I'm a big fan of the Magewell capture devices. I have the USB Capture (2K) and the PCI-e Pro Capture (2K-- also supports Y/C, composite, and component analog inputs). Not being tied to proprietary software is a huge bonus, imo, since you can capture the video using any software that can pull data from video source devices (eg. DirectShow sources on Windows, or V4L2 sources on Linux). I have the Pro Capture (PCI-e version) stuck in a Linux server that I use to capture stuff from old VHS and Hi8 (via S-Video), as well as newer game consoles. Magewell published the required kernel driver and CLI tools that can be used to easily change display modes, audio inputs, etc. And their desktop app for Windows/Mac for the USB device works great as well. They are not cheap (the 2K versions are $300-- I'd recommend the PCI-e Pro Capture, since it also has analog support), but are great if you either need Linux support, or need to capture arbitrary scan modes/resolutions.
I have two Magewell external HD USB3 capture devices and one HD Dual Capture PCI capture card running in a Sonnet Thunderbolt enclosure. I use vMix to stream mostly conferences and meetings. I run 3 4K cameras, two Panasonic HC1000 and one Panasonic DVX-200. I started out with Blackmagic and they are way more trouble then they are worth, I wouldn't recommend. Magewell is totally worth the price and if I ever upgrade to stream 4K, I will definitely go with their cards. I cannot recommend Magewell enough and I'm seriously considering their NDI cards.
I currently use the AverMedia Live Gamer HD 2, and plan on getting the Live Gamer 4k shortly. So far, the HD 2 has been by far my most compatible and signal-happy capture card in my fleet. And while the Magewell sounds awesome, I'd rather have 3x Live Gamer 4ks in my rig.
Magewell cards are the only ones with enough flexibility and compatibility with open standards to actually be useful for my type of work - I even got one working under Solaris recently. I'm not a gamer or anything like that, I'm an open source hardware and software developer and if you're not trying to get the newest and most high-end solution - they offer plenty of cards with only relevant features for often a lot cheaper than any of that "gaming"-stuff. They're really amazing products and I can only recommend them. (Though it is annoying how they still only have HDMI on some cards so it's my hassle with an analog signal and I have to go through multiple steps of conversion. Also Display port is in any way the superior standard)
I bought the Magewell pro capture 4k HDMI back when it was only $300 and it has been worth every cent. You know why? Reliability. When you need a capture card that will work 999/1000 times when you boot up your software for live streaming so you can go to air on time, there are no other cards that are more reliable than Magwell, and we have been through several professional capture cards from Black Magic, and consumer cards from Avermedia. One thing we've been burned on in the past by cheaper capture cards is their OS support. You may buy them now, they may work just fine now, but they will always release newer models. And when they do they stop supporting drivers on the older capture cards. We have black-magic cards that are 10 years old that we still use because drivers are still supported, something I cannot say for the cheaper gamer brands. When you make a living off live streaming/video mixing, it makes sense to invest in a magewell card. It's who the intended audience is. Notice how none of the Magewell cards don't have RGB lights all over them?
True. I use Magewell card for professional stream and visual stuff and it nevers fail on any software i use. Resolume, vMix, OBS, you named it. I tried to buy a HD60S Elgato once. It works okay but sometime finicky and janky, need to plug/unplug in some scenario meanwhile magewell cards just works without hassle
Hello again. Did you do any testing on the internal scaling feature? I mean, can you play at 1440p, downscale it inside the card and set the OBS canvas at 1080p? Is it better than in-OBS scaling with all the filters? (bicubic, lanczos etc)
So... I found out these cards use the exact same FPGA (Xilinx ARTIX-7 XC7A100T) as the WAY less expensive Blackmagic Decklink Mini Recorder 4K. You are completely correct about the lack of support on Magewell's side vs someone like Blackmagic, but my biggest gripe is does it support drop frame framerates properly? I got a Blackmagic because it guaranteed drop frame framerate support with proper frame times and it's carrying through on that promise through Windows, Mac, Fedora Linux and Ubuntu Linux. UVC devices have had issues with frame times on drop frame framerates and that's leading a bad taste in my mouth on any capture card that has pre-capture processing. (because the framerate cannot be guaranteed to be untouched) Oh and, My Life in Gaming was asking if there was a way to replace the cooler on the non-LT Magewell. Someone has already done a watercooling mod on that card: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K_0_wF0xCaw.html (He also uses a DisplayPort splitter + DP to HDMI 2.0 for 3440x1440 100Hz captures)
He did mention frame time-stamping, but not sure if it does it for input signals that are not time-stamped itself. Would be nice. For me this card looks like the only option possible. I need good Linux support, and weird resolutions support like 1920x1920, 2560x1600, 1920x1200@105Hz, 1600x1200, etc. And this looks like only card capable of doing this. Not even blackmagic quad 4k capture card can do it. It is a matter of firmware and fpga code, but blackmagic is not going to fix it. And blackmagic has a lot of propietary blobs in the driver and requires specialized software to access it on Linux. Not sure if it exposes V4L2 interfaces, but the megawell surely does.
I bought two GC573 cards based on yours and My Life In Gaming's videos and they have been fantastic, working perfectly with my ossc. Thanks so much for making these videos they have been very useful. Shame that this card costs so much because their dual input hdmi version would be great to have, but at $1800 it's just way out of range.
I looked at the Magewell card last year when I was buying our first capture card. I am early adopter of new tech stuff; but in the last half decade or so, my focus was on home theater equipment more so on gaming and game capture. When Slongi decided he wanted a youtube channel, and we found your OBS guide. It timed out nicely with your video on the Avermedia 4K HDR card. We were so happy with the first one, we added a second one to our capture PC. As you mentioned, the cost difference wouldn't make the magewell card worth our time, and as hobbyist creators the Avermedia product has fulfilled all of our needs. - Stew
I've been trying to find out what motherboard I should buy for my PC build, but all the motherboards I see in my price range have PCI-e 3.0 x1 slots. Most 4k capture cards like this one are PCI-e 2.0 x4. Do you think they will work on a Gen3 1.0 slot or should I just put it in the x16 slot? Been thinking about buying one of the 4k capture cards for the OSSC and possibly the 4k consoles.
I would be VERY wary of recommending this for RGB OSSC NES capture. Games Done Quick has attempted to use the quad-HDMI variant from Magewell, and discovered that they did NOT play nicely with NES output specifically. The capture had a massive flicker at the top third of the screen, which was not visible on normal viewing of the signal (both pre and post OSSC). We were unable to find any workaround for this issue, and it occurred with multiple RGB modded NESes. It's possible the single-channel is more compatible, but without a more in-depth test of their whole product line, it's hard to say what the issue is (as far as I'm aware, they're all running the same internal capture chips). If you really need OSSC capture and are willing to pay an arm and a leg like this, look at Yuan Hi-Tech cards. They are what Games Done Quick uses for their OSSC capture, and was the ONLY device we found that supported 4-way capture AND support the goofy signals.
I'm wanting to upgrade my current card to an Elgato 4k60 Pro. Yea price hinders me from getting one of those Magewell cards, but maybe in the future i can probably get one. Nice to see Try4ce from MLiG collab! great vid!
I have an AJA Kona HDMI. It was $900 and does 4K 60 HDR and has four ports (only one of which can do more than 1080p, usually). It's meant to be stuff in some studio broadcast room so it's not the best choice. I don't even use it any more because of how annoyingly loud the fan is. Doesn't support 1440p or generally any non-standard resolutions. I bought it because it had Linux support but it's just one developer so I had to fix things on my own when I upgraded Arch Linux. I should have went with magewell or datapath.
Its one thing that the slot is x16, but electrically they often not x16! Usually if you use the first one (closest to the cpu) its x16. If you put another card in a second they become two x8 slot. The third one is on the PCH, and its x1/x2/x4 but never x8 or x16. Simply there are not enough PCIE lanes in the cpu to create more than one full x16 slot. So be careful, look up how the motherboard is wired and how many PCIE lanes does your CPU has.
Depends on your CPU, which is why I put that notice in there. Ryzen and Threadripper have plenty of lanes to go around, as does Intel's HEDT. But again, this only needs x4, which isn't too too much.
The only consumer graphics cards that suffer reduced performance being used in x8 mode instead of x16 are the 2080ti and rtx titan, and it's a only 3% performance loss. Unless you're running a dual gpu setup, you have enough pcie lanes to spare no matter what cpu or motherboard chipset you have.
@@KingHalbatorix It depends on the workload. In games it might be 3%. I have a TitanXP in my machine (not for gaming) and I definitely feel that they only run in x8. When I'm initializing huge data sets in the GPU memory the busload is 100% for 10's of seconds. I also have a 1050Ti in that machine, and the same is true for that. When I run out of the GPU memory and have to access the system memory from the GPU the x8 lane quickly becomes a bottleneck. Like 95% drop in performance. But again, this depends on the application.
I bought the same card today. I need the full 4:4:4 colour throughput and neither the 4k60 PRO and the Avermedia seem to allow me to do so (they're both in front of me in their respective boxes). It should be arriving later this week. By the sound of it this should solve my problem. Thanks for your detailed video!
I use 2x Elgato HD60 PRO cards to capture cameras and they work great. It's nice that you can use up to 3 of them in OBS at the same time. I also have a Magewell X1000 USB HDMI which is awesome, but cost just as much as both of the Elgato cards combined.
What lens did you use for the b-roll? Looks like vaseline around the edges, or was it a post filter? IMO it's a bit too blurred, kinda distracting. Cool vid though! good work!
is there a capture card on the cheap with up to 4 inputs? Either that or could you recommend the best HDMI switch if you have any experience with HDMI switches? I have all the current gen consoles and two pcs. the gaming pc is on the hdmi switch that shares the same output as my other consoles. it's really annoying with almost all the hdmi switches i looked up auto switching when it detects my ps4's standby power, especially during a stream
I'm wondering how via OSSC would the AverMedia card would handle 70Hz VGA, and older arcade boards like Mortal Kombat, R-Type, and Raiden that output at 54/55Hz.
Do you have any recommendations for a 4x4k 60hz 4K inputs to a pc or maybe a video mixer recommendation? Pantelis Comedy on youtuve uses 4x Elgato Camlink 4k into a usb 3.0 4×hub to usb-c to a usb-c port on an ASUS gaming laptop.
Only just heard about these cards a couple of months ago and started saving up for it. So hopefully by Christmas or if there's a great Black Friday sale or something. I don't need a lot of the bells and whistles the Magewell Pro Capture HDMI 4K Plus LT comes with, but sadly as a Linux user, neither Avermedia and Elgato 4K60 capture cards which are cheaper provide support of any kind for Linux. The USB versions of the Avermedia 4K Gamer Pro card is there, but it only captures 4K at 30hz not 60hz. It is a shame other companies chose to lock down their drivers.
Sounds like a great card, but for $899, you would assume it would have analog input as well. I guess not having to worry about your input source comes with a high price tag. I have been looking at the Black Magic capture card, and the 4 input Magewell has been on my radar as well. I have been wondering why this card was so expensive, but you somewhat answered that question. Great vid.
@@blackyvertigo Actually, several do The BlackMagic Intensity Pro 4k is a 4:4:4 card, but, as shown in this video, it doesn't have the support for a wide range of input. It just comes down to the basics of "you get more when you pay more".
Why would you want this over a Threadripper 1950x X Something like Action which I use? I am asking becuase this has my interest in the benefits of a capture card vs software/cpu
@@EposVox Well then why even have a capture card ? Know something I get a feeling I am better off researching this on my own since you have no idea of what I am asking.
Capture Cards do not benefit 1 PC setups. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-55ROLsQiiU8.html Capture cards are for external inputs, so useful if you're already doing multi-node capture/streaming setups (very common in PC streaming scene) or bringing in sources that can't be captured by software.
holy cow i thought that his reason was that it was too pricey (and was right BUT...) i expected it to cost like 300$... 900$!!! i need a 1080p HDMI with a pass trough for less that 200$ (preferably sub 150$) to record from the PS3.
@@EposVox nice, 250$ is a bit but shipping was free on all the top ones showed by google. (Canadian that is since i am ;P ) definitely better than pointing my 720p (and picture noise full) webcam to the screen at the perfect distance and aim... thanks! (at that price i can get it in 3 month, at 900... could build a medium budget gaming PC!)
can somebody pls explain what the point of a capture card is? I can normally capture with programms like obs on pc. Can somebody explain what they exactly do? i seriously have no idea why you would pay for one.
Even Datapath themselves couldn't recommend me any methods of splitting a single Displayport signal into two, nor converting HDMI to DP (this was 2016 tho).
like how is it even supposed to loop through more than QHD @120fps without DP. HDMI 2.1 doesn't have that much bandwidth. I personally have a QHD 165Hz Monitor and I couldn't make it loop without losing smoothness apparently.
These Products will never have something like DP. They are focused on capturing Signals from Cameras, wich have SDI or even HDMI outputs. If you want to capture DP you have to look for Gaming specific Capture Cards from Elgato.
what consoles uses Display Port? cause i doubt you would use a capture card for a PC (tho i do not own a fancy camera... maybe those have one) since OBS is more than capable for screen capture (even VLC can do that ;P )
I suspect we're not likely to ever see DP1.4 pass-through cards. I'd love to be proven wrong as I actually do play 4K/144FPS and push DP1.4 to its max. The market of folks that will be able to use and abuse a card like that to their fullest is fairly small. It would require a PCI-E 3.0 x8 slot at the minimum just to work properly given the sheer bandwidth requirements.
@@EposVox Those are DP1.2 ports, not 1.4, unfortunately. Like the SC-UHD2, they've got the 8-lane card, which is a great start. Now they need to ditch the HDMI and DP1.2 in favor of 2 x DP1.4.
I will tell you this you will have issues with stock psr4 pros and xbox one x's whether it is a secodaunit such as a tablet or phone to a exterternal hard drive used as a ram disc because both lack the horsepower to full 4k hdr in use and before you ask I already know this because I own 4k hdr tv's to know the limitations both the ps4 and xbox1 hardware has in processing the 4k hdr content on its own.. At this stage whether you use S-video /component/ scart hdmin conversion cables on original hardware such as ps2/xbox/cube/wii/saturn/n64 On side notes: I know s-video will work froms snes, cube, n64, wii, I do not know whether it iwill work on mutli av modded nes consoles.. I can not confirm whether the component will as far back as the snes because at the time I never had the component cable to test with regardless of final outpu of for what a pal/ntsc console is capable of doing going on the basis of bandwidth spec, component could onlt do 1080i if game or movie supported it however talking in confines of s-video bus limitations is 720x576 trying to force 1080 out of something that can only achiseve 720x576 can cause image issues I have no clue what the ntsc/secam standard in yerms of resolution however after say that I think trying to push Note: in pal territories the original xbox was an ntsc console which had a dvd region lock in place.. however graphics modes could force 720x576 as a base resolution Best rest resolution outside of compnent connection is s-video so atlest from the ps2/xbox 720x576 can be used as long as you don't 720x587i/p or 1080i, and from a nintendo perspective 720x576 as this was more or a default resolution used for wide screen tv's at the time in my country.. So if you are into the game imprt scene at all for the original xbox all you need to do is set the region code of youre xbox assuming you might 2 or more xboixs I can't remember if this happened with the 3600 launnch or not
OR you use Linux and Elgato offerings do not support... Eventually I will get a Magewell.
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that's the point precisely, they went out of their way to be as problem and as dependency-free as possible. this is something that they deserve to get paid for. besides, linux is a perfect setup for streaming anyway
i was looking at the price and was like whaaat only 500 kuna, holy shit ima buy this capture card, I look again in 10 minutes wait what is that little eur.... fuck
The day I can drop a grand on a capture card and still have enough for bills and groceries and everything else, is the day I will even consider this card. If I could afford it without blinking an eye, it would be mine. Today is not that day.
@@EposVox as far as i been able to work out, the real issue isn't raw bandwidth even on X4, its latency. intel's DMI has issues with latency, its why intel's own optane storage is faster and more consistent on ryzen/threadripper even though both have same theoratical bandwidth over x4 lanes.
i know is a good card. I am saving for 3 since i need to have a external USB for other machine captura and the video camera. I am saving elgato, thecat? yea elgato
@@Timotarius_ sorry i did not explain the 3. i need to get 1 for internal, another one for my camera (camlink) and another for usb when i need to plug to another computer. sorry. I will change that later
@@HowdyFolksGaming Why would appearance possibly matter? A shroud would hinder airflow, and keeping it cool is of the upmost importance. Elgato's looks super cool but has no cooling. AVerMedia's at least has a heatsink, but nothing active.
It costs 900 bucks and looks hideous. I mean sure, SOME professional video production people don't mind or are not interested in how their PC looks but man, I work in an IT firm that builds PC's for private and enterprises use and I can tell you, 70% of the people who spent 5 or more grand on a PC want them to not look like garbage and this card doesn't fit that description at all. I mean, a black PCB always looks better and doesn't cost that much more to produce and a fancy shroud costs less than a dollar, at most 5 with LEDs
Shroud would hinder airflow. Also a PCIe card of all things, something that has no reason to be seen on anything but a test bench, does not need to be fancied up.
