Audio not working and video in black & white

[rosannab]

I'm a beginner and trying to record my Playstation2 games with a video capture card but I have no audio, and the game is in black and white. How do I get the audio to work and get the video in color? Help is much appreciated!

 

[AaronD]

I assume USB? Most people are.

USB video captures are one of several things that seem to have two distinct tiers:

• Good and expensive for about $80 to $120 for a single input, from a name brand that actually cares about customer loyalty and thus has the accountability that goes along with that.
• Cheap garbage for about $20 or so, from a "face-on-keyboard" brand that cares about nothing except volume of sales. So their ads and product listings are blatantly deceptive once you start digging into what you actually got, and their designs and quality control are both so bad that it's a wonder anything works at all.

What do you actually have?

(Note: Those prices are for HDMI -> USB captures. Composite -> USB is probably cheaper, but still seems to have those distinct tiers.)

 

[rosannab]

I have a PS2 fat (not slim) I attached the 3 items that I have connected together with my laptop.

 

[AaronD]

First off, that looks like the pile of cheap converters that *I* went through, before I figured out that they were all bad. Genuine USB 3 *connector*, but the extra pins for USB 3 are not connected. It's really a USB 2 device, despite the connector and all the hype that went along with that. (blatantly deceptive, like I said above) That leads directly to other problems because it can't cram decent video through USB 2...

Second, using a Component cable is in fact better than Composite, but it allows your exact issue to happen. Component (and S-Video too) separates the brightness and two color differences into those three separate connectors. If you only connect the brightness and not the colors, then you get black and white.
It's also confusing to have two red connectors. One is audio and the other is part of the picture...

What connectors does the PS2 itself have? With all the stuff you've got in between (assuming that you're using all of what you pictured, at the same time), I wonder if you're making this too complicated in the first place?

 

[rosannab]

I connected all the items pictured and the quality of the game looks great but maybe I am using the wrong combination since the audio isn't working and of course there is no color. I think you may be right that I'm complicating this, is there an easier way to record games?

 

[AaronD]

What connectors does the PS2 itself have?

 

[rosannab]

I replaced the composite cords with the HD component cables and power cord is all I have connected to the PS2.

 

[AaronD]

You haven't answered my question.

Are you still looking for help? Or are you just documenting your own efforts?

 

[rosannab]

Yes I'm looking for help please. I thought I answered your question. What do you mean by connectors?

My fat PS2 on the back has a "AV Multi out" which I have the component cables plugged into (running to the orange retro-scaler listed above). It also has the "AC in" which is just the power cord that I have connected. Also on the back is the "Digital Out (optical)" which I am not using. On the front there are two USB ports and next to that is an "S400" port (also not being used).

 

[AaronD]

"Digital Out (optical)"

That's probably audio, independent from everything else. It gets rid of a buzz in some rigs, by not having a direct electrical connection. Instead, it's a blinking LED into a fiber optic. The receiver decodes the blinks and plays that sound.

"AV Multi out"

What is that? What can it do? I know how standards work, but next to nothing about the zoo of things that people have, which may or may not use those standards directly or correctly. Or maybe they have adapters from some internal proprietary thing to various standards, etc. So what's really going on with that connector?