Gameplay Recording

[joe_mason]

Does anyone know of a device I can buy that will allow me to record game play from a Sega mega drive?

[BuckoA51]

What sort of budget do you have? Do you already have an upscaler?

The Mega Drive's one of the most problematic systems because it's output is just that little bit out of spec. The very best capture card on the market for retro console capture is the Micomsoft SC- 500N1 DVI Component RGB Capture Card. It's about the only card that's fully compatible with everything from 240p (Megadrive, SNES etc) up to 1080p. It'll cost you around £260 shipped.

The Blackmagic capture cards are lovely but won't work directly, not without an upscaler between your Mega drive and the capture cards.

At the other end of the market there's this http://www.meritline.com/usb-2-0-hd-vid ... 71777.aspx Don't expect mind blowing results with it, but for the money it'll capture footage good enough for Youtube.

[Drakon]

Recorded from my 32x with the new s-video mod I came up with. Recorded it with a 12$ usb easycap device. Applied light filtering in virtualdub and it looks as good as an emulator. I could do the same with my new sega genesis model 1 s-video mod and get pretty similar results. You don't need expensive gear if you know what you're doing.

[hydr0x]

What sort of budget do you have? Do you already have an upscaler?

The Mega Drive's one of the most problematic systems because it's output is just that little bit out of spec. The very best capture card on the market for retro console capture is the Micomsoft SC- 500N1 DVI Component RGB Capture Card. It's about the only card that's fully compatible with everything from 240p (Megadrive, SNES etc) up to 1080p. It'll cost you around £260 shipped.

The Blackmagic capture cards are lovely but won't work directly, not without an upscaler between your Mega drive and the capture cards.

At the other end of the market there's this http://www.meritline.com/usb-2-0-hd-vid ... 71777.aspx Don't expect mind blowing results with it, but for the money it'll capture footage good enough for Youtube.

Mhhh, the Micomsoft relies on a RGB-SCART to VGA adapter which I find is the biggest problem in general with capturing devices. It's probably because the US doesn't have scart. Anything YUV, HDMI, VGA or DVI is easy enough to capture, as are composite-only systems. But with RGB capable SCART devices it's really troublesome. How does the Micomsoft compare to the Hauppage HD PVR which is often recommended aswell?

[Liamh1982]

Why not just buy a DVD recorder cheap from wherever and rip your recordings to your hard drive?

[hydr0x]

Why not just buy a DVD recorder cheap from wherever and rip your recordings to your hard drive?

For RGB Scart u mean? The DVD compression is the problem there :/ But, a top notch Blu-ray (or HDD) recorder with RGB SCART in might actually be a good idea.

[BuckoA51]

Mhhh, the Micomsoft relies on a RGB-SCART to VGA adapter which I find is the biggest problem in general with capturing devices. It's probably because the US doesn't have scart.

You can easily pick up a Megadrive SCART cable off e-bay though, and SCART does give you the very best possible picture.

The Micomsoft card blows everything else out of the water as far as game capture is concerned, it's the only card that will capture 240p RGB native. All other cards you'd be capturing 480i basically, but the results are still not that bad. The Micomsoft card will capture things like arcade boards and esoteric stuff that regular cards will choke on, and the quality is pretty much pixelperfect:-



The Micomsoft card will do VGA capture too, such as from a Dreamcast:-

http://arcade.ym2149.com/files/sc500n1/ ... 193444.BMP

Does all that make it worth so much more than cheaper capture cards? That's up to you to decide!

Why not just buy a DVD recorder cheap from wherever and rip your recordings to your hard drive?

This does work as well as some of the cheaper capture cards actually, it's just a little inconvenient. Couple of folks over on the Sega Saturn forum do this and get good results.

[hydr0x]

Mhhh, the Micomsoft relies on a RGB-SCART to VGA adapter which I find is the biggest problem in general with capturing devices. It's probably because the US doesn't have scart.

You can easily pick up a Megadrive SCART cable off e-bay though, and SCART does give you the very best possible picture.

You don't understand what I'm saying. The problem is that these capturing devices (both the micom aswell as the hauppage) don't natively come with a RGB SCART input port. You thus always have to use some kind of converter/adapter, which seems counterproductive in terms of quality and expense.

[BuckoA51]

Ah right, no, the Micomsoft card does NOT need the input signal converted to VGA!

in the case of the Micomsoft card it comes with a little adapter that converts SCART plug (well JP21) into D-Sub 15, all it is is a sync splitter. Don't confuse VGA (31khz 640x480) with D-Sub 15. VGA is an image standard, D-Sub 15 is just a cable/connector. You feed RGB in and it captures in RGB, zero conversion, upscaling/downscaling or quality loss. So no it doesn't have a SCART socket on the card as such (that would be difficult to fit!), but you can feed it a raw, unconverted RGB signal. As you've noticed this makes it one of the few cards where you can do this and the only one that supports 240p/288p directly.

You may need a JP21 to SCART adapter but all that does is switch round a few wires, doesn't convert anything. Hope that clears up the confusion!

[joe_mason]

Would i be able to do it with these two devices?

Plug the AV cable into the mega drive and then into the EasyCap and then into a laptop computer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Sega-Mega-Drive-2-3-Genesis-Stereo-AV-TV-Video-Lead-Cable-RF-Replacement-/400248123844?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JN&hash=item5d30a5b1c4

Recorded from my 32x with the new s-video mod I came up with. Recorded it with a 12$ usb easycap device. Applied light filtering in virtualdub and it looks as good as an emulator. I could do the same with my new sega genesis model 1 s-video mod and get pretty similar results. You don't need expensive gear if you know what you're doing.

An Everdrive i see

[BuckoA51]

I can tell you others have had trouble getting the Easycap won't work with the Saturn, course that's not to say it won't work with the Megadrive. Use S-Video if possible. You may find it a little input laggy to capture and play too.

[hydr0x]

Ah right, no, the Micomsoft card does NOT need the input signal converted to VGA!

in the case of the Micomsoft card it comes with a little adapter that converts SCART plug (well JP21) into D-Sub 15, all it is is a sync splitter. Don't confuse VGA (31khz 640x480) with D-Sub 15. VGA is an image standard, D-Sub 15 is just a cable/connector. You feed RGB in and it captures in RGB, zero conversion, upscaling/downscaling or quality loss. So no it doesn't have a SCART socket on the card as such (that would be difficult to fit!), but you can feed it a raw, unconverted RGB signal. As you've noticed this makes it one of the few cards where you can do this and the only one that supports 240p/288p directly.

You may need a JP21 to SCART adapter but all that does is switch round a few wires, doesn't convert anything. Hope that clears up the confusion!

Aaah, thanks for clearing that up. That makes it quite interesting indeed, what's the cheapest way to get one incl. that Scart adapter then? I don't currently have the funds but we desperately need one for RC in the future to provide gameplay videos for the database

[BuckoA51]

Solaris Japan are the official worldwide distributors, http://www.solarisjapan.com/categories/XRGB/

I don't own one myself just yet, but I did get my XRGB3 from Solaris and they were very helpful so I can vouch for them.

Remember the X-Sync unit (the adapter it comes with) uses JP21 not SCART (exactly the same connector, just wired differently) so you'll need a converter if you want to connect SCART directly, Retrogamingcables.co.uk carry them http://www.retrogamingcables.co.uk/euro ... -converter

[ninjabearhug]

Would i be able to do it with these two devices?

Plug the AV cable into the mega drive and then into the EasyCap and then into a laptop computer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Sega-Mega-Drive-2-3-Genesis-Stereo-AV-TV-Video-Lead-Cable-RF-Replacement-/400248123844?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JN&hash=item5d30a5b1c4

You can capture video with an AV cable and Easycap, but the gameplay will lag and the sound will be terrible. You can get around the lag easy enough by splitting the signal before connecting to the Easycap, but it will always sound bad. Using S-Video with the Easycap is pretty good capture wise, but the lag problem is much harder to get round as S-Video splitters are harder to find and not as cheap as AV splitters .

I personally use a Hauppage HD PVR, the results are good enough for me and it's real easy to use, not easy to connect to retro TV's though, getting any decent capture card running on CRT is troublesome. I've spent quite a bit of money on capture/recording equipment over the past year or so and have alsorts of switch banks and stuff set up, I can capture any of my consoles at a resolution I'm happy with now at the flick of a switch

[joe_mason]

Would i be able to do it with these two devices?

Plug the AV cable into the mega drive and then into the EasyCap and then into a laptop computer.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Sega-Mega-Drive-2-3-Genesis-Stereo-AV-TV-Video-Lead-Cable-RF-Replacement-/400248123844?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameAccessories_VideoGameAccessories_JN&hash=item5d30a5b1c4

You can capture video with an AV cable and Easycap, but the gameplay will lag and the sound will be terrible. You can get around the lag easy enough by splitting the signal before connecting to the Easycap, but it will always sound bad. Using S-Video with the Easycap is pretty good capture wise, but the lag problem is much harder to get round as S-Video splitters are harder to find and not as cheap as AV splitters .

I personally use a Hauppage HD PVR, the results are good enough for me and it's real easy to use, not easy to connect to retro TV's though, getting any decent capture card running on CRT is troublesome. I've spent quite a bit of money on capture/recording equipment over the past year or so and have alsorts of switch banks and stuff set up, I can capture any of my consoles at a resolution I'm happy with now at the flick of a switch

Well i have brought the stuff a few days ago and its in the post cost less than £15 in total with a AV splitter.

Why does the sound so bad? I have read that using a line in converter improves the audio.

[BuckoA51]

not easy to connect to retro TV's though

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Why would you connect the capture card to the TV surely it connects to the console?

[ninjabearhug]

not easy to connect to retro TV's though

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Why would you connect the capture card to the TV surely it connects to the console?

Your console connects to the pvr, which you then connect to your computer for recording and your TV for playing. The only TV output on the PVR is component which is pretty much impossible to find on most PAL CRT's. Works spot on with modern TV's as they nearly all have component inputs but I like playing old skool .

[BuckoA51]

Ah right I see. I'd split the SCART signal out rather than loop it through the capture card, that'd solve that problem entirely.