Capturing HD video from computer

[fzzzt]

Hello,

Not sure if this is the right place, but it seems there are a bunch of knowledgeable people here. I want to capture some gameplay videos from my PC and have been trying to find something that will help me out. I normally run games at 1920x1200. My current card has DVI out (nVidia 7500), and I was thinking of routing that into a splitter or something, then on to my monitor and a H.264 encoder. I'm going to upgrade my video card soon so maybe I'll grab one with an HDMI out. I found this:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/quality/

This look like just what I want. $350 is a lot, but I can do it; just have to save up. I figure I would set it up like this:

Video card HDMI out -> Intensity HDMI in -> (magic!) -> Intensity HDMI out -> HDMI-to-DVI cable -> monitor

Is there a better way to do this? I was hoping to offload the processing and disk bandwidth to this card in another PC, or just use some kind of device. I'm not really sure how much disk bandwidth a hardware-encoded H.264 stream would require, maybe I could use my PC without worry.

Thanks,
Josh

 

[CollinR]

Get a Hauppauge HD PVR and a video car dthat supports component output, then you should be able to run in clone mode with the component being captured to H.264 in hardware and the other diaplyed on your TV.

 

[bfisher]

What is your goal with the gameplay video? Are you trying to create clips for sharing or making a short "best-of" replay video? Or are you needing high-res captures for business purposes?

If you are looking for a fast/easy way to capture clips - you can get software to do it. I use FRAPS. Not perfect, but does quite well. You wouldn't want to capture video for long periods of time - the files are huge. Also, you wouldn't want to do it in real-time as it affects your FPS. However, if you are using replays, it does great a job.

For example, here's a short video for my racing league. These were all made in replay mode... the original video is MUCH MUCH better... you-tube really ruins the resolution and quality - but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. (I just used Windows Movie Maker (free) to put the clips together).

 

[fzzzt]

What is your goal with the gameplay video? Are you trying to create clips for sharing or making a short "best-of" replay video? Or are you needing high-res captures for business purposes?

Well, right now my goal is just archiving them for posterity/reminiscing. I'm mostly talking about MMOGs but any other game, or desktop for instructional videos, whatever I want I suppose. My first use will be recording videos of the beta test for a game coming out soon, so others can see what it's like and we can review the gameplay. I will most likely share some online in various formats, but would like a high quality source for the future. I know it takes a lot of space, but with decent compression and cheap TB drives I should be able to keep a lot of them around (and space will only get cheaper).

I guess one question I have is, does H.264 provide compression or is that a separate process? I was under the impression that it is a codec and compression in one, so the above card wouldn't output uncompressed video only but H.264 encoded/compressed data, which wouldn't take up nearly as much space. Maybe I'm wrong in this assumption; I'm not really sure how MPEG2, MPEG4, and H.264 all fit together...after reading more, it looks like it's uncompressed, so I'd need some software to compress it anyway. Hmm...

I've used FRAPS before (actually registered it) and it affected my FPS as well as being pretty low quality compared to my monitor (e.g. in the video I couldn't read any of the text that was on the screen). I'm really looking for something better this time around. I'm not really sure what you mean by "replays" or "replay mode", is that a feature of the game, or do you mean physically cloning/splitting the signal?

I'll check out the Hauppage HD PVRs. I wonder if they have replacable storage so I can upgrade the space. I'll also have to check and see if I can clone from my video card while in-game; sometimes things like that get disabled in DirectX games. For example if you have two monitors, one "shuts off" when you're in game, usually to prevent giving one player an advantage or cheating. These might be a better solution than rolling my own.

Thanks for the responses!

 

[CollinR]

The HD PVR writes to the harddrive of the host computer, it has essentially limitless storage capacity.

If you cannot clone (sometimes you can clone but not "dual") then you may just use a component splitter and feed the TV and HD PVR that way.

 

[bfisher]

By replay mode, I mean where you watch after the event. I don't play MMOGs to know if that's supported or not... racing has this - you can watch a race from any camera, any car, from the stands, in cockpit, etc.

Yes, if you need higher resolution, or to use it while playing, then FRAPS is NOT the solution.