I need a way to capture screenshots and video from a number of different consoles, unfortunately all i have are laptops. I'm pretty much stuck with a USB video capture card. Can anybody recomend one? I've heard good things about Hauppauge, so i'm looking at this: http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product_Code=HAU+600&JRSource=PriceGrabber.datafeed.HAU+600 Any input would be welcomed.
I needed a USB capture device last summer and also tried one of the WinTV ones. The quality, in my opinion, was crap. Dark, grainy and difficult to get working right. I took it back and got a Dazzle DVC-90 instead. I know some people look down on the Dazzles, but it has been the best capture device I have used. For comparison, I was also using it for console screenshots (GC & PS2).
Nothing youll get will really satisfy you. You arent going to be getting good looking shots with a consumer capture device. Even if it accepts S-Video, it will still be very dark.
There are some decent PC Card TV Tuners. Try looking for a Hauppauge brand rather than a USB version.
I'd go with firewire over USB2 - faster sustained so I'd expect it would work better - for the same reason that DV cam's go with it. Otherwise just go with a cheapo card - if you lose $50 on a crap card so be it, its not the end of the world
Here are three screenshots that I took using the DVC90. The first two are PS2 (Suikoden 4, Final Fantasy 7). The last is Gamecube (Tales of Symphonia). All were fed through S-Video. I may have done an auto-balance in Photoshop once I captured them (I don't remember), but I did not have to edit them other than that. I was very happy with the quality of the shots.
