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  1. Member
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    Feb 2007
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    Search Comp PM
    I'm looking for an external video capture card with AV RCA inputs and FireWire output. I'm planning on recording game play from my Xbox 360 with iMovie on my Mac. I need little to no frame rate lag while recording. Budget around $300. Thanks.
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  2. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Mar 2004
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    Search Comp PM
    Is the idea to watch on the computer monitor? Too much lag. Use a TV.

    For recording $300 will get you a Canopus ADVC-110 or ADS Pyro to firewire.

    There are computer monitors with composite or S-Video video inputs. Dell makes a good one.
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  3. Member doppletwo's Avatar
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    Dec 2004
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    Search Comp PM
    If he just wants to play on a monitor Microsoft sells an official Xbox 360 VGA cable for forty or fifty bucks.



    If you want to play with no lag while capturing, then you might want to split the composite video signal coming from the yellow RCA cable and run it to your TV and mac at the same time.



    Or if you TV has a video output*, then the TV itself will act as a splitter.



    *Most TVs have audio outputs, but video output is more rare.
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  4. If you want to play with no lag while capturing, then you might want to split the composite video signal coming from the yellow RCA cable and run it to your TV and mac at the same time.
    Actually, I need to be able to do this same process. Not necessarily for the same reason, but I have been looking for a video splitter for a long time now. Does anyone know of anything to actually do what was suggested?

    I know you can use a VCR as a "splitter", if the VCR has two seperate outputs, but there is some quality loss, as there's an extra step involved both ways. The quality to both sources actually gets degraded, because the signal gets sent through the VCR and outputted back. Also, VCRs usually don't have multiple outputs in the same format (ie: my VCRs have one composite video output, and one coaxial video output, and maybe one S-video output). In other words, one output would be even worse quality than the other if I used coaxial, aside from both outputs being degraded overall. I'm actually not much of a nitpick when it comes to quality, so I'm not talking about minor quality loss. Going through a VCR actually introduces a very noticable quality difference, even if you're not comparing side-by-side.

    Any help would be great. If possible, I'd prefer some kind of actual "splitter" cord as opposed to an actual device. Sometimes an extra device could just introduce some interference due to an extra step in the chain. However, I'll take any suggestion I can get.




    Also, I believe the original poster is just referring to capturing footage, not playing on a monitor. He did mention that he needs to record game footage and plans to record it with his Mac.
    An easy suggestion would to use a DVD recorder. They're typically a lot cheaper and easier than to get a PC setup for capturing, especially with regards to price vs quality. There are PC devices you can spend $80 and up for, which have absolutely horrendous quality. Also, there can be issues like audio-sync and dropped frames, video/audio that goes progressively out of sync, and also hard drive space. A DVD recorder can take care of some of those things, and there are some options to handle certain needs, like using a couple DVD RW discs, isolating/editing the game footage you need, and then copying it onto your computer either in DVD form or in a computer file ready for encoding to any format of your choice. Overall, it depends on your price range and how much time you wish to involve. If you're looking for the easiest and least time-consuming method, and probably cheapest as well in terms of what you get for the price, then a DVD recorder would be a good idea, and you could pick one up for about 1/3rd of the price that you were thinking of. However, you would then have to deal with the same issue mentioned above with regards to "splitting" the video signal, since DVD recorders all have delay. Although, you'd need to do the same thing if you were capturing via a computer as well, unless there's something I'm forgetting. One final option, if you don't care about DVD quality, would be to use a VCR for recording, and then transfer the necessary game footage afterwards from VHS to either DVD or PC using whatever method you wish. You wouldn't need to worry about any video splitting in that case.
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