Ever since the Elgato Game Capture HD gaming capture card launched at a competitive price
to allow just about anyone to capture their game console gameplay, many of us have been
asking Elgato to put out a more capable product - something that still maintains the competitive
price point, but has some more slightly professional-oriented features and capabilities.
Enter the Elgato HD60 Pro - their answer to our requests.
Does it live up to snuff?
Let’s take a look.
The HD60 Pro is an internal, PCIe 1x device - which means you need to have a desktop computer
with a free PCIe slot available in order to use it.
For us professionals out there, this is not a big deal - but this does limit the functionality
to only those with a high-ish-end setup, unlike the previous Elgato Game Capture devices,
which were designed to be usable by just about anyone.
But that’s kind of the point - the “Pro” in the product name is intentional, for good
reason.
Looking at the card itself, we have a small, all-black PCIe card - about what I’d expect.
I really appreciate that they took the time to make it look good, though.
When this card is more than likely going in enthusiast computer builds - where we often
like to show off what’s in our computers - the little touches like an all-black PCB
and Elgato-branded shroud around the components are really appreciated.
What’s even more appreciated is the clear, visible labeling of “In” and “Out”
on the HDMI ports for the card.
It’s already hard enough to see where to plug stuff in on the back of a busy computer
build, but this was a concern given that the labeling on the original HD60 was all but
impossible to see.
Props, Elgato, I wish more internal cards came this slick looking.
This capture card is significantly more powerful and capable than their previous devices.
It’s capable of recording a 1080p 60 frames per second video signal from any modern game
console or PC, at up to 60 megabits per second - a very high bitrate for “gaming” oriented
capture solutions.
Better yet, if you use a third-party program to record from this card, you can get a completely
uncompressed video signal to record at whatever bitrate or format you’d like - so VMix,
VirtualDub, and adept OBS Studio users rejoice!
Using the updated versions of Elgato’s Game Capture software, users can also utilize the
HD60 Pro’s dual encoders to record a “Master Copy” of what’s going on - at full 1080p60
with the highest bitrate, while streaming to a lower quality (and resolution, if needed)
stream for Twitch, YouTube Gaming, Hitbox, etc.
This is great to keep a stream going on slower internet bandwidths and still maintain a ready-to-edit
video file, as well.
Highlights, montages - that kind of thing - just got a whole lot easier.
They’ve also added a new “Sound Capture” app to their software, allowing users to record
a tertiary audio source along with their game sound and microphone audio.
This is useful for looping in VOIP chats, such as via Skype, Discord, Teamspeak, and
so on.
All 3 audio streams can be saved to different audio files to be mixed in editing, or to
the same stream for a live mix.
Best of all - unlike the previous Elgato Game Capture cards, the HD60 Pro runs at an incredibly
low-latency!
Almost real-time enough to play from the preview!
This “Instant Gameview” feature is great because you no longer have to worry about
adding in delays on your webcam, microphone, etc.
when streaming.
I got to the point of strongly recommending against the HD60 for live streaming because
of the issues caused by the delay and latency of the card, but this is not a problem at
all with the HD60 Pro.
The HD60 S that just came out also has this feature, but doesn’t have the dual encoders.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though.
Despite one of the original claims about the HD60 Pro being that it also didn’t have
any of the audio de-sync issues that plagued the original HD60, that does not appear to
be true.
There are plenty of reports out and about regarding desync issues with the device, and
up until last week, I would have gone against them.
BUT I’ve finally ran into the issue whilst recording long sessions of my Modded Skyrim
playthrough for my gaming channel.
After a good couple months of using the card and having no issues - well, desync issues,
as I’ve had plenty of other issues with their software - I had about a 45 minute to
1 hour recording session of Skyrim, across 2 or 3 recordings, in which the audio got
completely out of sync about half-way through.
This isn’t a recoverable issue - once the file is screwed up, it’s screwed up.
The de-sync is inconsistent and so you can’t just change the speed or placement of the
audio track to fix it.
This can be incredibly frustrating for let’s play-style recordings, and the drastically
bigger severity of this issue is why I stopped using and recommending the original HD60 altogether.
I’ve been using the card to stream regularly to YouTube Gaming and have noticed absolutely
zero desync while streaming, though - it just seems the encoder has issues when running
the file to disk.
A problem you’d think I wouldn’t have when recording to a RAID0 Array with very
high write speeds.
Unfortunately, the biggest limiting factor of using this device seems to be the software
- which, to me, is quite ironic given that I would only use this card over the pro solutions
I own such as the Magewell XI100DUSB specifically for their software.
Their software is quite convenient, way moreso than trying to record various videos or ongoing
series with no title, description, game identification, etc. in something like OBS.
BUT the continued lack of reliability of the software is beyond frustrating.
I’ve had my share of mid-recording crashes, videos flat out not exporting from their software,
or even situations where the software just refuses to open - it will just crash whenever
it tries until I restart my PC, which is not always an easy option.
BUT it’s getting better with time.
The software seems to be in a much better state compared to Christmas 2014 when I got
my original HD60, and they’re continuing to update it and try to make it better.
In fact, I’ve found that their support team is quite responsive whenever you do encounter
bugs or crashes, send a small crash log their way and they’ll try to help you resolve
the issue.
I would hope at this point that there’s quite the number of issues that I’ve at
least helped contribute to via my experiences.
These issues shouldn’t be too big of a burden for your average YouTuber or streamer.
I know very well that they often stem from the sheer demand I place on the hardware and
software.
But that should be expected when pushing a card in the “professional” category as
per the “Pro” in the name.
This device - and the full experience surrounding it - should stand strong above the lower-end
models.
The hardware certainly does, but the software still has a ways to go.
So would I recommend this card?
Yeah, probably - anyone with just enough technical expertise to be able to install the card and
have a high-end rig to run it, but who doesn’t want to mess with more, actually pro-level
solutions would strongly benefit from this card.
The dual encoders, the high-bitrate 1080p60 recordings, and the convenience of the features
that their software provides when it cooperates with you are all amazing features to have
in a device like this, and it has certainly impressed me compared
to their other devices.
I will be creating some tutorials about their
updated software shortly.
And as always, product links will be in the description below.
I hope you enjoyed my review of the Elgato HD60 Pro.
If you did, be sure to smash that like button, get subscribed for more awesome tech videos,
and otherwise, I’ll see you in the next one!