$40 eBay Capture Card, "YK762H" or "Timeleak HD72A" Review

suzerain_00 · February 7, 2018

So as it were, I was looking to fill up some PCIe slots in my computer. You don’t get an ATX size board and use the one x16 slot, right? I had planned from early on to buy a capture card for my new Ryzen workstation, and so I searched. I looked at Elgato and Avermedia cards, and they ranged anywhere from $160 to $200 (Canadian dollars of course). While that was in my budget, it was more than I wanted to spend. So I looked at alternatives. I hopped on eBay to find used Avermedia cards, when I came across a post for a “YK762H” capture card for something like $40. It was Christmas, and I thought “Hey, might as well treat myself. It’s Christmas after all”. Sixteen days later my capture card arrived. This post will detail my experience with what is known as the “Timeleak HD72A”. I hope this post can be useful to people who come across these things and are intrigued/skeptical. There isn’t all that much info on these things online so I thought I’d be the one to break the ice.

First Impressions

When you open up the plastic ePacket, you’ll be greeted with the box. It’s really something isn’t it? The optimus prime integration has to be a stolen PNG, but overall the packaging is comical, if not slightly uninteresting. Inside is the good stuff. You get some silica gels which is the next best thing to tide pods. 10/10 to the Chinese capture card overlords for the dank meme. Alongside the OC, you get your capture device, a low profile PCIe bracket for like a Thinkcentre or something of that size, and a driver CD. I’ve linked a Google Drive folder with the drivers at the bottom of this post. You can take a look at the card through the provided photos. If someone can analyze this PCB I’d be happy to provide some more detailed photos. Like a buildzoid of capture cards or something?

Installation

Hardware

Installation of this card is as easy as you’d expect. It’s a cute little card that you stick in an 1x PCIe slot and just requires a case screw. No extra sixpin like a hungry graphics card.

Software

Drivers aren’t particularly difficult. After you startup your system with the card installed, open up the device manager in Windows, find the device which should be titled “multimedia controller”, right click on it, then click “update driver”, find the driver that was on the disk in your corresponding OS and distribution (32bit or 64bit). Let it install, and once it’s complete, restart your PC to be thorough. Pretty standard procedure overall.

Software Part Two

The included video capture software is utter garbage. Don’t bother with it. Instead, I’d recommend that if you need some capture software, use OBS. It’s free, open-source, reliable, and easy to use.

Experience

I’d describe the overall experience with the card with one word; Fickle. This cute little card? Yeah it’s cold as hell. It really likes to be treated in it’s exact preference. If you don’t, it completely ignores you. What I mean by this is resolution input. This card is capable of 720p at 60Hz, and 1080i at 60Hz. It can do resolutions below that, but given that it’s an HDMI capture card I’d imagine that you would want to record in at least 720p. If your device isn’t matched to the card’s settings in OBS, it won’t display anything until you reset everything and restart. If my PS3 is outputting 720p60hz, but the settings in OBS are set to 1080i, I won’t get an image, it won’t correct itself and if you correct it, it still won’t output an image. Instead you have to fix your mistake, then restart your system, AND THEN you can get down to business. It’s frustrating, really frustrating. Audio setup is a little funky as well. If you intend to use OBS as a viewer like myself, you’ll need to set the audio output mode to “Output Desktop Audio”. What this does is route the capture audio to your system audio. This presents an issue where because your system audio is being captured, any sounds in Windows like notifications or music will end up in the recording as well. That said, if you use “Capture Audio Only” then you don’t have to worry about this issue. From using OBS as a viewer for the video feed, I’ve gathered two varying experiences. **Please note I’m referring to looking at the feed in OBS, not the recording itself** In 720p60Hz from a PS3, it’s pretty fluid. I’m sure there must be some kind of latency, but I can’t measure it, and I didn’t really notice either compared to my old Panasonic flatscreen. Quality is good, sharpness is adequate for 720p and it would appear that 60 frames are being displayed every second. 1080i though, (in games at least) is rough. The display seems jerky, unstable and appears to drop frames if you deinterlace in OBS. Disabling deinterlacing is unacceptable as well, as the interlace lines make playing games annoying and slightly disorienting. I can only recommend 1080i if you plan to use this as a DVR of sorts, and deinterlace your capture in post, using software like DaVinci Resolve or Handbrake. On top of that there are some quirks I noticed when analyzing the capture afterwards. Sometimes, the audio would crackle and be slightly fuzzy at the beginning of a recording, and then disappear later on in the clip. And on the PS3, when jumping from the system menu to gameplay, there’s a moment where the card outputs visual static, although I think this has something to do with HDCP. Now my HD72A model has an HDMI out, and I’d recommend that you avoid using it. The quality is reduced significantly enough that I feel it’s not useful. That being said, it is a hardware feed, which means that the latency could be reduced compared to viewing in OBS. Finally, onto the quality of the footage. If you’re interested in test footage, you can check that same Google Drive link from earlier. At 720p60Hz, I’m very satisfied. It’s plenty sharp given the resolution is just 720p, and pushing out 60 frames from a PS3 is smooth as can be. I don’t have color measuring gear, but the colors are accurate to what you might see on a cheap 1080p TV if that is any analog. I mean to say that they aren’t great but they’re not bad. Colors stay much the same in 1080i. For me, the issue is that I’m not really aware of the best way to deinterlace 1080i footage. Through my methods, you still see a little hint of interlacing, but the extra resolution compared to 720p is noticeable in the recordings. If you’re using this as a DVR, 1080i on this card won’t disappoint.

Thoughts and Conclusion

Overall, using this card has been a really enjoyable experience for me. Just as a way to kill time, and play around with new hardware I had a lot of fun with the HD72A. But fun aside, being more critical will better help most people understand this device. The card isn’t perfect. The included capture software is complete trash, and if you don’t set the card up right the first time in relation to your feed in and OBS configuration, you have to jump through some hoops before it will actually play nice. That along with some recording quirks and a slightly off kilter mounting hole for installing the screw to mount the card, may make this capture card look somewhat undesirable. But for all it’s fickleness, and quirkiness and not having a strong brand surrounding it, I can’t help but have warm feelings to the thing. These things go for $40 CAD on on eBay (that’s something like $36 USD *Feb 2018) and at that price point, there is no new capture card that I’m aware of that offers anything close to one of these. It’s a little tedious, but when it works, it works well. For $40 I don’t think you can ask more of it. That leaves me to award this sucker with a 4 out of 5 star rating. It isn’t perfect, but for $40 it’s damn good. If you’re looking to start a gaming channel, or looking for an affordable way to capture television to your PC, this thing is pretty good.

Notes

As before, check the Drive link for drivers, test footage and photos.
If you search for one of these on eBay, search for “YK762H” as cards marked with that product title are often the cheapest.
I’m unaware of any Linux drivers, sorry Linux fam
If you are so inclined, I would love for you to check out the YouTube video I did on the card. Please and thank you! <3
I suggest you pick up the “YK761H” as I don’t find the HDMI out all that impressive, and you save a few bucks over the “YK762H”.