Elgato HD60 PRO test case

[Ostap]

So i've got my self this card..and after playing with it for some while
Here is some short summary to what it actually is and how to eat it.

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It works half way on windows 7 !!!!
They totally abandoned any development for win7
Installing it would be pain in the a...lower back
But it's possible ...
Sound will not work - coz audio driver just wont install (same as the capture driver
You'll need to install software (and the drivers)...then copy the program to other location
Uninstall it ..YES !!
Then use windows update to find the working drivers.
Using copied program after that - will work (no sound though still)

Recording on win7 is OK ...for the most part
but somehow - video @60frm/sec ..is as good as @30 ...almost no difference...
Recording @30frm/sec - is just fine. (at all quality settings)


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On Win10 on the other hand.
All works as intended ...except sound
You still gonna spend 15-30 minutes trying all different combinations
It either works or doesn't...or you'll get a huge ECHO
But with try-and-fail method ...after few restarts of the program and game it self
it is possible to get the sound working fine ....FOR THAT SESSION
hehe ...next time you reboot your win10 - you'll have to do it all over again..
(or maybe its just me ... rebooting back and forth between 7 and 10 ...requires reconfiguration of Elgato card...
and an extra reboot for me - or second monitor where it's connected to would stay blank)

BTW - thats another thing with the card !!!
You better have 2 monitors ....coz it will capture the whole screen
And you'll need the application somewhere on the screen - or ...
you can activate recording, switch back to game ...and then don't touch anything ...but thats not as handy i think.

Quality on win10 @60frm/sec - is superb !
Resulting file is reasonably small and your system is not stressed much due to hardware encoding.

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Well ... after all that is behind and I've finally made some videos
I've discovered another issue ...this time with Youtube - after uploading - it got downgraded in quality. even though
it was recorded with correct codec and whatever guide lines they had ...
quality got worse ..

So to test it all - I've made 4 different videos recorded with Elgato
Just 3 minutes demo:

30frm/sec - minimal quality - resulting file size: 184Mb
30frm/sec - maximal quality - resulting file size: 690Mb
60frm/sec - minimal quality - resulting file size: 329Mb
60frm/sec - maximal quality - resulting file size: 1.2Gb
(just fyi - previous videos...2hours @60frames max quality - resulted in 50gb file

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And - as an alternative to Elgato
The Fraps !!

I've recorded same demo with 30 and 60frm/sec ... though it seems my SSD couldn't keep up
with the data rate being dumped onto it. I think actual frame rate is about 50...

Both Fraps videos recorded as uncompressed AVI
It records in parts (4Gb each coz of FAT32 partition limitation they were aiming at...program is old but still handly !!)
I've merged all parts using VirtualDub without a glitch:

30frm/sec - (3 parts) - total size: 10Gb
60frm/sec - (5 parts) - total size: 16Gb
(thats for 3 minute video !!! but the quality is untainted)

Here are the results
after uploading to Youtube:

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Elgato - 30frm/sec - minimal quality



Elgato - 30frm/sec - maximal quality



Elgato - 60frm/sec - minimal quality



Elgato - 60frm/sec - maximal quality



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Fraps - 30frm/sec



Fraps - 60frm/sec





Conclusion:

As you can see - there IS a small difference in quality between "min & max" on Elgato
But almost no difference between Elgato compressed ...and "pure" frames from Fraps after upload.
Youtube still gonna downgrade it to "below medium" quality.
The only difference i can spot - is the difference between 30 & 60 frames
the higher the more smooth video is ..but not that much as I expected.

The card it self - is OK.... not great...but be ready...bad software ... and bad or non existent support !!!
you'll break couple of keyboards in process - it is NOT FOR A BEGINNER !!!


for anyone interested - original files are available here:

Elgato_2018-12-19 00-21-35_(30fps_min_quality).mp4 - 184Mb
Elgato_2018-12-19 00-25-37_(30fps_max_quality).mp4 - 690Mb
Elgato_2018-12-19 00-29-34_(60fps_min_quality).mp4 - 329Mb
Elgato_2018-12-19 00-33-27_(60fps_max_quality).mp4 - 1.2Gb

Fraps_30.avi - 10GB !!
Fraps_60.avi - 16GB !!