Capturing VGA - Part 1

A few years back I decided that I wanted to do some VGA capture from my old vintage computers so I could show it off in my YouTube videos. This lead me down a dark hole to try and get a working solution.

I'd seen a couple of cheap VGA capture devices on eBay so bought a few to try. None of them were successful. I tried several different ways of doing it and I was pulling my hair out until I stumbled upon a video by a fellow retro computer enthusiast called Victor Bart. He has done a fantastic video on the way he does it. 

Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel I figured I'd give his solution a go. The only thing I changed was the capture card - mine is USB, not PCI-E.

The secret sauce is the VGA scaler. Many older machines and games in DOS output at strange resolutions and switch between them frequently. Most of which these newer cheap VGA capture devices don't support these old resolutions. For example: the Windows 98 start up screen displays at something like 720x400. The cheap VGA capture cards are expecting something like 640x480. Also the refresh rates can be a bit odd too.

After some patience, I managed to find the same VGA scaler that Victor uses. It's a Gefen VGA to DVI Scaler Plus.

Sadly mine didn't come with a remote control but the three buttons shown in the image above allow you to control the OSD. I imported mine from the US back in the days of reasonably priced international shipping - long before eBay introduced their disgustingly expensive Global Shipping Program. Because I imported mine from the US, it came with a US power adapter. 

I also found out in Victor's video, that you can use a Zip Drive power adapter, so that's what I've been using with mine. I do have a 240v > 110v step down transformer but after about 30 minutes of operation, it hums loudly which I find quite annoying. I should source another one, but for the time being the Zip Drive power adapter works well. 

The scaler has a female VGA connector which necessitates the use of a gender changer or a special VGA cable. The gender changer works for me. Next to the VGA in port is the 5V DC power jack and then a power LED indicator. On the left of the VGA port is an IR port for the remote. The part number is EXT-RMT-SR-IR according to the manual, I'm not sure if I need one but it might be a handy purchase at some point in the future. 

So you can see what you're doing on a monitor, I recommend using a VGA splitter from the back of your vintage computer. I've seen people say that you should use a powered splitter rather than a passive one, but I've had no problems with passive ones. If you don't and plan on using your capture computer to control your vintage one, be prepared for lots of added latency. This makes it almost impossible to play games. 

The output from the scaler is DVI - so I use a DVI to HDMI cable. Nothing special - a cheap eBay jobbie. The HDMI end is then plugged into my Elgato HD60 USB capture device. This is a recent addition as the previous USB capture device only supported 30Hz. This one does 60Hz. My previous capture device was an AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable LGP Lite GL310. My only issues with these two capture devices is that they are Windows only or do not support Apple Silicon. I plan on replacing the Elgato HD60 with an UltraStudio Recorder 3G from Blackmagic Design which I'll be able to use on my M1 MacBook Air - when funds permit. 

I connect the audio out from my vintage computers via 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable. Again, nothing special. This allows me to capture all the beeps and bops the machine makes. 

Here's a diagram on how everything is connected. It's a bit convoluted but it works perfectly. 

What are the pros and cons of this setup?

Pros:
It works!
Relatively cheap - the scaler I got for about £40 - the whole setup cost about £100. 

Cons:
A bit of cable mess
The VGA scaler shows on the video feed the resolution it's detected and what the output is each time the resolution changes. 

Friend of the channel Steve from Mac84 has also done a video on this topic and he has a much fancier scaler. You can check out his video here: