Rich's Random Retro Reviews

Looking at the statistics of my blog posts, they don't get very many views, so I'm pretty sure there is no one out there waiting for this update. But the update is - the powered VGA splitter arrived and the video capture is way better than before. The image is nice and clear bright, without artifacts.  Here's the setup: There are plenty of steps but it works out well. The quality is much better than without a powered splitter. I'll have to do a video or some pictures detailing the exact steps. 

So I've been playing today ANNNND here are my results and something I've learned that I really should have thought about.  In one of my previous posts, I said I had found an unpowered VGA splitter to be good enough for me. Well I take it back. Below is a screenshot (unedited) from OBS earlier using a VGA splitter and the new BlackMagic Design HDMI capture.  As you can see - the image is extremely dark and if you click on it, you'll see that there is lots of noise in the image. For some reason, it has never crossed my mind as to why the image appears so dark. It's because I'm splitting the signal in half. DUH! Of course it's going to be dark. I also think the VGA splitter cable is responsible for the noise that's been added to the image. When plugged directly into the graphics card, the capture is noise free. Here's what it should look like.  This is much better. (Ignore the colour depth change. The first screenshot was at 256 colours, this one is at 24 b...

I thought I'd do a follow up to my original Capturing VGA post as I didn't really mention the software that I used. Initially the solution I used had the same hardware with the exception of the actual USB capture device. This was an AVerMedia GL310 (LGP Lite) which was great, with a couple of exceptions. It would only to 30fps 1080p but would do 60fps at 720p. I wanted 1080p60. The software was a REAL let down. It was Windows only and called RECentral. It wasn't very user friendly and as such I wasn't overly keen on it.  I think  it worked with OBS but I didn't use it with that and I just found it a bit clunky.  The second device I used was the Elgato HD60 - which turns out is old and the software doesn't work on Apple Silicon. But I managed to get it installed and working on the Windows 10 PC that we have as a Plex media server, once I had found it. It turns out I should have bought the newer S version and the older software is buried deeply on the Elgato webs...

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....