There's NO Way this Capture Gizmo Can Be Any Good, Right ?

[Seeker47]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175697656040

Not at such a ridiculously low price . . .

I recall discussion here of various standalone USB connected capture devices (would have to dig around a bit to dredge up the names) and pretty much all of them (?) were only "certified" as appropriate for capturing gameplay, not for films or tv programs. And they all cost much, MUCH more than this.

[dellsam34]

For SD interlaced materials? I would stay away, If you do need to capture HDMI from say a DVD recorder that respects SD standards, stick to a brand name, Magewell, BM and the likes.
For anything else, it is probably okay, 1080p capture has matured over the years and becomes very cheap as well, I would still be skeptical at that price.

[Alwyn]

I recall discussion here of various standalone USB connected capture devices

Not sure what you mean by "standalone" and "connected", but if you're a tinkerer, give it a whirl! You'll obviously need an HDMI-Out VCR+DVD combo or DVD Recorder in passthrough (with HDMI Out), and make sure you set the VCR/DVD Rec's output to 480i/576i. Then capture with VDub or AmarecTV: they will tell you whether that gadget will output 480i/576i as they will (or will not) be in the list of available formats.

My experience is that the cheaper ones don't quite have the same visual quality than the more expensive ones IOW you get what you pay for. The cheaper ones also have less options, formats-wise.

But worth a giggle, if nothing else.

[lordsmurf]

I have one. Garbage,

[jagabo]

I wouldn't call them garbage. I bought one for US$6 just to check it out. They basically work. You can get uncompressed frames at SD resolution, MJPEG at higher resoulutions. Dropped a frame every 1000 or so. Audio was mono only. Levels and colors could be adjusted (with its proc amp) to be fairly accurate. I don't remember for sure but I think 30p was the max frame rate at 1080p, 60p at 720p. Not for professional use but OK for a quick cap.

Oh, the one I bought claimed to be USB 3.0 but it was obviously only USB 2.0.

[Seeker47]

I have one. Garbage,

Thanks. And no huge surprise there. I'm struggling to recall the names of some of the other devices that have come and maybe gone, all discussed here. Legato ?

I don't know if there is anything available on the market that truly meets much higher standards and versatility, even at much more plausible pricing -- or regardless of pricing. I'm aware of the Black Magic Intensity line, which does have self-contained models, as opposed to just plug-in computer capture cards.

What I do now and have done for a long time is use my Pioneer DVD recorders (which is SD only, and has No HDMI In), then taking any recordings of interest to RW DVD, which from there can be transferred to computer. I do this regularly. But there is no HD option. (If a good one existed, it's likely that I would invest in it.) I'm limited in that my current, older model DirecTV satellite DVR receivers do still have the S-Video Out port, essential to feed the Pioneer . . . although subsequent models dropped that port. So I may have some big problems down the line.

Another potential major problem is the move of later gear to the HDMI 2.0 standard, whereas all of my gear is based on 1.3 or 1.4. I really want to maintain a complete IGNORING of the more stringent HDCP or the Copy Protection flag, something I have enjoyed up 'til now. Lacking this would become a major pain in the rear for me.

[dellsam34]

What are you trying to accomplish here? VCR capture? DVR capture? HDMI capture? combination?

[aramkolt]

I haven't done much in the way of HDMI capture, but for SD, many of similar cards won't capture interlaced 480i correctly. That is typically why cards that are known to work well for interlaced are generally recommended such as the Magewell 32060.

The other thing I'd mention is that this isn't a "standalone" capture device since it requires a computer to record onto. Perhaps I'd term it "external" capture device maybe.

[jagabo]

If I remember correctly, the one I bought can capture from HDCP protected HDMI sources.

[Alwyn]

the one I bought can capture from HDCP protected HDMI sources.

My cheap ones ($10 and $40) did too (HDMI coming out of a Panasonic EZ-48). The Startech USB3HDCAP would not; it needed a HDMI splitter in the workflow.

[Seeker47]

What are you trying to accomplish here? VCR capture? DVR capture? HDMI capture? combination?

I'm doubting there is anything that can capture (at 720P or 1080) from the DirecTV's sat dvr receiver's HDMI Out . . . which I suppose would have to be split, in order to have it continuing to feed the tv ?
Content is encrypted on the DVR's HDD, but mustn't it get decrypted on its way to the tv ? Otherwise, you could never watch anything. If it gets decrypted on the way Out, mustn't that be capturable ?

A lot of this is relatively moot, thanks to a robust Scene Release pantheon out there, with various good DDL sites plus torrents. A large majority of anything of interest to me can be found that way, generally as MKV files. And that is something I've become rather adept at over recent years.

So this is just for general knowledge, and trying to keep up to date.

[Alwyn]

but mustn't it get decrypted on its way to the tv ? Otherwise, you could never watch anything. If it gets decrypted on the way Out, mustn't that be capturable ?

My understanding: the player and the TV handshake the HDMI encryption and the TV then plays it. If your capture device respects the HDMI encryption, like the USB3HDCAP does, then you can't capture it. The cheap-charlie HDMI capture devices somehow just ignore it or otherwise get around it.

It would be interesting to put a splitter in the workflow after the sat receiver...

[Seeker47]

but mustn't it get decrypted on its way to the tv ? Otherwise, you could never watch anything. If it gets decrypted on the way Out, mustn't that be capturable ?

My understanding: the player and the TV handshake the HDMI encryption and the TV then plays it. If your capture device respects the HDMI encryption, like the USB3HDCAP does, then you can't capture it. The cheap-charlie HDMI capture devices somehow just ignore it or otherwise get around it.

It would be interesting to put a splitter in the workflow after the sat receiver...

Thanks Alwyn. That was kind of my presumption. I have a couple of those supposed-to-be-good, supposed-to-ignore-all-the-rules splitter gizmos that used to be recommended here, and which may have come and gone from the market (?) Never got around to trying them out. My Pioneer DVDRs may usually ignore the Copy Flag, or do a Copy Once ? But I seldom recorded movies, preferring to source them from elsewhere in 720 or 1080, and mainly recorded tv shows, or portions of news / documentary / interview programs on them. The DVDRs max out at DVD resolution. SD was often adequate for what I was recording.

The thing is, my entire video playback chains with their allied gear have long used HDMI 1.3 or 1.4 -- whatever it was. And the plasma bigscreen panels top out at 1080P. Some real roadblocks might creep in -- also particularly for the latter -- if I ever had to change the prevailing "flow" to HDMI 2.0. I'm very wary of that. Just like losing the S-Video Out from the DirecTV sat receiver could become catastrophic, in terms of what I regularly rely upon to be able to do.

[ozymango]

I don't know if I have this exact make/brand of adapter, but I have one that looks just like it -- though mine cost me ten bucks -- that I got as a lark a year or two ago, to play around with capturing a "live-stream" HDMI output from a little camcorder I have, to a laptop. Basically just wanted to turn my camcorder into an upgraded webcam. It worked quite well for that (using OBS Studio), I only needed to go 720p and for ten bucks, I got no complaints.

But there was a bonus for me on this device -- it does allow for recording from HDMI outputs that are not supposed to be recordable. That is, I was able to -- just for testing purposes! -- capture a streaming video into OBS using this device connected to the HDMI output of a laptop, that I could not record using a different (more expensive, higher quality) HDMI capture device, because the more expensive device had better HDMI security features working. If you know what I mean. Anyway, again this was just an experiment, I don't need an HDMI capture device to capture video streams beyond my own camcorders. But there ya go. And if you wanna use a camcorder with HDMI output into a really nice webcam using OBS, for ten bucks or less, what's not to like?

[dellsam34]

Seeker, don't you worry about the HDMI version, usually cables and capture cards are backward compatible with older versions of HDMI, from what I've been reading the HDMI version relates to the data stream not the physical structure of the cable with the exceptions if the cable is not fully pinned or the wires are too thin that cannot handle the data stream (gauge vs voltage), most modern good quality cables should work all the way back to the original version of HDMI. I have some Monster cables from early days of HDMI that I bought for peanuts that work just fine with the latest HDMI version.

[Seeker47]

Seeker, don't you worry about the HDMI version, usually cables and capture cards are backward compatible with older versions of HDMI, from what I've been reading the HDMI version relates to the data stream not the physical structure of the cable with the exceptions if the cable is not fully pinned or the wires are too thin that cannot handle the data stream (gauge vs voltage), most modern good quality cables should work all the way back to the original version of HDMI. I have some Monster cables from early days of HDMI that I bought for peanuts that work just fine with the latest HDMI version.

Thanks. I was looking to stay the course, no matter what contingencies presented themselves, and hoped that there would be ways. These were concerns I wanted to air out here, for the usual knowledgeable VH replies.

I know there are borderline topics (like "unofficial" DDL sources, Scene Release sites, and torrenting) that may be too dicey to get into here. But of necessity and major interest, I've had to become fairly proficient with these. So, if anyone needs help with them, feel free to PM me. Also, you can check out the chat forum at good places like http://rarefilmm.chatango.com, where members (and joining is Free) assist each other in chasing down rarities and hard-to-finds, and https://rarefilmnet.chatango.com, a soundalike but unrelated adjunct to one of the sites that most of the time accepts requests. (Although that is on a temporary hiatus, for the moment.)