Capture Card - Need people's opinions

[DarkFlare69]

I just bought a very shitty Capture Card for six dollars and 98 cents. I need some opinions on the quality:



Should I continue to use this capture card or go back to using a camera? Buying anything over $10 is NOT an option. (i.e don't say "buy an Elgato" or something)

Im concerned about the FPS mostly. It says it captures at 30 FPS. My ass. It captures at like 15 or 20.

 

[ItsMetaKnight]

Hmm... That clearly was a waste of money.

 

[Minox]

Regardless what framerate it captures things at it gives me an headache to look at that video. Things seem incredibly laggy and it feels like a lot of frames are missing.

 

[Joe88]

"Buying anything over $10 is NOT an option."

there's your problem
good capture hardware costs a lot more money
these no name brand hardware from from china, well that video speaks for itself

 

[sarkwalvein]

What software did you use to capture that?
Try using something else.
I don't know, perhaps Virtualdub or so?
Also, what codec did you use for compression. Try a very simple codec, eg. Huffyuv or even some MJPEG codec and later recompress.
Do not compress directly to H264/AVC, it is too CPU demanding.
TBH, I had a cheap PoS USB capture card, and the image quality was shit but the framerate was alright.

 

[DarkFlare69]

God damn, how I wish I had a PC... No need to spend extra money on capture hardware, just run emulators and use usb controllers.

I have probably the shittiest laptop ever.

 

[sarkwalvein]

God damn, how I wish I had a PC... No need to spend extra money on capture hardware, just run emulators and use usb controllers.
View attachment 17331
I have probably the shittiest laptop ever.

It looks kind of shitty, more reason to use a lightweight codec and capture program.
Try using Virtualdub and some MJPEG based codec, or Huffyuv, or... etc. If you need help selecting a very lightweight codec and setting it up let me know.

 

[Taleweaver]

Buying anything over $10 is NOT an option. (i.e don't say "buy an Elgato" or something)

Im concerned about the FPS mostly. It says it captures at 30 FPS. My ass. It captures at like 15 or 20.

I assume that's a maximum of 30 FPS, sort of in the same way ISP's promote their connection speeds as the theoretical fastest value. I agree it's most likely in that 15-20 range. But to be honest...with that kind of a minimal budget, I wouldn't expect much better (and I'm in NO WAY an expert on video editing).
The question is mostly: what do you want to use it for? If it's to point out small quirks in a game, use small bursts to illustrate a point or even get your own screenshots, it's sort of fine. But for anything that requires over, say 10 seconds of footage, I would suggest to either do things different or invest more money.

 

[FAST6191]

Wow... normally I am all about shoot with what you have but unless you are pulling stills then please don't shoot with that, though also don't point a camera at a screen unless you do it properly.

I am guessing this is a USB 2 affair and probably something like a webcam in how it works (raw/somewhat uncompressed output) which in turn will cap the framerate somewhat.

Also 4 gigs of RAM and dual core is not exactly bad, I can't speak to the case, screen and surrounding gear. Anyway I will leave that picture else I will start trying to unredact it again.

 

[fatsquirrel]

To be honest, for 6$ you should be pretty damn happy it even works

 

[FAST6191]

To be honest, for 6$ you should be pretty damn happy it even works

I would not expect anything good but works is not too far a push, and I am not even talking the whole legal thing where you need to sell a product that works. A basic standard def PAL/NTSC video encoder chip (and they ended up more or less system on a chip), plus power regulation for it and pins is not that much these days. Someone is probably even happy enough to offload a bunch of junk from their warehouse for not a lot.

 

[Hells Malice]

It's 2015, nobody is going to watch that shit, or you pointing a camera at the screen.

Wait till you actually have the hardware to properly record.

 

[pokemoner2500]

It's 2015, nobody is going to watch that shit, or you pointing a camera at the screen.

Wait till you actually have the hardware to properly record.

The reason i don't do 3DS videos!

 

[FAST6191]

It's 2015, nobody is going to watch that shit, or you pointing a camera at the screen.

Wait till you actually have the hardware to properly record.

If by "properly record" you mean full on 720p or bust then at some level I disagree with that, though in this particular case the lack of framerate tanks it and I would also agree that nobody really wants to watch footage recorded from a screen, a least outside of a conference floor walkaround. It is not ideal and takes a bit more editing but it is entirely possible to make good footage with sub par gear (in this case an old SD PCI TV capture card can do the job and people let those go for next to nothing, though the OP having a laptop probably makes that a bit more tricky to pull off).

I might even go so far as to say the OP could use that to try to make something but that something is certainly not nearly raw footage.

 

[fatsquirrel]

However CGundertow, one of the most famous game review channels records with a camera ^^
looks completely ok

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

"$10" is not an option?

Dude, youd be lucky to get a half decent capture card for less than $100.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I just bought a very shitty Capture Card for six dollars and 98 cents. I need some opinions on the quality:



Should I continue to use this capture card or go back to using a camera? Buying anything over $10 is NOT an option. (i.e don't say "buy an Elgato" or something)

Im concerned about the FPS mostly. It says it captures at 30 FPS. My ass. It captures at like 15 or 20.

Looks like my old USB TV tuner. That was a Pinnacle one, but this is about all you can expect unless you get a capture card with HDMI or component input.
Honestly you'd probably get better quality recording the screen with a camera.

 

[Acidflare]

God damn, how I wish I had a PC... No need to spend extra money on capture hardware, just run emulators and use usb controllers.
View attachment 17331
I have probably the shittiest laptop ever.

mine is the same specs but it's a toshiba A300-06H it can at least run gamecube games at almost nearly full speed thanks to the arctic silver 5 I put on the Storage Controller Chip, CPU, GPU it's a 2008 laptop that was covered in brown dust cause it was never opened, I cleaned it up and threw some Arctic Silver 5 on it's chipset's that had heat sync plates over theme now it runs smooth as hell, It even blows out cold air like an air conditioner when it's been off for a few hours and the fan powers on at boot, you'd be surprised at what cleaning out a laptop and applying new thermal heat compound can do