Game Consoles through a capture card?

[Kibo-kun]

I want to play my xbox on my monitor so I can take screenshots. Is it possible to do this with a normal video card? Using the S-Video thing, maybe? Or would I need a special adapter for it?


I just found this: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-116-005&depa=0 would this or a product like this be what I'm looking for? Also, will this work with a DirectTV satellite box?

I also found this: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...-160-022&depa=0 and it looks a lot more appealing because I don't need the extra features of a full box. Another dumb question, I hear these cards require a fast processor. I have an A64 2800+, would that be ok?

[Kibo-kun]

*bump* Ok, I KNOW someone here knows how to do this. it isn't some well kept secret....to whoever replies, thank you soo much. :D

[9mmCensor]

If you have a TV Input or Svideo In you can do it.

[cack01]

I've been playing my XBOX on my computer all summer using my AIW VE.

[nealric]

you need to have vivo (video in, video out)

Or alternatively a tv box. I got mine at newegg for $66 shipped. It lets you hook up 3 devices to your monitor and also has a tv tuner. plugs righht into the vga port.

[Kibo-kun]

If you have a TV Input or Svideo In you can do it.

Hmm, I'm going to Gamestop today, hopefully they'll have some Xbox S-vid adapters. If not...I'll get an AIW card. I heard the quality on those TV boxes suck compared to the PCI cards.

[upstreamcurrent]

Here's wanted to do the same thing, except it was a SNES.

I tried to use the video in, but simply couldn't figure it out, so I gave up for a while. I think I needed some software, but it wasn't really worth the effort at the time. Later on, I bought a leadtek tv tuner with an s-video in and a little dongle dohicky that let me plug on rca or s-video. then I got a nice little RCA audio to 1/8" stereo plug to plug the audio from the snes into the the tv card. It works like a charm and gives me the option to record and watch TV as well as play games.

[[aXe]]

I used to do this all the time with a Pinnacle Studio DC10+ (back when it was still worth something, heh).

It's still a great capture card, and you can pick them up for 50-75 bucks these days brand new.

It's a PCI card with Composite in & out and SVideo in & out (it records audio through your sound card). Hardware motion-jpeg encoding for 640x480x30FPS capture with no frame drops providing your hard drive is fast enough to keep up (which most are these days).

But yeah, it's not difficult to do. Some Radeon & other cards have VIVO capabilities built into them. I have an old 32Meg Rage Fury Pro 128VIVO laying around somewhere and a 64Meg Radeon DDR VIVO. Both work great for this kind of thing.

[Kibo-kun]

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It's a PCI card with Composite in & out and SVideo in & out (it records audio through your sound card).

What If i'm using the Chaintech integrated sound card? (soo good. :D) Will it still record the audio?

btw, thank you all for your help, I think I'll try out a few of the more inexpensive options first. :)

[upstreamcurrent]

with my tv card, you have to connect a cable from the line in on the sound card to the line out on the tv card, so if your tv card has line in, you will be just peachy.

[Kibo-kun]

lol, I guess I have to pay the price for liking my integrated sound....XP

[[aXe]]

What If i'm using the Chaintech integrated sound card? (soo good. :D) Will it still record the audio?

Yeah, it's only a setting in the software to tell it what audio device to record from. The ATI VIVO cards don't record audio either, so that has to record through the sound card too.

I've had a couple of cards in the past that had audio inputs, but the quality was better going through the sound card anyway, so I've always done it that way.

[[aXe]]

with my tv card, you have to connect a cable from the line in on the sound card to the line out on the tv card, so if your tv card has line in, you will be just peachy.

I had a similar card in the past, it had a lil socket on it similar to the small CD audio sockets you see on sound cards. I never used the CD-Rom on my machine for audio, so I just used a regular CD audio cable to go from the tuner's line out to the CD input on the sound card. Worked a treat :)

[Khasra]

I would just point out that you can bypass the TV card's audio inputs and plug the source audio (from a game console or whatever) into your sound card's line in. The only reason to use the line out from TV card into the sound card is when capturing via coaxial when the sound is integrated.

I would hope that my Leadtek PCI cap card just passes the input directly into the output, and even if it doesn't it probably doesn't alter the signal substantially, but there's just no reason to take an extra stop IMO.

[upstreamcurrent]

Yea, you can do that too, but it's easier for me to do it this way since I use the card for TV too.