Question / Help Which Capture Card should i get

[TricksyOne]

Hey guys, im ramping up my setup for the preparation of Titanfall. I currently stream just from pc directly to twitch but I would like to stream Titanfall from my Xbox One. Pretty much I am in need of some advice on to which capture card will work the best and also work flawlessly with OBS. I am not really interested in an USB capture cards, mostly looking for a card to throw in my PC and stream 1080p gameplay at around 60ps

 

[dodgepong]

First of all, streaming at 1080p60 is a terrible idea. Flash is really bad at 1080p playback, and computers of even average power struggle with it. If viewers don't have the ability to change quality settings while watching your channel, then you'll get a lot of people having trouble watching.

If you still want a capture that can capture and output at 1080p60, though, then your two main consumer-level options are the XCAPTURE-1 and the SC-512N1-L, both from Micomsoft. The XCAPTURE-1 is a USB 3.0 device, and is very good, and can capture HDMI at 1080p60. However, you have to have an Intel or Renesas USB 3.0 controller for it to work. The SC-512N1-L is basically an internal version of the XCAPTURE-1, but instead of HDMI capture, it has DVI capture. You can easily get an adapter for HDMI -> DVI, but DVI does not support audio, so you'll have to find a way to split the audio off of the HDMI signal in order to capture it with the SC-512N1-L.

The Live Gamer HD can capture 1080p60 source video, but it only outputs at 1080p30. It also can downscale a 1080p60 source to 720p60 and output that, so that could work too.

Just don't stream at 1080p60, for your own sake and for the sake of your viewers.

 

[TricksyOne]

So your saying the Live Gamer HD would work best and 720p 60fps is what my main goal would be. Also I have an Astro Mixamp for audio and can do a direct line into PC for voice chat over xbox and sound.

 

[FerretBomb]

Seconded, streaming at 1080@60 is pretty pointless, and definitely NOT recommended. It requires a very fast processor to keep up with encoding 1080@60 in real-time (anything but a top-tier Core i7 isn't going to be able to do it, even at Veryfast), a TON of bitrate (around 5000kbps minimum; which doesn't work, with Twitch's 3500kbps bitrate max... and is going to look like a hot mess at 3500), only marginally improves your visual quality over 30fps (seriously, most people won't even NOTICE), narrows your viewer-base by a LOT (to those who can devote a large chunk of bandwidth to a single stream AND have the systems capable of overcoming the Flash player's resource-hungry bogginess... it really has major trouble keeping up at all at 1080@60 regardless of what you run it on).

Really, if your encoding system has the welly to actually produce a non-craptastic 1080@60 stream? Run 1080@30 and drop the encoder preset speed by a notch (or even two). You'll deliver visibly superior 1080 video, stay within the 3500kbps cap (while delivering video quality above most other 1080p streams) and no one's going to notice that it isn't 60fps. It'll also allow you to run a less-expensive AverMedia card, feeding it 1080@60 and capping 1080@30. If you REALLY MUST have 1080@60 capture, the XCAPTURE-1 is probably the way to go... don't think I'd go with the SC-512N1-L due to the headache of getting the audio back in, and sync'd again. (As a side note, Audio-over-DVI is possible with some devices, though I'm not sure if that particular one supports it.)

People aren't going to come to your stream just because you have certain number-boxes ticked. They'll leave if THEY end up ticked at the constant buffering-loop though.

 

[Boildown]

Its not a bad idea to seek a 1080p60 input capable device. Just don't OUTPUT that. Either Micomsoft is reportedly really good, the Avermedia Live Gamer HD is solid, but its 3.5mm audio input is crap, not sure about the HDMI audio, but its probably crap too. The Avermedia forums have posts about this problem. Use a separate sound card for audio in with that capture device.

I actually run two instances of OBS: one to capture full screen 1080p60 to my hard drive for making YouTube videos, and the other with a 1.5 downscale to 720p for sending to Twitch. So I'm getting value out of having a capture card capable of 1080p60 input.

 

[TricksyOne]

i just need solid capture for video my mixamp is hooked up through optical and then i run a line into the computer for sound from my xbox.

 

[FerretBomb]

Well then, sounds like an AverMedia card is for you, at the ~$150 price point.

Or the SC-512N1-L if you can swing the $330 price tag, and want actual 1080p@60 capture.

Or a Datapath Vision if you can handle a ~$1K budget (closer to $600 on eBay) and want even higher quality with almost no CPU utilization for the capture processing. When I build my devoted streaming box, this last one is what I'll be grabbing; an RGB-E2s. No-compromises performance, perfect color reproduction, and even has a devoted direct interface plugin for OBS. :D

 

[Boildown]

Or a Datapath Vision if you can handle a ~$1K budget (closer to $600 on eBay) and want even higher quality with almost no CPU utilization for the capture processing. When I build my devoted streaming box, this last one is what I'll be grabbing; an RGB-E2s. No-compromises performance, perfect color reproduction, and even has a devoted direct interface plugin for OBS. :D

I'm seriously tempted to throw down 1.5Gs for a DVI-DL. But first I need to find out if it works with G-Sync, and/or if AMD's Mantle is going to kick Nvidia's ass to the curb or not. If this method of streaming doesn't work with G-Sync (i.e. if you can't clone the display with G-Sync active on the primary, or the capture cards can't deal with a fluctuating framerate), then there's no way I want to be stuck with a massively expensive capture card that I can't use. But the DVI-DL is basically twice as capable as anything else they sell.

 

[FerretBomb]

Nice, I didn't see the DVI-DL last time I looked. 4K support could be quite nifty for futureproofing, though if streaming to Twitch I highly doubt that it'll be useful any time soon... given that they're still falling over on 1080@60, at 4K using almost 8 times the pixel density, I doubt that anyone would want to watch 4K video at 8fps (equivalent throughput to 1080@60).

But for local production and dead-file uploads to YouTube/Vimeo? Could be pretty spiffy.

 

[Boildown]

2560x1440p120 for local saving if it runs over spec as well as my E1S does, 2x downscale for Twitch. :P

 

[FerretBomb]

Let me know if you're looking to sell off that E1s after your upgrade. Was planning on an E2s, but was mostly to allow more flexibility as far as head-to-head gaming (an unlikely use-case most of the time) while I was already laying out the scratch.