Cap­ture Cards: everyone’s heard of them but what actu­ally are they?

Well, A Cap­ture Card in the sim­plest pos­si­ble terms, Is a graph­ics card that is either inter­nal or exter­nal that can be hooked up to a  T.V or a visual device that a games con­sole is plugged in to and you can record what-​​ever may be on the screen at the time be it, nor­mal T.V or a DVD, Once it has fin­ished record­ing it is saved on to your HDD (Hard Drive).

There are many dif­fer­ent types of Cap­ture Card but in this arti­cle we will be cov­er­ing 3, a bud­get low spec Cap­ture Card and 2 high end top of the range Cap­ture Cards.

Dur­ing the early days of peo­ple cap­tur­ing game-​​play for either mon­tages or game-​​play/​commentary one of the few cards on the mar­ket that was afford­able to most peo­ple was the Pin­na­cle Daz­zle Video Cre­ator Plat­inum.

To use this handy piece of kit the T.V that you are using has to have an OUTPUT so that you can get the image that you are view­ing in to the Daz­zle that then plugs in to the pc via a USB . With the Daz­zle comes the edit­ing soft­ware that  you need to get the record­ing all shiny and ready for pub­lic con­sump­tion, we here at Epic​fail​gamer​.com feel that the Daz­zle is a decent piece of kit per­fect for the low bud­get gamer try­ing to make it in the world of Youtube, It may not give you the best qual­ity in the world but it gives you a chance to get your con­tent straight on to the web.

Pin­na­cle Daz­zle Video Cre­ator Plat­inum can be picked up on Ama­zon for around £55 ($150).

Con­clu­sion on the Pin­na­cle Daz­zle Video Cre­ator Platinum

Pros: cheap, good value for money, allows you to edit your footage as soon as your fin­ished playing.

Cons: you do get some lag from the T.V to the pc but that isn’t notice­able when there watch­ing it on Youtube.

For the gamer with a bit more cash to spare the options open up as to which cap­ture card you go for (internal/​external) One of the best HD cap­ture cards on the mar­ket is the “Haup­pauge HD PVR” which is used by such Youtube leg­ends as Hutch & Mr.Sark. With this Cap­ture Card there is no need for your T.V to have an out­put as all the cables are plugged in to the Haup­pauge. The games con­sole is plugged in to the input con­nec­tors and the out­put con­nec­tors are plugged in the the T.V and like the Daz­zle it plugs in to the PC via a USB cable. prices for the Haup­pauge HD PVR start on Ama­zon from £175 ($209)

Con­clu­sion for the Haup­pauge HD PVR.

Pros: Well Designed, gives you beau­ti­ful video qual­ity, no need to pur­chase extra wires as  all the wires come packed in with it

Cons: A lit­tle bit pricey but you pay for qual­ity, its another thing that takes up a plug socket in the already over packed exten­sion cable, it requires you to have a PC or a lap­top near it as the USB cable doesn’t stretch that far

As you can see the Cons slightly out­weigh the Pros but never the less this is an amaz­ing Cap­ture Card

If you pre­fer that you didn’t have another thing on your desk/​entertainment cen­tre then you can always opt for the inter­nal cap­ture card on the high end of the mar­ket right up there with the Haup­pauge is the Black­magic Inten­sity Pro this lovely piece of kit fits in to your PCI-​​E X1 slot but is com­pat­i­ble with PCI-​​E X4, X8 and X16, the Black­magic Inten­sity Pro has 2 HDMI  ports “input” & “out­put” this means that you have to plug your games con­sole in to the “input” slot via HDMI and from the “out­put” on the Black­magic to your HD T.V, if you don’t have a HD T.V then never fear the Black­magic comes packed with a bunch of com­pos­ite cables so that you can plug your con­sole directly in to it and play your games off the mon­i­tor. the Black­magic Inten­sity Pro can be found on Ama­zon and starts from £150 ($190)

Con­clu­sion for Black­magic Inten­sity Pro.

Pros: Pro­vides beau­ti­fully clear visu­als, your pay­ing for qual­ity so the price tag is defi­antly worth it.

Cons: you have to take the cover off of your PC to install it, you need to cor­rectly iden­tify the PCI-​​E X1, X4, X8 or X16 slots but its not exactly rocket sci­ence, you also need a fairly decent com­puter for the ren­der­ing to be fast enough so that your not wait­ing a week to post content.

as you can see the Black­magic Inten­sity Pro is a decent Cap­ture Card with a fair price tag the qual­ity is sub­urb and with the price at £25 cheaper than the Haup­pauge HD PVR you cant go wrong.

Well that just about wraps it up for the Cap­ture Cards I hope that this arti­cle was help­ful to you in choos­ing the right one for your bud­get and com­puter knowl­edge, please feel free to com­ment and rate.

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