Capture Cards: Which One?

[Eric1024]

[not sure if this is the right section of the forum, if not, can someone point me to the right place?]

So I've looked around at video capture cards, and from most of the reviews it looks like every card out there is just kind of okay. Ever card seems to have a ton of compatibility issues based on what I've read.

Can someone shed some light on the for me? Is it just a few people that complain a lot? Or do capture cards just suck in general? And ultimately, what are some good capture cards and which ones should I stay away from? I'm looking at getting one and I'd like to be able to capture from ps3, xbox360, an hd camcorder with an hdmi out, and also just straight screen capture from a video card out.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

[Dragon_Cannon]

You have multiple options available to you. You can get ones that have an on board compression engine so that the videos are recorded and compressed down so that you don't get huge file sizes. Or you can get ones that don't compress and just save straight raw data to the HDD.

The ones with the on board compression engine effect you CPU a lot less than the raw capture ones which can put a strain on the CPU.

If you plan to do editing with the video footage it is always better to work with raw footage compared to compressed and converted footage.

If you are looking for a good capture card that ca be used easily with the things that you mentioned then the Live Gamer HD Pro from AverMedia is my opion. But I will also say that I don't know a lot about capture cards so if someone else comes along and says something and they know a thing or two about capture cards its probably a better option then what I suggested. But I also game you some other things to think about though aswell.

[Eric1024]

Thanks for the info. I was looking into the live gamer HD because Linus did an unboxing of it and has mentioned it a few times and it sounds like a good card. CPU usage isn't much of an issue to me though, and uncompressed footage would be best for editing as you said.

[MonsterApology]

you wont be able to capture anything from a ps3 through hdmi because it has hdcp protection. i have an avermedia live gamer hd in my pc and record pc and xbox gameplay. the software is really easy to use and the file sizes stay pretty small.

[Eric1024]

you wont be able to capture anything from a ps3 through hdmi because it has hdcp protection. i have an avermedia live gamer hd in my pc and record pc and xbox gameplay. the software is really easy to use and the file sizes stay pretty small.

Thanks for the info about the ps3, shows how much I know :P definitely leaning towards the aver media card

[Bob]

you can always use an SSD to record to.

[Gavinhenderson5]

I would recommendat the aver media card, its super user friendly really easy to use and you can use it to stream. However if you want to record PS3 footage i think the blackmagic intensity pro card goes around the protection.

[ToriksLV]

Aver Media Live gamer HD, no brainer.