Is there any other software that's compatible with the Elgato HD?

[GEOLINK]

Are there any capturing software out there that's compatible with the Elgato HD other than Game Capture HD?

[usually_quiet]

Just EyeTV, OSX-only PVR software for recording TV.

[jagabo]

You can use GraphEdit to build a capture graph. Unfortunately, the capture driver decompresses the video before giving it to any other program so you don't have access to the hardware compressed stream. That means you'll have to recompress it. So basically, no, you can't really use any other software to capture from the device.

[vhelp]

i am not able to get a graph going for the Elgato, unless i'm missing something.

to my surprise, i learned that win7 is the minimum OS, no xp support. i tried a few attempts to get xp to see it, but to no avail before giving up and unpacking my Dell Aspiron 15R laptop which has win7 home premium, then was able to get the elgato up and running.

but as i said earlier, i'm not able to get a graph (graphedit / graphstudio / graphstudionext both 32bit and 64bit versions) does not see any elgato filter, crossbar or anything, only the Dell's webcam. do i need something else to make it work or see the elgato ?

i'm only looking to capture from it w/out the preview, like with the hauppauge pvr. i want to build two graphs, one for pvr and elgato and capture from both.

[jagabo]

i'm not able to get a graph (graphedit / graphstudio / graphstudionext both 32bit and 64bit versions) does not see any elgato filter, crossbar or anything

It's "ElGato Game Capture HD" in the DirectShow filters section.

i'm only looking to capture from it w/out the preview, like with the hauppauge pvr.

Unfortunately, you can't really do that with the ElGato. It's DirectShow capture filter only outputs uncompressed frames. You don't have access to compressed stream coming from the device. So you can capture without displaying the video but you have to recompress it.

[vhelp]

the filter doesn't show in any listing in graphstudio. i looked through all directory listing in graphstudio. graphstudionext lets you type the first few chars and searches all filter directories. nothing comes up. i suspect that one of the .ax files has to be registered even though the darn software suite is installed and running the thing...been capturing video all day.

now i know everyone loves it, but i don't. can't stand win7. i have to relearn everything. the dialogbox and other such is confusing me, and i'm fumbling all over the place trying to do this and that and so on. i'm all ready to give up on it and get back to my xp home. i can do almost anything on it, almost.

so can't get regsvr32 to work, won't register anything. i thought it was regsvr64 since i'm using 64bit, but it doesn't exist. very confusing. well, thanks for trying to help. appreciated.

[jagabo]

Remember, 32 bit and 64 bit programs run in separate systems under 64 bit Windows. The two environments can't see each other. So 32 bit programs require 32 bit codecs and filters, 64 bit programs require 64 bit codecs and filters.

[vhelp]

ok, that worked.. saw the "elgato game capture hd" filter and managed to get a preview window (after a few tweaks) and depending how you connect different filters, the video preview will be slow to open or super fast..preview pops right up instantaly. not that that matters. i don't have a workable file writer filter (the one on my laptop errors out) but i will try one of the dump.ax / dump.dll filters on my xp home and see if i can transer it. anyway. thank you very much for the help!

[vhelp]

sheesh, i think i now understand hdmi a little bit more. anything going over to hdmi is automatically HDCP 'ed. i could not get *anything* working over that connection.. no 8mm, vhs, laserdisc, vcr, dv cam, dtv receiver, etc ect. to the elgato. it would lock out with the HDCP message. however, not all devices respect it. ie, the roxio gamecapture doesn't. so, out of curiosity, i connected (via hdmi) my toshiba dr430 -> roxio -> elgato, and bingo, it worked! clean signal. i was then able to feed even my commercial vhs tapes to it. nice and clean albiet in 1080i. but i can downsize that to standard dimenions.

with the (sw suite) h264/avc and uncompressed, the highest cpu usage on my laptop (i3 cpu) is 68 % at the 1080i dimension that i was capturing though my laptops max dim is 1366x768 which means the added extra step to downsize for the window, regular and maximum/full screen view during capturing.

** i looked up the issue with the dv not playing, and found out it is *raw* images packed in a headerless container, or dv_dif is the format. something like that. i wonder if there is any codecs that can deal with that format, though i am not aware of yet. anyone knows ? i'd be willing to consider trying that avenue of video capture with the elgato, for review purposes. they only play in vlc, ffplay and ffmpegsource, aka ffms2.

also, does anyone know for certain whether the elgato is a hardware h264/avc capture device or something else ? capturing to h264/avc and uncompressed gives the same cpu usage.

[jagabo]

VLC can play .DV files.

[vhelp]

i was looking to get into the video right away, like avisource(video) or drag-drop into virtualdub. only ffms2 was able to open but damthing takes longer than .ts files. i'm looking to do the usual things with videos files that i capture.

yes, i know vlc, ffplay can too. i just didn't mention it.

[vhelp]

i'm having the same problem with the built-in mjpeg under windows 7 .. the capture videos with this card won't play in media center or anything under that os. i don't know why these two codecs are on that system (i did not install them) and won't play any of the videos. i have to do the same thing, bring them to my desktop pc and test them in various players.. vlc, ffplay, fms2, dds, l-smash, avisource, kmplayer, and so on.

[vhelp]

is there any way to get the Cedocida DV Codec to work in a graphedit to capture with ?

[jagabo]

is there any way to get the Cedocida DV Codec to work in a graphedit to capture with ?

It should be listed in the Video Compressors section:

[vhelp]

ah, how could i miss that. oh, because its not installed..dahh. i'm so off-balanced between this laptop and the desktop pc, thanks.

[jagabo]

You can remux .DV to .AVI with ffmpeg. Put this in a batch file:

"c:\program files\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg" -i %1 -vcodec copy -acodec copy "%~d1%~p1%~n1.avi"

If necessary, modify the path to ffmpeg to where you have it installed. You can drag/drop .DV files onto it to remux to .AVI in the same folder as the source. If you put the batch file in your SendTo folder you can right click on any .DV file and select Send To -> WhateverYouNameTheBatchFile.

[vhelp]

thanks for that tip, it worked, however, it is time consuming to do for every captured clip. but i tried working with it anyway to see how that goes. using the cedocida dv codec also gave me problems. it may be buggy under directshow usage. every time i open it inside graphstudio, it would error out at the preview screen. after some debugging with that, it turns out that i have to manually disconect the pins from it and go into the properties and uncheck/recheck the RGB options, then reconnect all the pins. it would randomly work after that. a very frustring ordeal.

i went back to the dv codec that came with the win7homepremium and after half a day or so, i finally got a working filter (with preview and audio during capturing and recording) going. i am able to save it, close graphstudio and reopen graphstudio, load the .grf file and begin capturing to dv video. however, that i am still faced with dv_dif format. after painstaking with the cedocida dv codec, it too did not save in the usual way to standard dv.avi, it would save as dv_dif format. i still had to convert to standard dv.avi format. what a pain. all this on my notebook win7homepremium w/ the elgato.

however, on my desktop pc, i've been capturing video sameltaniously and flawlessly using the { hauppauge hdpvr -> h264 } and the { pinnacle studio av/dv -> dv.avi }.

i am wondering why capturing video under win7homepremium when using dv codec is capturing in that strange format, relentlessly.

[jagabo]

i finally got a working filter (with preview and audio during capturing and recording) going. i am able to save it, close graphstudio and reopen graphstudio, load the .grf file and begin capturing to dv video. however, that i am still faced with dv_dif format. after painstaking with the cedocida dv codec, it too did not save in the usual way to standard dv.avi

Did you use an Avi Muxer?

[vhelp]

yes, i did try an AVI MUXER filter but it was rejected. as it turned out, it needed a DV MUXER. so i added that in, and with and without audio, and the output format is still the same. for some reason it seems to only happen with dv and mjpeg codecs. and i also tried it on my desktop pc. i thought i was getting it correct but i was mistaken. i am getting correct dv format when i use virtualdub only. so, to rule out the issue, i test the same basic scenario using the hauppauge hdpvr, and got a graph working to go from the finished hdpvr's hardware enced h264 to -> standard dv codec, but still the same problems with the final output being in the strange dv_dif format. i used the graphs below for *all* the capture devices being discused. all worked but have that output format problem.


* cedocida dv codec


* standard dv codec

[jagabo]

I'm not on a computer with the the Elgato right now but using cedocida to re-compress an existing DV AVI gave a normal DV AVI file:



That last filter is File Writer. Are you using Dump?

[vhelp]

yes, was using the dump filter in those graphs. in previous attempts i had trouble with getting the file writer filter working on w7, so i searched google and found a dump.ax file and been using that ever since. maybe the fw filter will work in this case however. i'm at work too so can't test either devices, but luckly i have a cheap usb ati-750 with me (piece of junk) but can use that to test these filter scenarios here at work. i just hope i can get it to work w/out a "source" video to connect it to. my netbook is very limited. maybe the built-in cam can come in too, and test that somehow. i don't know. will try whatever i can with whatever i have. thanks for the suggestions!

[vhelp]

oh well, scratch the ati-750 idea, its dead. worked before on this netbook, but now won't work or reinstall drivers. like a said, is a piece of junk. will try the cam next.

[jagabo]

If you use Dump instead of File Writer you will not have an AVI file (regardless of the file extension) because the file will not have an AVI header.

I used a file source because the computer I'm using doesn't have a capture device. I needed some source of audio and video to compress and mux so I used a file. Using cedocida to compress the video, followed by AVI Muxer and File Writer, should give the same result whether the source is a capture device or a decompressed file (CPU usage and timing differences aside).

[vhelp]

thank you for that tip, i finally managed to get my puny netbooks 800x600 cam to convert correctly to 720x480 dv.avi video.

then, later on, on my desktop pc, and after many hours of trial and error, i finally obtained the same results using the hauppauge
hdpvr hardware encoder through graphstudio to capture in real time (correctly) to dv.avi video and then convert that to avc
via x264 cli sofware encoder. i've included the graph and that sample clip from it, below, in case others want to try it out on their rig.

for the notes....i was able to watch and capture tv (olympic games) on my pinnacle studio av/dv analog capture card via
graphstudio graph and virtualdub while debugging, trial and erroring and finally capturing to dv avi video w/ under 50%
cpu usage, even under my heavily buggy win xp home setup.


* windows xp, hauppauge hdpvr hardware h264/avc -> dv codec -> dv_video.avi -> sw_converted2avc -> avc_video.mkv
via x264 cli encoder.

[vhelp]

someone had asked me about that last graph i put together in post # 24. so i thought i would respond here.

first, let me say that that graph does not give you a lossless avi from start to finish. the input source video is encoded by the hauppauge hdpvr and then re-encoded to a dv.avi video file. thus, the whole process goes something like this:

1. the hauppauge receives the lossless input signal via the hauppauge [Crossbar] and [capture device] graph filters,
2. and then converts it by encoding it to H264 via the [encoder] graph filter,
3. and then, using the graph filter [arcsoft mpeg demux] to demux that H264 video (in cache memory),
4. and then decodes it using the graph filter [ffdshow video decoder],
5. and then using the graph filter [dv video encoder] will encode it to DV video,
6. and then using the graph filter [avi mux] to re-mux it into an AVI format,
7. and then using the graph filter [video.avi]** to write it out to the final "DV.AV" container file.

** the [video.avi] filter is actually one of the dump.ax or file_writer.ax graph filters, i forget which one. you just give it a filename, ie.., "video.avi" and it inserts it as a filter though it really should say [dump: "d:\video.avi"] or similar, but it doesn't. it just shows your video.avi filename instead. oh well. anyway. that's how that filter works.

the other question asked was, can you capture with more than one capture device. the answer is yes or no or depends.

on my amd dual core desktop windows xp system, i can analog capture with both the hauppauge hdpvr and pinnacle studio av/dv at the same time. i do it to this very day. and did it last night when i was capturing the metv network broadcast of "The Island Earth" SD format, 720x480 video, from directv. i do this when i want to keep something but also want to quickly analize a smaller section of the content during this process. it is much easier and quicker for me to process a standard avi file than it is for an hauppauge hdpvr encoded h264 .ts file. plus, while the hdpvr is still recording the whole content (i don't interupt that), on the pinnacle studuio av/dv i can stop it from capturing, then restart it, while reviewing the last avi file. i can do this because i set virtualdub in segmented capture mode (menu../capture/autoincrement filename after capture) when i pad the main capture file, filename_01, it will increment upon restarting the capturing for that session, filename_02, filename_03, ... and so on. when i stop an avi capture session, and for obvious reason, i do that during the commercials.

there are some drawbacks to all this. like most hardware capture devices, the hdpvr has to "buffer" a certain amount of the video to encode, about 1-2 seconds. so, you will notice a delay between the hdpvr and some other device that capture to avi in real time, like the pinnacle studio av/dv in my case, is real-time while the hdpvr is 2 second delay. both videos will sync up later when you play them back, unless you were doing other cpu intensive work, like browsing the internet, etc. etc., thus, YMMV.

but, just because i can capture with two capture devices samultaniously, successfully, does not mean that you will.

all i can say is, you have to experiment, until you find something that works, hopefully.