Polyphase video capturing & rescanning wiki

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hi all,

i’m currently teaching a class for polyphase called intro to video feedback with cameras and i was working on a section of my class wiki about how to go about capturing an analog signal. as i was writing it, i realized that the information could be useful for any class dealing with analog video, not just mine, so i broke it out into its own wiki:

i wanted to share it here because 1. it could be useful information and 2. i welcome any feedback or suggestions of things to add, especially specific capture devices that can record uncompressed analog inputs, and that are available and supported on current operating systems.

we do have a wiki post on the same subject here on scanlines, but it’s a little outdated, and mine is more geared toward beginners and providing more instructions. i also mostly tried to only include ones that i have specifically used or know someone who uses one. and i didn’t include recording to VHS since one would likely still have to digitize that eventually anyway.

on a personal tangent, recent OS updates have rendered my blackmagic intensity shuttles useless (very annoying, because i have 3 of them, all thunderbolt. if anyone wants one, hmu.) i think they are still technically supposed to work on my computers (all non-m1 macs) but i gave up troubleshooting after crashing my system a concerning number of times.

anyway, due to that, i’ve been thrust back into the position of needing to do some research on the current state of capture solutions for myself as well. currently, i have no way to capture analog video directly into my computer, but with the combination of a v4ex as an upscaler/hdmi converter, and a magewell HDMI capture card, i’m able to do what i need to do. the Magewell USB Capture DVI Plus seems to offer composite/component/YC and even HDMI via the breakout cable, and have drivers for current OSes, but at a price point of over $400 USD, it’s a bit steep for me at the moment. curious if anyone has tried it and can speak to how well it works.

it seems like the state of affairs in this space is pointing more and more toward converting to HDMI as opposed to capturing analog directly. so i’m also curious if anyone knows of any affordable composite to HDMI converters that aren’t absolute trash, since i can’t really recommend people starting out to buy a v4ex at their current going price.

so yeah, hope the wiki is helpful, and please let me know if you have any thoughts on this topic.

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Thanks for making the WIKI!

I use a Blackmagic analog to SDI in combination with a Blackmagic SDI to HDMI
(which, for me, connects to an Atomos Ninja 2 for recording to SSD)

There are also recorders that accept SDI signals, but I found the Ninja 2ndhand for cheap. (160,- euro)

There are some other video capture devices that can be useful, depending on your budget and usercase (for example, do you want a display to see what you are recording)
These are the ones I researched:

Blackmagic Hyperdeck shuttle (no display, discontinued but can be found cheap 2ndhand
Blackmagic Ultrastudio (fancy and more expensive)
Blackmagic Video assist (SDI input, SD card storage but more expensive 2nhand)
Ninja 5 (better than the Ninja 2, but hard to find cheap)

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…thank you for collecting, sorting and publishing the information and the personal recommendations…

…personally i use different setups for rescanning and capturing - in one setup i also use two chained Blackmagicdesign Converters (Component to SDI and then UpDownCross SDI to HDMI) and then via an HDMI-to-USB-dongle into Resolume, where i further treat the rescanned video and then save it as well as sending it out; sometimes i have four of those HDMI-to-USB-dongles (with cameras and converter-chains) feeding parallel into Resolume without any problems…

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thank you both for the ideas and recommendations! i will add these devices to the wiki.

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…as i had several ‚blackouts‘ during a session recording my LZX-/Syntonie-modular with the above mentioned Blackmagic-setup i have now ordered the Magewell DVI Capture thingie and will report (if i dont forget :wink:)…

…as the cheapest i could find was in the US (even with shipping and customs to Germany) it will take a few days until it is here…

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That’s great! Thanks for the wiki!

For PAL - on the run - I’m currently using an IMMERSION RC, it’s a grabbing device for fpv Drones, but works good for simple grabbing. Actually using it as a mobile grabber for an CCTV camera atm, because it has batteries and an 6v output on board! Grabs on microSD, but quite large files. BUT no damn latency!

It’s not hard glitch friendly I would say, red ‘mediaerror’ will be placed in the file

Edit: ah soldered an RCA input on the side, there is enough space inside

(200€ new, sometimes on eBay)

PXL_20240916_174121987
PXL_20240916_1741219871920×3413 276 KB

Audio (loweress) & video grabbed via the immersion RC - short snippet from club event in May:

Otherwise the mentioned Black magic analog to SDI works good with yPbPr or pal into an Atmos samurai (SDI) but also had a lot of problems with it
( used 150-250)
Latency about 100ms, adjustable in the átomos but not

Also used BM analog2sdi - sdi2hdmi to Atomos ninja, but my results came with quite bleached out colors

Or for the studio: the fancy BM ultrastudio 4k yes, takes every damn source with good colors :slight_smile:
(Used - with luck 200€ )
Latency around ~50ms, can be easy adjusted in OBSstudio

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…Update on the Magewell thingy…

have received it (a few days earlier than expected, but had paid extra for fast delivery) and had my first try with it yesterday:

  • seems to be stable
  • not sure about actual image quality, perhaps i’ve made something weird, will have to try more
  • important: i was not able to update the firmware within the Magewell app from my network until i used a VPN-client to connect to a VPN in the US! - only then the Magewell-software would instantly connect to the Magewell-server, download the latest firmware and update

…will report if something worth to write about comes up…

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If possible would you be able to post output videos from the Magwell device and others you might have so that we can compare?

I’m looking for ways of capturing high quality images so that i can print so any examples would be great.

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…sorry - i’ll be much too busy the next 8-10 weeks to do anything like that - in case i get close to my equipment at all during the upcoming weeks i think i would like to do other stuff first…

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maybe off topic, but if yr looking for print quality stills, using a decent camera off of a nice monitor will definitely give you better results than snapshots off any video capture. its not even necessary to do any of that crt/camera finagling, using a decent quality LCD screen (sony or dell studio monitors) is usually better for images unless yr really looking for crt pixel artefacting

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