http://www.amazon.com/dp/B076ZQBN6R/?tag=level1techs-20
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/elgato-4k60-pro-capture-card-review
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://level1techs.com/video/elgato-4k60-pro-capture-card-review
1 Like
I will say I have absolutely no use for one of these but I found it very interesting.
Any plans to do thermal testing? Have heard tales of Elgato Cards overheating after long sessions and dying. May be useful to toss a heatsink on it, or a fan.
Also any chance of comparison vs a 1950X system recording itself with OBS? It would also be useful to test vs ReLive/Shadowplay, and uploading the Raw footage somewhere for comparison.
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/help-with-obs-4k-recording-1950x-testing-from-someone/122160
Sounds like the 1900X might have finally found a use case with that capture card, still get 64 PCI-e lanes with it, might be an interesting test for the RAID 0 NVME there if it’s working better now.
3 Likes
tech deals channel uses it for his youtube videos and constantly complains of stuttering from the capture card which isnt present while in game.
1 Like
Wendell you should do a capture card round up video, I am sure you guys have used quite a few now.
1 Like
past 1080p60 they all have their own quirks. even the $1500 bnc cards. Even the ones with the onboard h/w x264 encoders.
If you are mainly using this for camera capture why not use something like a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4k? It may be 4K30 but it can capture uncompressed 10bit at only $200. I use this to capture from my Panasonic g7 and it has worked flawlessly.
the blackmagic intensity pro 4k, we have two, is not super reliable for longer recordings (e.g. over 1 hour) even with lots of extra cooling. Its not bad, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not great.
the blackmagic sdi thing is more reliable but… pricey.
Honestly my experience with Elegato has been that its consumer grade gear at best, back before Mac Pro’s had H.264 encoding/decoding baked into the cpu We used the Elgato h.264 speed boost stick and it really only worked well with its presets the moment you went and did custom settings it lost its speed boost.
along those lines if this only does 4:2:0 color space i would pony up the money for the Magewell
Pro Capture HDMI 4K Plus LT. I mean yes its $900 from amazon prime but it will do 4k 60fps at 4:4:4 color space.
I see, I guess I must have been lucky then. I have done many multi-hour captures before (3-4 hours or so) and have not had any issues yet. How does the Elgato 4k compare in image quality then?
I want to try one of the magewells. I’ve heard they’re really good. I’ve already spent thousands of dollars on capture gear though that is otherwise… imperfect. On the 8700k the thing was flawless and I could capture at 140 megabit. Still, 4:2:2 would be nice. I guess to close the loop I need to try windows and the 8700k with the intensity pro 4k. Do you remember if they are pcie 3.0? I seem to remember having the best luck setting them to PCIe 2.0 for stability. Perhaps thats part of my issue w/the blackmagic.
A gtx 1060 or better is prettymuch required.
This is also a more gamer oriented product. So like console capture seems like it is going to be a better experience.
Also, oddball video modes. Really problematic on the blackmagic… I simply cannot count on them to capture UEFI walkthroughs but the elgato worked pretty well. I rely on a USB Hauppauge PVR2 and an old Aver 1080p capture card for uefi walkthroughs right now because prettymuch nothing else likes uefi screens. Except for a few boards that will do their UEFI at 1920x1080
Do I need something like this for general screen capture ( non gaming ) ? I would like to record whatever is playing on my screen. Usually I record meetings which comes in handy ( if you miss something you can always refer back).
Do I need this solution in my case ( even for 1080p recording ) ? Are there other reliable solutions Software/Hardware?
Just use OBS or the software that comes with your GPU
1 Like
Open Broadcaster should be able to just do a screen capture for that use case no problem. Download it and try it? Free, very good, spyware free.
2 Likes
Thanks, works on Linux too 
not on wayland 
but yes otherwise its amazing
The black Magic Intensities may be PCI2.0 they don’t say one way or the other in their manual and knowing BM that means its probably the lowest cost solution to get the data rate they need so a PCIe2.0 should still get the data rate they need.
BM can be fidldly about screen rez you capture at as it does not have a scaler in it and BM likes to lock frame rates in software to garentee the best looking output. they do the same thing with all but their teranex switchers.
I Love my AJA capture cards because of the flexibility but they definitely cost an arm and a leg, the good news on AJA though is they have great customer support. the amount of times i have talked to their hardware engineers to trouble shoot a configuration error is impressive.
Part of my day job is running HD footage out to Video Tape yes literal Video Tape so I do get to justify the expensive gear. I wish i could have justified the silly expensive gear.
The test I have not done recently and it might be something interesting for you to play with on linux is to capture footage at the same bit rates but in different codecs to see how it effects CPU and GPU usage. While I dont know if its still the case but back when i did the test lat time using Avid DNx or ProRess codecs used less CPU cycles but with improved H.264 encoders on gpu’s and CPU’s im currious if that is still the case.
I do not remember if it is PCIE 2 or 3. I have mainly used in a 1950x and 1700x systems defaulted to PCIE 3 without issues. However, I have not yet tested in Intel systems. I have a 8350k coming in soon to do some benchmarking and testing on and I can give it a try in that. I definitely understand that it doesn’t handle odd resolutions, It would be nice if it could auto-detect like the AV.IO 4k. The software could also use some polish in my experience.
I would like to see somone compare the ElGato 4k60Pro vs Magewell HDMI 4k Plus LT, and see footage and the quaility each can deliever to see if its worth the extra price difference, in paper the magwell is better, but i would like to see a streamer / reviewer face them with the same recordings.
Maybe Wendell could ask for a review sample to magwell?