I have been given something called Gamebridge, it's a usb device that lets you plug video game consoles and such into it (as well as cable tv or a nes or older consoles) and then let you record or just output the image and sound into any program that is going to play nice with it like virtualdub. It's nothing extraordinary and it's limited to 30fps but it's good enough for me. The problem I have though is that there's input lag when I try to record anything which soon makes any game I'm playing unplayable. In general, what are the things I should try to keep virtualdub from going off-sync with my console's input? when I start recording the input is fine, but soon after the lag begins and only increases the longer I record.
Faster hardware. Other than that, use a splitter and output video to your TV as well, where it wont be lagged.
I can't output the image to my tv, the console's plugged into the gamebridge which is plugged into my computer via usb. EDIT: ooooh, I just got it @.@ still, how is a splitter going to help with the recorded video?
Generally, you'll plug your console into the splitter, then split it one way to the TV (this will be lag free) & the other way to your capture device (this will have input lag, but it won't matter cause you will watch your tv while you play & you won't notice any lag in the recording). I have 2 set ups. One, I have Famicom -> VCR (via RF) -> slap these these into the VCR video out (http://www.amazon.com/Gino-Audio-Sp...qid=1372704797&sr=8-2&keywords=rca+y+splitter) -> one goes to TV, one goes to capture device to my laptop. The other is PS3 (composite out) -> 3 Y splitters like http://www.amazon.com/Monster-ILJRY...qid=1372704797&sr=8-4&keywords=rca+y+splitter -> 1 end plugs directly into TV, other end goes into my capture device plugged into my laptop.
Your inputs are lagging because the image is being fed into the device, processed and then output to your monitor. In order to play lagless you need to split the image so that one goes to your monitor without being processed by the device, and the other goes directly to the device recording what you are playing.
I didn't have a splitter around so I used my old vcr/dvd combo to output the image to both my tv and the device. is that good enough?
you may want to look into using another recording software, here are some programs I'd consider trying "Ulead VideoStudio" "Pinnacle Studio" "InterVideo Home Theater" (if you got a driver installation disc with your gamebridge it should come with a copy of InterVideo Home Theater on the disc) "AVS Video Recorder" (you may have to use a splitter with this one because there might be a delay between what's going on in the game and what AVS shows but recording is otherwise great). play around with different recording programs and find the one that works best for you.
thanks for the suggestions but I'd rather stay with virtualdub for now while I fiddle around. What I'd like to know for now is which codec I could get that has a good quality and also won't eat up my hard disk space like popcorn.
As others have said, you will need to buy or build a splitter. I made my own in the early days of Retro Core because my PC wasnt powerful enough to record video without lag. These days I can play direct to my computer because I have more powerful hardware now. Get more memory, that will help a lot. I have 8GB in my system.
And if he is recording uncompressed or nearly so, which it seems due to the file size, you need a faster harddrive. If it cant dump the data to the disk, things are going to get sloooooow
good point. I capture in mpeg2 at 20 to 30mbps vbr at 1080p or 720p which works fine on my standard sata hard drives. Maybe he could record in that format?
I recorded this using huffyuv and lame in virtualdub and then re-encoded it in mpeg-4 and aac lc (the video was re-encoded at 2064 kbps). I don't have lag anymore while recording though the video freezes during the first few seconds. I assume there's not much that can be done about that though.
It's ok but the quality is pretty poor to be honest in this day and age. But since the capture device was free you can't really complain I guess.
