Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 4, 2018 Report Share Posted August 4, 2018 Hi Everyone! I recently picked up a Sabrent USB 2.0 Video and Audio capture device. It looks similar to the EasyCap USB device (dongle thing with wires coming out of both ends). But I have a few issues with it. I've tried testing it with every console I had and discovered not all is going as planned. My issues are listed below in case anyone here might have a few suggestions to try. Issue #1 - Works with about 50% of the consoles I own. PSOne is OK for boot up screens but loses all signals once the game tries to load. Doesn't work with Atari, TI, NES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis. Works OK with Dreamcast, N64, GameCube, Wii, XBOX, 360, PS2. I even tried patching signals through a hi-fi VCR to see if that helped any but same results. Video signal is almost like having a vertical scrolling issue with b/w images. Issue #2 - Video recording file size. What consoles it does work with I've used to test recording and editing features of the included software. It records to AVI automatically but a 10 minute video takes up between 9 and 10 GB of hard drive space. Is this normal? There are other options (WMV, MPEG, and one other I can't remember). I'm not sure if it is compressing the files or not. Any suggestions here where I can cut the file size down? The device was picked up as a way to capture better quality game play screens for use in YouTube video projects I'm working on for my channel. I've had one computer fail on me (which has been the reason why my videos have been delayed) and am stuck with a smaller laptop with only 75 GB of hard drive space. I removed anything that wasn't needed (after backing up of course) and uninstalled any large apps I didn't use often just to have space to use this device. If anyone has any experience using any kind of capturing device like this and might know of some pointers or tips I would appreciate the shared information. Website Link (for picture purposes): https://www.sabrent.com/download/usb-avcpt-windows-drivers/ MaximumRD 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted August 4, 2018 Report Share Posted August 4, 2018 You need to find the fine-tune settings for each channel. Click up and down the frequency selector for channel 3 until you get a nice clean signal. The Hauppauge cards are the same....they tune Atari products at best as a black/white fuzzy picture until you fine tune manually. The other option I can suggest is a very old TV Tuner program called "DScaler" that works with most analog tuners. It will work better than the software you get with the various products. Before I switched to just using a small LED analog TV, this was my go-to program for playing Atari on a computer. As for the file size issue...that does seem kind of large. I suggest finding a third party software for recording. Or downloading a CODEC pack that will do compression properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 4, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2018 If it helps, the video editing software it came with is Ulead Videostudio 10 SE. Its now owned by Corel. I'll have to see what features it has as I haven't found any adjustments like you have mentioned. https://www.videostudiopro.com/en/pages/old-brands/ulead-videostudio/ Typing www.ulead.com takes you straight to the site above. I will check out that old program you suggested as well as try to see if Windows Movie Maker can access and record from the device. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 4, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2018 For reference, here is a still screen of what systems like the NES (R.C. Pro Am used to capture still image) look like when using the video capture device I got. On the plus side I did manage to majorly increase the amount of time I have to record video. I switched to MPEG from AVI and now have about an hour's worth of recording time. A 10 minute recording only took 84 MB. Huge improvement! I just wish I could get it to work with some of my older consoles. I tried DScaler and it is a nice program but it was of no help and I could not find any adjustments to correct the signal. The still image above was made using DScaler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted August 4, 2018 Report Share Posted August 4, 2018 If I recall, in DScaler (forgive me, I no longer have it installed) had a section to auto-tune analog channels. Once you do that, you can then edit each one it finds, and there's a frequency adjuster with tiny up/down buttons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 5, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2018 That would work if I was using coax...but I'm limited to composite or S-Video. I seen those but they didn't work with the signal I had since it was not a channel 3 or other broadcast. Thanks for the tip, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 5, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2018 Well, I did a test run and uploaded the results on YouTube for all to see (oh DEAR!). I managed to play with the settings more, using MPEG-2, and now get over 11 hours of video footage. RickR and MaximumRD 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RickR Posted August 5, 2018 Report Share Posted August 5, 2018 looks good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 5, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2018 I guess it will have to do until I can find and afford equipment that will capture the older consoles. Until then I'm stuck with modern stuff. It will capture N64 and SuperNES stuff so I have those I can do videos on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 5, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2018 looks good Thanks! Sometimes figuring out new hardware is not as straightforward as it should be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrossBow Posted August 6, 2018 Report Share Posted August 6, 2018 In reading what you said at the beginning, it almost seems like the lower resolutions of the older consoles aren't being supported by the capture. You stated the PS1 startup is fine, and then nothing. that is because the PS1 startup screen is in 640x480 I believe while most of the actual games ran at lower resolution than that. It would also explain why other games on composite give you issues because their resolution is too low for the capture device to support. Might have to get a separate upscaler that takes the composite, s-video..etc and brings it up to 720p or at east scales to 640x480 to see if makes a difference? I'm just guessing here as I've not worked with many capture devices myself, and the ones I did were only having to capture VGA or HDMI signals. In fact, the only issue we had with HDMI was that we had to use a "special" device from china to disable the HDCP encryption from the HDMI to that it could be captured and re-broadcast to multiple displays all at once. Quote See what I'm up to over at the Ivory Tower Collections: http://www.youtube.com/ivorytowercollections Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrossBow Posted August 6, 2018 Report Share Posted August 6, 2018 BTW...in that game... If your car can do better than 180kph, do the Police even bother?... Hehehe... Quote See what I'm up to over at the Ivory Tower Collections: http://www.youtube.com/ivorytowercollections Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari 5200 Guy Posted August 15, 2018 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2018 What police? There's police in that game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrossBow Posted August 16, 2018 Report Share Posted August 16, 2018 What police? There's police in that game? It was a joke and also a movie reference... or at least it was supposed to be. Quote See what I'm up to over at the Ivory Tower Collections: http://www.youtube.com/ivorytowercollections Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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