How to Capture PC Games Video/Audio with hardware?

[NewbyNewb]

First, sorry if this is in the wrong forum, though it looked liked the most suitable

What do game companies use to capture there games?

I want to capture video games.

Money is not a problem.

I want to know what hardware I need.

Capture must be done with hardware on 2nd computer to ensure the game is running at max fps. on computer 1

Game will be played using latest card from ati or nvidia on computer 1 at minimum of 1600/1200

Computer 2 will be used to capture the video/sound - though I dont know what hardware to use, Ive searched over the net but cant find anything other than frame gabbers, software capturers, dv authorers etc

The new ATI cards have 2 DVI outputs,

Are there any capture cards with a DVI Input/s?

[joshyg2]

um well, you best option (but this would cost you are fair bit) is to get a Display Device (video card) what has "Component Out". and a Capture Card that has "Component In".

they are available, you just have to do a search on the net, but they aren't cheap, some allow capturing full-progressive video eg. 50 / 60 fps video at full resolution.

so that would be your best option.

if you dont have the $$$ or the time, just use a standard S-VIDEO cable, from a S-VIDEO out on your video card, to a standard analogue capture card, recording at full 720x480/576 resolution, uncompressed (or lossless-codec). but this will give you interlaced video which means your video resolution is redecued by half.

(which is ok, if you want to store it on DVD), but if you want to use it for computer use, you will have to de-interlaced.

if you do the above option (analogue capture) i would recommend, using "smooth deinterlace" producing a 50/60 fps video, and then compressing the video to Windows Media v9 format, because WMV9 is very good for 50/60 fps sources, and compresses the video at a fairly low bitrate while maintaining framerate and quality.

anyways, thats my suggestions.

josh

[meleth]

You might want to start out cheap and use Fraps, i'm sure it will give you good results. http://www.fraps.com/