Capture cards are great.
They let you bring in your outside signal from your game consoles or cameras in and
record, stream, share your clips with your friends, and become a content creator.
But the market of capture cards is a complicated one, and my personal recommendations tend
to be a lot of “if, then” statements rather than just a single card.
That was, until now.
Today’s review is of a capture card with a few problems, but one that I think I can
recommend for most users with varying needs.
Notably, if you’re looking for a modern low-latency solution for capturing older retro
gaming consoles now that Elgato has stopped selling their original Game Capture HD, this
is the video for you.
Let’s jump in.
Quality tech education and gaming nostalgia that won't put your to sleep.
Get subscribed and turn on notifications so that you won't miss the next guide.
I’m EposVox, here to make tech easier and more fun, and this is the Startech USB3HDCAP.
This is a non-mainstream capture card with generic enough branding and a high enough
price to generally get ignored on Amazon from most aspiring content creators.
And honestly, for reasons I’ll state throughout the video, in the end I really just wish Elgato
put these features on the HD60 S, since they share hardware.
Stay tuned for that.
I originally unboxed this card on a recent Twitch stream where I recommended it to TheFriendlyBroski
for his Nintendo 64 captures, based on strong recommendations from multiple users in my
CRT Collective Facebook Group - so thanks to him for playing the role of guinea pig
for certain testing elements with this card.
In the box you get the capture device itself - a USB 3.0 device with a nice sturdy frame,
some glossy plastic that’s just asking to get scratched and covered in dust and fingerprints,
and lots of input ports - a CD that you should ignore and throw away immediately, a useless
manual, and a bunch of video adapters, along with a USB cable.
Ideally, it should already be obvious why I would want to recommend this capture card
so strongly - it’s a USB 3.0 capture card that provides uncompressed, low-latency video
signals to your capture software of choice - OBS Studio, in my case - from ALL of the
inputs.
Yes, this is the cheapest and easiest option to get low-latency uncompressed access to
Composite, S-Video, and Component inputs from your retro game consoles.
It also supports up to 1080p60 on the HDMI port from modern game consoles, and even has
a freaking DVI port with the full RGBHV pins for analog VGA support, and even traditional
RGB support if you want to deal with sync conversion, adapters, and so on - not something
I currently have the hardware for.
I was able to push up to 85hz by default in the Nvidia Control Panel to the DVI port at
standard 4:3 resolutions such as what I would use from my Windows XP rig, though some have
reported issues wish such things from old school computers such as Amigas and so on.
Oh, and you’re not crazy for noticing - that circular breakout port is the same, exact
same 7-pin DIN connector you’d find on the original Elgato Game Capture HD, with the
same adapter cables for it, too.
This is where I start to enter the “Why didn’t Elgato do this?”
territory.
The original Game Capture HD has reached “end of life” from Elgato and is no longer sold,
and they refused to include analog connections on their newer cards.
Honestly, this is a shame, and I really feel Elgato is missing out on a great market point
here.
Even more damning to this point was when I learned (well, multiple sources suggesting
but I cannot get 100% confirmation on this as with any ODM situations on such products)
that this USB3HDCAP device has the same core hardware as the MicomSoft XCapture-1 capture
device, and Elgato’s own HD60 S!
So Elgato could have included Analog I/O and support on the HD60 S and met so many more
people’s needs much better.
Sure, the HD60 S is slimmer, but is there really any value to that?
It’s not like this device is actually all that large.
The big lacking issue with this Startech card is the passthrough.
There’s no passthrough for any connections.
HDMI IN, DVI IN, Analog IN, no outputs.
For HDMI, this is fine - cheap ViewHD splitter from Amazon to strip HDCP and provide lagless
splitting, easy.
But this can be a big problem for those wanting to use this device with their retro consoles
and do not have splitters for such inputs.
Getting decent splitters for S-Video, Composite, etc. can actually be pretty difficult these
days, too.
Component is a little easier, but the older ones can be difficult to split.
This is where this differs from the Micomsoft device, which costs quite a bit more.
The Micomsoft XCapture-1 has full passthrough for all inputs - though I wouldn’t consider
that to be something to cause the price to be so much higher.
I would still love to check it out one day, however.
Thankfully since the USB3HDCAP is well, USB 3, the latency to your video preview is pretty
low and I imagine most streamers who were desperate for a solution would find a way
to play from the preview.
But it would take some getting used to and some precision-dependent games would be tough
on such a setup.
Althought if you're used to playing on a bad input lag TV anyway, it won't be much different
than those setups - heck, it might probably be better than those TVs.
Before we touch on image quality, I need to address the situation of the drivers…
I mentioned before to throw away the CD and that is valid.
Go to StarTech’s website, download the latest drivers under “Support” and install those.
Reboot after doing so.
Their “Video Catcher” software - which is just a renamed and rebranded version of
Micomsoft’s “Video Keeper” software - is honestly some hot garbage and something
I generally recommend avoiding.
Some users may have issues where games that change resolution mid-game, such as for menus
and such (a common thing that some N64 and PS1 games did, switching between 240p and
480i) the feed in OBS will freak out and Video Catcher handles it smoother, though it makes
a new file whenever this happens.
BUT THAT BEING SAID, I’ve never encountered this specific issue myself and TheFriendlyBroski,
who reported it to me, no longer seems to encounter it either.
So, generally, I recommend avoiding VideoCatcher.
If you’ve ever looked into this capture device, you may have noticed some posts discussing
using custom drivers from “The Thrillness” for it or from Micomsoft for a similar card.
I'm going to stop you right now and say do NOT do this.
I recorded this whole long thing explaining our trials and tribulations experimenting
with these drivers and why it didn't make sense in 2018 to recommend this, as they're
broken - but just don't do it.
Because if you install the other drivers, it kinda screws you over and you're going
to get Bluescreens with the Startech driver.
If you just install the Startech drivers themselves, you should not experience any Bluescreens
related to their driver.
And if you do, contact Startech support.
But I've screwed myself in my testing to test this for you guys, and despite not having
a single bluescreen up until now, while I was literally editing this video, I got a
blue screen from the capture card driver.
And this is because I have the other ones in it.
And I also used a couple other machines with just the Startech driver, they didn't get
a bluescreen.
This is really important.
Big warning: With this device, reboot at every step of the driver process.
Uninstall old ones?
Reboot.
Install new ones?
Reboot.
The core problem being addressed here is 240p support.
No matter what driver you use, 240p games - such as from SNES, Nintendo 64, Playstation
1, etc.
when sent via Composite or S-Video will be read as 480i.
There’s no option to change it, and you’re stuck with it.
In theory, if you turn off deinterlacing in the driver setting and can force “Retro”
or “Yadif 2x” deinterlacing in AviSynth or OBS, you can restore 60fps movement, but
I could not get deinterlacing applied to the video signal in OBS.
It just wouldn’t work for some reason.
If you have 240p sent over component, such as via the fancy new HD Retrovision component
cables for SNES or playing PS1 games on PS2 as I’ve tested here, you can get proper
240p progressive 60hz signals to the capture card, but it interprets them strangely.
I’ve seen some report it showing as 720x240, but for me the signal is read in the driver
settings as 1440x240.
If you mess with settings too much this will skew things so you get a super wide image
that reflects that ratio.
However, leaving the “Automatically adjust ratio and resolution” checkbox checked - something
I recommend always leaving on - it will fix itself in OBS Studio when you set a custom
resolution.
For analog inputs from Composite, S-Video or Component, I recommend setting a custom
resolution in OBS Studio video device settings and setting it to 1680x1050 or 1280x800, depending
on if you’re targeting 1080p or 720p.
The source 4:3 aspect ratio scales better to 16:10 than 16:9, but also setting it to
full 1080p for such sources just results in a black screen for me.
Then you can scale it to fit your canvas in OBS.
Lastly, I recommend setting the fill mode to “Fit” or “Fill” in the driver settings.
Unfortunately it defaults to “Stretch” which is not ideal for… obvious reasons…
One last note, you will have to change inputs in the driver settings whenever you wish to
switch.
By right-clicking the source in OBS, hitting Properties, then Configure Video, you change
the input there.
This is a rather annoying inconvenience.
To set up inputs and resolutions for every different use case, but once you figure it
out and get used to it, it’s worth the hassle to have a card that can take in so many different
signals.
None of this is a problem for the HDMI input or the DVI input, depending on your source
size.
1080p60 video from HDMI works flawlessly like a normal capture card.
For any input, you will need to tell it to use a Custom Audio Device in OBS Studio and
choose the Analog 01 input for the card to get audio.
VGA and DVI audio will need to be piped into Line In on your computer’s motherboard and
added as a Microphone/Input device in OBS Studio.
When you have it working, it looks really good.
1080p60 capture is as you’d expect, and it does a surprisingly great job at handling
analog inputs.
SNES, PS1, PS2, PS2 at 480p - it all looks pretty darn great via this capture card.
You hit a wall of quality based on the connection type you’re using - Composite and S-Video
are bad and there’s not much that can be done about that - but this is about as good
as it gets for such capture.
The Fast deinterlacing mode has worked best for
me and maintains sharpness and low-latency whereas the other modes make the image feel
a bit more blurry.
Lastly, this does not have a UVC driver so it won’t be detected as a webcam in Skype
and such.
I wouldn’t expect it, but worth noting.
Overall, the Startech USB3HDCAP is a super flexible capture card and one I’d definitely
recommend buying if you need something that can do a little of everything - HDMI, DVI,
VGA, Component, Composite, S-Video - this has you covered, for a reasonable price, too!
Under $200 is a great price for such a card with uncompressed and low-latency access.
I still wish this was what Elgato’s HD60 S ended up being - with passthrough still,
of course - but for a third-party option, I definitely recommend this one, quirks and
all.
I threw a lot of info about OBS and driver settings and setup at you in this video, and
it’s already long enough as-is.
If you’d like a full setup guide and settings walkthrough video on its own, let me know
in the comments below.
Otherwise, hit the like button if you enjoyed, consider buying via my Amazon affiliate links
in the video description below, and I’ll see you next time.
This video is sponsored by viewers like you.
Our videos would not be possible without the generosity of those of you who contribute
to one of our fan-funding options, be it DonorBox, Twitch Subscriptions, Direct Contributions
via PayPal, or Patreon.
To join our inner-circle and get behind-the-scenes looks at videos, go to eposvox.com/support
to learn more, and join us on discord at eposvox.com/discord.
Thanks!