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  1. Member
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    hi everyone, im new to these forums and completely new to anything video related, so you might have to bare with me and explain in pretty simplistic terms because theres a good chance i wont understand, so, sorry about that haha.

    basically what im trying to do is get a capture card to record video and audio from my xbox 360, im using one of the newer ones with the HDMI output into my sony bravia HD tv, im not sure if this is entirely relevant but i do not have a pc, i use a mac, so do i need a specific card or software to run it on a mac? any help would be greatly appreciated, ive heard there are some from america, however i am situated in the UK, but i dont know if that was a while ago and if new ones are now available. I would ideally like to get the best sound and video quality, like HD, but depending on costs and whats available i dont mind not going the full blown HD route.

    so yeah, summary, new xbox 360 using the HDMI output straight into Sony bravia HD tv and a Mac, my mac specs are in my profile, so what would i need exactly? cables, cards, software, everything haha, because i have no idea where to begin or how i would even go about setting any of it up.

    cheers everyone!
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  2. Banned
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    Make sure that whatever you get, and having a Mac you will have very few choices, supports PAL60 video capture as I think a good number of games use that format in the UK. Most video cards do NOT support PAL60 captures. Some do under Windows though.
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  3. Member
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    The only consumer HDMI capture device I know of for the Mac is the new Blackmagic Intensity Extreme, which uses a Thunderbolt port as its interface with the computer. The US manufacturer pricing is $299. It isn't available in the US yet, but should be soon. I can't tell you what it would cost in the UK, or when it will available.

    The Blackmagic Intensity Extreme could work for capturing video games from an XBox 360, but not an HDMI protected source, like a DVD player or Blu-Ray player, or PS3. However, unlike the Blackmagic products for the PC, it only captures stereo audio via HDMI. It has HDMI in and out, so you would need 2 HDMI cables, one for the XBox 360 (HDMI in) and one for the TV (HDMI out). It also requires a Thunderbolt port on the Mac side and a Thunderbolt cable.

    The Blackmagic Intensity Extreme may not be a practical choice for you because it provides uncompressed ouput, and relies on software for encoding. Software encoding HD video on the fly to a highly compressed codec (for example, codecs compatible with MOV) during capture would place a great burden on the CPU, and I'm not sure that even your i7 Mac can handle it. Capturing lightly compressed or uncompressed HD video requires a RAID array.

    The more practical choice may be an analog component video solution, the Hauppauge HD PVR USB device, which does hardware H.264 encoding. It works for OSX using third-party software. See http://www.hdpvrcapture.com/cms/

    The Hauppauge HD PVR USB has component in, component out, S/PDIF in, S/PDIF out and analog stereo in and analog stereo out. You would need USB cable, an XBox 360 component cable, and a component cable for the TV, also two audio cables, one for the TV and one for the XBox 360, either optical S/PDIF or analog stereo.

    As jagabo said, you would run into problems capturing PAL60 video. (PAL60 uses a PAL color system but NTSC framerate and resolution.)
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  4. Member
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    hi guys, thanks for the replies! i looked up the hauppauge, and i found one with a blue light, and one with a green light, but not sure what the difference is, the green one is newer, so i assume better? with my setup and my mac and how powerful it is, is it worth spending a bit more and getting the green one? or will my mac not run it? or should i just stick with the blue one?

    cheers guys!
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  5. Member
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    There are two Hauppauge HD PVR models available, the 1212 and the 1219, but the only difference is the manual included with them. The 1212 manual is in English, and the 1219 manual is in English and French. The hardware is exactly the same, and both have blue LEDs. I'm not sure why one of the pictures you saw shows green LEDs. The LEDs are blue in every picture I have seen.

    [Edit]It records up to 1080i and 5.1 audio (via optical S/PDIF). It is a proven and very popular HD game capture device in the PC community. You will need to do some research to see what the Mac community says about the device and its software for video game capture.

    There are only a handful of choices for HD capture devices on the PC side, and even fewer on the Mac side.
    Last edited by usually_quiet; 10th Oct 2011 at 21:14.
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  6. Explorer Case's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by usually_quiet View Post
    You will need to do some research to see what the Mac community says about the device and its software for video game capture.
    These guys use a Hauppauge 1212 to record games with an iMac, although they don't go into much detail on the capture.
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