Question / Help Avermedia C027 Analog Input help

[xerics]

Have an Avermedia C027 card. This card has 2 capture inputs. One is an HDMI input, the other is a analog input with a cable that has connections for composite, s-video or component. For the project we are doing we need both inputs.

The card shows up in OBS as AverMedia BDA and having 2 inputs with digital or analog capture. I'm able to get the digital HDMI input to work as hoped (I believe I selected s-video in crossbar), but I can't get it to recognize the component analog input. There are only two selections for the crossbar input, composite and s-video. The composite input works fine, but selecting s-video input probably actually selects the s-video input (I don't have an s-video source to check this hypothesis, but my guess is that's what it's doing). There is not a 3rd option to select component, and I really, really, really need it, using the composite input isn't working all that great for what we are doing.

One other note, the component input works great if I use the Aver MediaCenter 3D program they include with the drivers. Just can't get it to work with OBS.

Is there a way around this? If not, I'm a software engineer and totally ready to try and fix this myself if need be, but it'd be nice to have some pointers to where to go look in the code. Is this the right forum for this kind of help?

Thanks for any help on this.

 

[carlmmii]

It appears it is not possible to capture both component and HDMI.

The component input is actually the "composite" labeling of "BDA Analog Capture Secondary", with "S-video" being the HDMI, as you have found. So, you can only select one or the other.

The best it seems you would be able to do is actual HDMI and S-video with this capture card (which honestly, if both are captured simultaneously, then that was way ahead of the curve).

 

[xerics]

Thanks. I did a better web search last night and found exactly what you mentioned, that component video is on the composite selection for the Secondary input. I went over there and played around with it a little while ago and sure enough you can't capture both HDMI and component at the same time. Rats.

I've only used s-video a few times in the past and recall it was better than composite. The cheapest HDMI to s-video adapter I can find is around $30 though, not sure if it's worth it. We already have an HDMI to component adapter, could look into component to s-video but it's probably around the same price.

I'm thinking may as well just bite the bullet and look into an USB HDMI capture device instead. Do you have any experience with them?

 

[carlmmii]

Just get yourself a modern HDMI capture card. Things have come a long way since yours came out.

Unfortunately, the sub $100 area of HDMI capture cards is the wild west of generic rebranding, so actual driver support or company support will be spotty. The biggest thing to look for is to make absolutely sure if you go with a USB capture card hat you go for something that uses USB3.0. Anything that uses USB2.0 will usually have extreme lag due to the compression needed to get the video signal over the limited bandwidth (the general rule is, if the product description advertises h.264, avoid it).

For internal capture cards, the Elgato HD60pro and Avermedia Livegamer HD are solid choices on the lower end of the price range.

 

[xerics]

I'm not sure if there are any open slots left on the computer we're using, that's why I was thinking USB. I'll check next time I'm there.

If not I'd need something with 2 HDMI capture inputs. One input is for a camera, the other is the slides presentation software. We have an Ethernet HDMI switch for the 3 TV's used for the slides that has a monitor out that's HDMI, that's where I have the HDMI to composite adapter connected (and where I was trying to use the HDMI to component adapter). We don't need anything high end, 1080p is fine, just something with better picture quality than composite. That's why if I could have gotten component working along with HDMI I'd have been thrilled.

Definitely was going to look for USB 3.0 if I did go that route.

 

[xerics]

A final follow-up, decided to try an HDMI to s-video converter before purchasing another HDMI capture card and that looks amazingly better than the HDMI to composite adapter we were using. The picture is sharper/clearer and the colors are better too, didn't think it would be that big of a difference.