Ati All In Wonder HD and PS3 screenshots and capture HD video.. help needed

[C.P]

For the last 10 years or so for the Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 days, I've been using an old All in Wonder video/tv tunar card for capturing screenshots of Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 games. Works pretty good with All in Wonder and Multimedia Center. Just plug in the Playstation to the S-Video input and than go to Multimedia Center and switch to S-Video Input and done. You now playing PS2 games through Multimedia Center through your PC monitor. At the same time Multimedia Center as a screenshot gallery that allows you to take screenshots and even record gameplay whenver you needed. Works wonders.
But technology has advance and we are now in the age of blu ray high definition and PS3. Technically I can still switch the PS3 to S-video mode and do that same thing but it defeat the purpose of high definition blu ray gaming.

So I brought All In Wonder HD thinking hey nice price pretty cheap. Maybe I can do that same thing with the PS3 that I did with the older All In Wonder but on HDMI instead of S-Video. How wrong I was. Now I'm starting to think I know why All In Wonder HD is pretty cheap.

First thing I notice was Multimedia Center is gone and is replace by this Catalyst Center. Seem like a major down grade to me. You can change the video input on Catalyst Media Center but there's no HDMI input. There's one for S-Video. So my idea of taking high defintion and recording high definition PS3 gameplay went out the window. It appears that you can record high definition tv but thats strictlyf or shows or cable. But you can't record directly from a high defintion player like blu ray or PS3 as far as I know. So I figure I can still make better use of S-Video for PS2 and maybe some PS3 screenshots till I can find a better solution for high defintion screenshot and video.
Turns out while Catalyst Media Center as a S-Video Input and your can record video from S-Video output, you can't take screenshots at all. There's not Picture Gallery like the Multimedia Center has. The only other option to so it is record the S-Video as Video and than switch to Video Menu and watch the Video that you record and than take the snapshot that way but it will all be in bmp file. What a pain in the ass. Not sure why they got rid of Multimedia Center for Catalyst Media Center is beyond me. I would love to have Multimedia Center back for the All In Wonder HD but I'm not sure if those are compatible anymore.

So this leave me to why I'm posting here and asking for suggestions and help. With All In Wonder HD as my video/tv tunar card. Is there any software out there that will allow me to take screenshots and record high defintion from PS3 in place of Catalyst Media Center and something like Multimedia Center?

I ready that Hauppauge WinTV HDPVR Video Recorder will allow me to record blu ray high definition video for pc and to be place on the net or something like that. How good is that in terms of high definition video recording?
And are you able to take high defintion screenshot with the HDPVR Video Recorder while you are gaming for your PC? I rather not go that route unless its seem like the only option because it like cost almost $300 in my area at a best buy.

So does anyone have any suggestion or feedback on this?

[lordsmurf]

Correct, these are all PVR cards made for recording TV. Most of the ATI AIW HD PVR cards can still capture great SD MPEG-2 via Catalyst MC, with some custom settings. And then you can usually grab lossless/uncompressed AVI for composite/s-video SD inputs.

You can't use ATI MMC on these, no. Different gen of software for different gen of cards.

You were indeed wrong, this is not the correct tool for the task at hand. You're looking more for a Blackmagic card. There was a very similar post on this topic last week.

[danno78]

Consumer card with HDMI input:
1. BlackMagic
2. AVerTV CaptureHD
These card don`t have hardware compression engine. A good CPU and fast hard drives are needed, RAID for uncompressed.
3 Hauppage HDPVR
This card have a hardware H264 engine so there is no need for high CPU and fast drives. It only need a USB port. It capture analogue interlaced HD signal over component input. No HDMI input.

With all there is lag so a spliter before card is needed, one signal to go to TV and one to card.
Search this forum because many topics cover the same issue.

[jagabo]

And beware the HDMI capture cards will not capture any HDCP protected content.

[neomaine]

Consumer card with HDMI input:
1. BlackMagic
2. AVerTV CaptureHD
These card don`t have hardware compression engine. A good CPU and fast hard drives are needed, RAID for uncompressed.
3 Hauppage HDPVR
This card have a hardware H264 engine so there is no need for high CPU and fast drives. It only need a USB port. It capture analogue interlaced HD signal over component input. No HDMI input.

With all there is lag so a spliter before card is needed, one signal to go to TV and one to card.
Search this forum because many topics cover the same issue.

The BM doesn't need RAID. It works just fine using the built-in MJPEG compression to a single drive. It has the option of HDMI, component, s-video and composite. From the MJPEG you can easily grab this with Vdub, clip the section you want and encode to divx/xvid if you want even more compression.

The simple (meaning, very few features...) capture software is adequate to get the job done. Let's you choose the resolution and between uncompressed or mjpeg, the input connection and has a stop, start, replay feature. Like I said, simple.

However, as a gamer, you should also know playing directly from the capture software isn't recommended as there is a noticable lag. The preferred method is to use a splitter from the console. One hdmi to your monitor, another to your PC.

BM Intensity Pro: $180US-ish
Splitter and Cables: $30US-ish (recommend monoprice or bluejeanscable)
Another monitor: $150-$200US

[lordsmurf]

Skip extra monitor, just use TV, put computer by TV.

[C.P]

Hello everyone. Thank you for your replies and information. As you can see this is all new to me and I'm not much of a computer geek when it comes to keeping up with computer advancement. I thought taking HD screenshots of PS3 is as easy as taking screenshots as PS2 with All in Wonder and multimedai. I can still take screenshots of PS3 but I have to go to the PS3 setting and switch it to standard tv and S-Video instead of high definition blu ray images and that defeat the purpose of gaming on blu ray.

Anyways to follow up on some of what was replied.

My main objective right now is taking screenshot/snapshots in high definition PS3 gameplay images in jpeg. I can still do this in TV tunar with S-Video Input on PS3 but the screenshots come out in standard size and kind of low quality at the usual 640x480 size with multimedia center or catalyst media center. Base on what is suggested.

Black Magic Intensity Pro or Hauppage HDPVR have a sceenshot or snapshot option like with Multimedia where you can set up and take multi screenshots at once or a hotkey or none hotkey while playing the game? I'm not talking about actually recording the gameplay here but the actual ability to take a snapshot/screenshot while you playing the game? I don't want to buy something that ends up where it doesn't do what I want. I'm use to just pluging my PS2 to my tv tunar S-Video in and going to Video Input in Multimedia and switching to S-Video Input and than taking the screenshot from the Multimedia gallery.

My second option in terms of actually recording high definition gameplay is doing something like this here:

http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/60492/the-grinder/videos/grinder_trl_teaser_20410.html

Recording something that is 1 or 2 min only and putting it in high definition on the net for people to view like that link above. I do that now with S-Video recording and then converting it to wmv over the net for viewing but I like to be able to offer the more high defintion kind of mini gameplay trailer like the site above.

Would Hauppage HDPVR or BlackMagic be able to do the screenshot and recording that I want? Not looking to record full gameplay or any long gameplay longer than a min or so.