Question / Help I'm looking for a cheap 64/Wii capture card

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dr_jackd

New Member
A lot of the capture cards streamers are using don't work well with Linux, and most of them are probably overpriced just for having the word 'game' in them. I was looking into old tv capture cards because that's what's most well documented throgh the mythtv.org wiki. I'm not interested in usb capture cards or HD capture.
Looking through the wiki there is this https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Bttv page that has a list of 100 capture cards that don't do any hardware encoding so they should work well for streaming, but I have quite a few lingering questions.
1. Will these work with console output (N64 and Wii)? Most if not all of these cards advertise Television capture only.
2. Will any of these cards do 60 fps capture? I'm looking to record Smash bros and really want to be able to look at clips frame by frame.
3. I don't really care if audio capture works on the card as I have a work around in mind, are there any cards that would work better but do video only?
3. Is this a good choice for what I need? Any other options? I'm looking for something under 100$ and under 50$ is preferable - I will almost certainly be buying used.
 
H4ndy

H4ndy

Forum Moderator
You will need a card with video-in (yellow RCA jack) or component (RGB) input. Be aware that you most likely need to split the signal since old TV cards might introduce a nice lag into the video stream making it unsuitable for reaction-critical gameplay since they are built for passive TV/aux recording.

Unfortunately, there is a reason that real raw capture cards a tad more expensive.
 
ubuntuaddicted

ubuntuaddicted

Member
dr_jackd said:
A lot of the capture cards streamers are using don't work well with Linux, and most of them are probably overpriced just for having the word 'game' in them. I was looking into old tv capture cards because that's what's most well documented throgh the mythtv.org wiki. I'm not interested in usb capture cards or HD capture.
Looking through the wiki there is this https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Bttv page that has a list of 100 capture cards that don't do any hardware encoding so they should work well for streaming, but I have quite a few lingering questions.
1. Will these work with console output (N64 and Wii)? Most if not all of these cards advertise Television capture only.
Click to expand...
if you just want a frame grabber which relies heavily on your cpu, than an easycap (720x480 px (NTSC)) should work but i highly suggest you look into a hardware encoder otherwise you won't be able to capture it AND re-encode it to stream to any rtmp site because your CPU will be overloaded. assuming you want this so called device you're getting to work with obs-studio for linux, currently the only external devices that are supported in obs are NONE (or check this out here: https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Analog_Hardware_Encoder_Cards) (only v4l capable devices I should say). I currently have a PVR-350 and a PVR-500 that have a breakout cable for capturing SD video but that's only 720x480p. I also have an ancient Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge that I captured from using firewire and kino, not sure if it would work with obs. current implementation of the v4l device capture is not seeing my hdpvr model 1212 which has a kernel module but the video stream doesn't contain a header and other stuff so capturing from it only works with just cat, NOT obs. any device you can get to work in VLC "should" also work in obs-studio. there's a dedicated thread for external capture devices here: https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/video-capture-device-v4l2-plugin.17358/
also note that someone is currently trying to reverse engineer an elgato hd driver for linux.
dr_jackd said:
2. Will any of these cards do 60 fps capture? I'm looking to record Smash bros and really want to be able to look at clips frame by frame.
Click to expand...
see above
dr_jackd said:
3. I don't really care if audio capture works on the card as I have a work around in mind, are there any cards that would work better but do video only?
Click to expand...
see above
dr_jackd said:
3. Is this a good choice for what I need? Any other options? I'm looking for something under 100$ and under 50$ is preferable - I will almost certainly be buying used.
Click to expand...
see above
 
Last edited:
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dr_jackd

New Member
Hey ubuntuaddicted thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to go with a Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150, but I'm not sure how that compares to the -350 or -500, but it seems far easier to find. As far as I can tell it provides both a raw dump and an mpeg2 on Linux, so I'll be able to try both, and looking on ebay I can get this card for 22$. I went through all 100 cards on the Bttv page I linked in op and this seems like the easiest to get and I've seen linux people posting that it works. Once I get it I'll update here again with how it goes. I'm still hoping for 60fps capture. I've also got splitters and svideo av cables shipping so that's covered
 
ubuntuaddicted

ubuntuaddicted

Member
the PVR-350 is just a PVR-150 with a built in GPU for displaying graphics but it's not well supported in linux so the PVR-150 is perfect. The PVR-500 is just 2 PVR-150 on 1 card. I suggest your next best bet is a http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Easycap if you're looking for really cheap. or even look into firewire devices but not sure if the v4l plugin in obs can access it
 
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