Standalone hardware for capturing to HDD, USB or SDC

[ggouweloos]

I am looking around for standalone capture hardware that can record to a harddrive, USB stick or SD card.
Mainly for SD material , PAL 25fps interlaced via composit or s-video. I do not want the material being de-interlaced upon recording. There is a TBC in place.
It would be nice if it is also able to record 1080i/p via HDMI.
Lossless codec, or near lossless. Nice to have the possibility of a compression like x264.
I do not want recording limits, or automatic file splits because of a FAT32-only formatted drive.
The recordings should be stable, no framedrops, no sync issues, no lousy compression artifacts (eg by not being able to change the low bitrate of the device).
I looked into the descriptions of several devices, StarTech, BlackMagic, DataVideo, Elgato.
Any suggestions here?

[usually_quiet]

I am looking around for standalone capture hardware that can record to a harddrive, USB stick or SD card.
Mainly for SD material , PAL 25fps interlaced via composit or s-video. I do not want the material being de-interlaced upon recording. There is a TBC in place.
It would be nice if it is also able to record 1080i/p via HDMI.
Lossless codec, or near lossless. Nice to have the possibility of a compression like x264.
I do not want recording limits, or automatic file splits because of a FAT32-only formatted drive.
The recordings should be stable, no framedrops, no sync issues, no lousy compression artifacts (eg by not being able to change the low bitrate of the device).
I looked into the descriptions of several devices, StarTech, BlackMagic, DataVideo, Elgato.
Any suggestions here?

You need a capture device capable of uncompressed video output attached to a computer with appropriate capture software to capture using lossless or near-lossless video codecs if you want to do lossless SD analog capture

No stand-alone capture device capable of SD analog capture that I have ever heard of uses lossless compression for capture. Most hardware encode to H.264, but the encoder can't be configured for lossless capture. If you want the best possible quality, a stand-alone capture device is not designed to provide it. These devices exist for strictly for the sake of convenience.

[Edit]The Atomos Ninja 2 supports HDMI capture with ProRes or DNxHR but supports only 5 hours of recording time on battery power.

[ggouweloos]

Ok, and if I go for compression (so lossless is not needed), what stand alone options would be best, preserving interlacing, SD analog captures?
And possibility of HD captures?

[usually_quiet]

The closest thing I can remember seeing is the AVerMedia Game Capture Pro HD II, but I misremembered the kind of analog connections it provides. I thought it had a composite video connection, but it only has connections for component video in and HDMI in. It does capture interlaced video as interlaced, and can capture 480i or 576i from component or HDMI.

[ggouweloos]

The AverMedia looks ok.
How about this HD PVR form Hauppauge?
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

Oh, no HDMI, nevermind.

Any others that can be compared to the Avermedia Game Capture Pro HD II ?

[usually_quiet]

The AverMedia looks ok.
How about this HD PVR form Hauppauge?
http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

Oh, no HDMI, nevermind.

Any others that can be compared to the Avermedia Game Capture Pro HD II ?

I don't know of any stand-alone capture devices that come as close to meeting your needs as the Avermedia Game Capture Pro HD II. For example, AVerMedia's EZ Recorder 130 is a stand-alone device and captures interlaced video as interlaced, but has no analog connections.

No models in Hauppauge's capture device product line will meet your needs. The only stand-alone device is the HD-PVR Rocket, which has no analog video connections and de-interlaces all interlaced input. The remaining models all need to be connected to a PC in order to function.

Except for the Atomos Ninja 2, the rest of the stand-alone capture devices I've seen are all generic Chinese models which de-interlace interlaced input.

[ggouweloos]

Thanks, I ordered one to check it out and try analog recording.

[usually_quiet]

Thanks, I ordered one to check it out and try analog recording.

Just for the sake of clarity, you are saying that you ordered an AVerMedia Game Capture Pro HD II?

[ggouweloos]

Thanks, I ordered one to check it out and try analog recording.

Just for the sake of clarity, you are saying that you ordered an AVerMedia Game Capture Pro HD II?

It is not called Pro, on either the link you posted to their site, the shop where I ordered it, or on the box.
Hope you meant AVerMedia Game Capture HD II.
Already got it here, will try testing it tomorrow, with and without a TBC in place.
Had very bad experiences with AverMedia product long way back (1999 I think), but I'll give it another try.

[usually_quiet]

Hope you meant AVerMedia Game Capture HD II

Yes. The other product name stuck in my head due to discussing it in another thread.

[ggouweloos]

Just tested with a 576i videostream via Component, the mp4 output of the AVerMedia Game Capture HD II is 720x576 interlaced, TFF. With an aspect ratio of Pixel 1:1, and a 50fps framerate.
Checked a little further, thought it might be 50 fields per second, but it seems it is 50 frames per second.
The capture, just over 2 and half minutes has 7544 frames. When converting on the PC to 25fps interlaced it becomes half the frames.
When I analyze the result with my eyes and skipping through the frames one by one, it seems the even frames are the originals with the interlaced lines visible, while the odd frames seems to be blended.

[usually_quiet]

Just tested with a 576i videostream via Component, the mp4 output of the AVerMedia Game Capture HD II is 720x576 interlaced, TFF. With an aspect ratio of Pixel 1:1, and a 50fps framerate.
Checked a little further, thought it might be 50 fields per second, but it seems it is 50 frames per second.
The capture, just over 2 and half minutes has 7544 frames. When converting on the PC to 25fps interlaced it becomes half the frames.
When I analyze the result with my eyes and skipping through the frames one by one, it seems the even frames are the originals with the interlaced lines visible, while the odd frames seems to be blended.

Yes, it is strange. I knew that the EZRecorder 130 flags captured interlaced video with the field rate rather than the actual frame rate. It appears now that the AVerMedia Game Capture HD II does the same thing.

I have two possible fixes to try for correcting the frame rate:

Use My MP4Box GUI to demux the audio and video streams, then remux them with the frame rate set to half the field rate. (There are 2 fields per frame in interlaced video) That way the frame rate in the video header will be changed from 50 fields per second to 25 frames per second in the remultiplexed video.

Use TSMuxer GUI to re-mux the video from MP4 to TS. Select TS muxing (under the Output section on the Input tab) and check the change frame rate option and set the frame rate to "25" (look for these settings under the "General Track" options on the Input tab).

[netmask56]

This one only available in Australia has a HDMI capture input apart form the 4 tuner off air recording... https://beyonwiz.com.au/products/beyonwiz-u4-barebone-quad-tuner-pvr-media-player/ No recording time limit, can record to a NAS or attached USB drive or an internal drive.

[ggouweloos]

This one only available in Australia has a HDMI capture input apart form the 4 tuner off air recording... https://beyonwiz.com.au/products/beyonwiz-u4-barebone-quad-tuner-pvr-media-player/ No recording time limit, can record to a NAS or attached USB drive or an internal drive.

Looks good, as long as you can copy from internal drive via LAN. Like the Humax serie. But no analog capture.

[netmask56]

Not much call for analog capture in Australia except for people who still have VHS machines and the like, but then there are analog capture cards available for a PC

[ggouweloos]

Update on my tests with the analog to H.264 with AVerMedia Game Capture HD II:

I just hooked up a PAL Betamax SL-C9ES through an ADVC-300 to the AverMedia Game Capture HD II via Component.
(Betamax BNC to composite in on the ADVC and ADVC-Component out to the AverMedia)
Recording an old tape from early 1983 for 1h23m (with several cuts in the original recording, because the person stopped the recording or paused it, no sync pulses on the tape there).
Settings on the Avermedia were the highest 576i possible. Filesize 4.8GB for the 1h23m.

What I see and what I think:

- Image quality is very good

- Audio/video sync is perfect. The Betamax has no Component out, so I guess the ADVC 300 did assure the stabilization here

- The recording is 50fps interlaced, instead of 25fps interlaced, as described earlier in this topic

- The aspect ratio is Pixel 1:1 (square pixel), which is incorrect. Should be Pixel 12:11/PAL 4:3 or Display 4:3. TSMuxer cannot not correct this?

- Normally I use TMPG Smart Renderer 4 for all my (almost) lossless cuts, and AR correction, but this is not possible with the H.264 produced by the AverMedia. I guess the output file is not a common H.264 format, maybe GOP or something. Any simple cut will cause a full render of the file (Called a Rescue Clip in Smart Renderer 4, maybe this is different in version 5?)

EDIT: I did not notice any dropped frames, but only looked at small portions of the file.
I guess best practice would be to render this to a DVD compliant MPEG2 interlaced 25fps output and view it on an CRT TV, and judge framerate, field order, interlacing and compression errors.