look back. The Bugatti Veyron of the capture card world for people who want the absolute best.

1080p60 Lossless Capture

With the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, everybody wants to be able to capture these systems at native resolution and frame rate. This isn't going to be difficult with hardware encoders but what about lossless software capturing? Since I have a capture card capable of 1080p60 video (Micomsoft SC-512N1-L/DVI) I decided to give it a try.

I don't by any means have an amazing computer. It's a Sandybridge based i5 2500k at stock speed with 8GB RAM. I use an SSD for my Windows 7 boot drive and save all recordings to a single Western Digital 1TB Black hard drive.

I don't have a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One so I decided to use my Xbox 360 which is capable of up scaling games to 1080p. The only 60 fps game I have is Super Street Fighter IV but this should be more than adequate for testing the capabilities.

Unfortunately the Micomsoft card is currently limited to the YUY2 (4:2:2) color space. I will test some of the most popular lossless codecs and configure them for YUY2 compression. The lossless codecs being tested are Lagarith, Huffyuv, x264vfw and UT Video. I have configured the codecs as shown below.

Huffyuv YUY2 Configuration. Predict median (best) gave the best compression.

Lagarith YUY2 Configuration

UT Video YUY2 Configuration (automatically chosen by the codec)

x264vfw YUY2 Configuration (click to enlarge)

The software used will be AmaRecTV as it allows me to see if the capture has inserted or dropped any frames along with the bit rate of the capture and CPU load.

Before the real testing begins, I decided to carry out two capture tests to get some good indications if this was possible. One was a 10 second recording of the static Xbox 360 dashboard. The other was the opening intro movie to Super Street Fighter IV which lasts over 3 minutes (it's only 30 fps). Obviously any codec can deal with a static scene but it gets really tested when it has to deal with such a fast paced intro where there are lots of fast scene changes and movement. The SSF4 intro movie that I used can be viewed here. I decided to take note of the highest bit rate and CPU load that I saw in AmaRecTV. Below are my test results. I included the MB/s values as it may be easier for some to read in relation to a hard drive writing speed.

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x264vfw really shocked me in the static dashboard test. That is just a phenomenal result.

Lagarith just cannot contend with fast motion scenes. Not only did I get inserted frames but my preview window actually started to lag and even paused for some seconds. Huffyuv, x264vfw and UT Video all passed but of course, x264vfw shows another impressive result in halving the bit rate of the other two codecs. To reduce the bit rate of x264vfw further, the preset could be changed from Ultrafast to something lower. I actually tried this but my CPU could not keep up and I was getting lots of inserted frames. You will need a very fast CPU if you want to use anything more than the Ultrafast preset.

I actually stumbled upon an issue that I can only blame the Xbox 360 for. All of the codecs that passed showed exactly 8 dropped frames over the entire intro movie.

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These dropped frames seem to occur at the same time regardless of codec and happen even when the bit rate and CPU load is relatively low. The capture will be fine during the Ken and Ryu fight but once it changes to Ibuki and Guy it will drop 2 frames within 10 seconds. It will then continue to do this throughout the rest of the intro. This might be because 59.94 was chosen in AmaRecTV but this should be correct for 1080p as everyone knows that the Xbox 360 and PS3 output 59.94 at 720p. 

I can only assume the Xbox 360 fluctuates to nearer 60 fps in 1080p mode which causes the dropped frames. To see if I was correct, I manually inputted 60.00 into the Device tab of AmaRecTV so instead of "w=1920, h=1080, fps=59.94,  fcc=YUY2, bit=16" it read "w=1920, h=1080, fps=60.00,  fcc=YUY2, bit=16". Doing this was a success and I no longer had any dropped frames.

Now that we have some base results, it is time to look at proper 1080p60 capture. Since Lagarith failed the 1080p30 test, I saw no reason to try it at 1080p60. I played arcade mode in Super Street Fighter IV and again took note of the max bit rate and CPU load I encountered.

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Disappointing results for Huffyuv and UT Video but the 1080p30 test foreshadowed this. The doubling of the frame rate is just too much for these codecs. What is surprising however is that x264vfw keeps at a maximum of 16% CPU load even when the bit rate is increased by 356.8 Mb/s. That would lead you to think you could lower the preset to save some bandwidth but as indicated earlier, any deviation from the Ultrafast preset is just not possible.

As the tests have indicated, x264vfw is absolutely stunning (the only one to actually achieve proper 1080p60 capture). I have read that the Western Digital I have is capable of 123.3 MB/s but this is actually quite slow compared to other drives which can go to 130 MB/s and beyond. I actually did these tests when my hard drive only had about 200 GB free so it doesn't seem like the drive slowing down as it fills up will be an issue (especially if you get a faster hard drive).

The one thing to consider is, should you even consider doing this for normal gameplay capture? The bit rates identified here are pretty huge for normal use. Even a 2TB drive would not take long to fill up. This is cool to have and knowing it can be done but I actually recommend to stick with 720p for now or even look into applying a reasonable CRF value for 1080p60 for minimal quality loss.

There is however one issue though if you do take the 1080p60 and x264vfw route. Editing the captured file is very laggy in Sony Vegas (it was taking about 10 seconds to seek to a different part of the video). More on fixing this issue here.

Blackmagic Intensity Pro Capture Card Review

This was one of the first capture cards I ever owned. Let me explain what it does good and why it left me looking elsewhere.

Blackmagic Intensity Pro - Image courtesy of Amazon.com

The device will accept Composite, S-Video, Component and HDMI. The composite connection gets connected to the Green Y plug of the supplied breakout cable. One thing to note is that the device is aimed at the camera market, so non standard resolutions used by retro consoles (240p) are not supported. It will only handle resolutions of 480i or more. However, 480p over component is not possible (only over HDMI) so if one of your main consoles is a Nintendo Wii you should really consider something else.

The drivers are just plain annoying to use. You need to go into the "Blackmagic Control Panel" and select what input you want to capture from. No other capture card I own requires you to do this. It's not a big issue but something I think needs to be said. The drivers are DirectShow compatible and thus work with any program you would need (AmaRecTV, XSplit and OBS).

The composite capture quality is average and nothing special to talk about (there is no 3D comb filter). The component quality is very near to what the source outputs and as expected, HDMI is excellent. The real downside to the card lies in its color space. For SD the card uses UYVY (this can easily be worked with) and HD uses HDYC. No freely available codec besides UT Video will support HDYC natively (make sure to choose ULH2 in UT). This pretty much leaves you with 3 capturing options.

1. Use the Motion JPEG encoder supplied with the driver (unless you are very limited by disk space or processing power avoid this). The quality is very bad.

2. UT Video. Delivers very good CPU load and compression for a lossless codec.

3. Uncompressed capture (the data rates with this are just way too high without having to invest in RAID0).

So out of the 3 options, only UT Video is really viable for great quality on a single hard drive. The problem is that other lossless codecs like Lagarith and x264vfw don't support HDYC but can perform better (in regards to CPU load and bandwidth). HDYC is basically YUV 4:2:2 with 709 levels for the U and V. This means it is identical to other YUV 4:2:2 color spaces like YUY2. You can read more on the subject here. There also exists a Huffyuv HDYC build but users have reported it has color space issues so don't use that.

The last thing I want to talk about is the pass through feature of the card. What Blackmagic won't openly advertise to gamers is that the pass through is not lag free (input lag is introduced). One of the cool features is that you can input say component video and output over HDMI. This will add more lag (analog to digital conversion) than inputting and outputting component video (I even directly asked Blackmagic about that). However, I was able to play perfectly fine going from component to HDMI (but I am not very sensitive to input lag) so you might want to do further reading before you commit. The pass through is also processed and not what your source device is outputting. I also noticed that there was about 2 or 3 black pixels at the top of my 720p image when looking at the pass through image. This seems to be a common issue with the Intensity Pro but it was fixed with the Intensity Shuttle.

I always like to have a choice of what codec I want to use and that is where the Blackmagic ultimately falls short. There is very limited uses for this capture card. If you are just looking to capture HDMI video from a console then buy yourself the much cheaper AVerMedia C027/H727 with a HDMI splitter and put the spare money to something else. The only real resolution the Intensity Pro is good for is 480i over Component and for the price, not exactly worth the money.