Console Capture Conundrum (and conclusion, sort of)


So if you've been following me this week, you've seen me slowing going mad trying to solve my console capture issue. The basics are thus: For many months now, I haven't been able to reliably capture 60fps footage from consoles. There's always random frame skipping that makes the videos look bad and poorly represents the games I'm capturing. I don't have this problem when capturing PC footage. Despite having no audience, I have stupid high standards but I also believe in properly representing the games I critique.

This started happening with my AVerMedia ExtremeCap 3 USB 3 capture device. I originally reviewed that product favourably but it's known for getting worse over time and most reviewers said getting reliable 60fps out of it is all but impossible to begin with. I couldn't figure it out so I decided it was time to go prosumer. I sold it and bought a StarTech PEXHDCAP60L, which is a rebadged Micomsoft SC-512N-1/DVI. This card is considered the gold standard for accurate capture and is used by most professional console YouTubers, as well as the speedrunning community. It's also over $400 but I figured screw it, doing things right costs. I bought it in January.

It had the exact same problem. I tried taking out my HDMI splitter, different cables, different drivers, different capture software, different consoles, a different PCI-E slot, nothing. However, this was on my old PC which had a trillion hours on it and was very tired. I decided to table the issue until I could build a new PC. Well, I did that 4 months ago with Zee RenderHaus. It still didn't help. The only parts that came over from the old PC were the power supply (which had been replaced once under warranty) and the GPU. Since then, the GPU has been upgraded too and still has the issue.

I enlisted the help of every forum/subreddit I could find, as well as The Thrillness, a great blogger who does deep dive reviews on basically every capture device. These people were all a great help but no one could find a solution and some people said they couldn't even see the problem. I thought that was odd because I thought it was obvious but I also know many people aren't as picky as I am so I let it go.

The conclusion we begrudgingly reached was that the card must have a minor defect. I contacted StarTech support (who is often hit and miss but was amazing here) and asked for an RMA. Because this product is so expensive, they offer cross-ship RMA and pay the shipping both ways, which is pretty sweet. The new card did the same damn thing. At this point, I was livid. I politely asked StarTech if there was any way they would consider refunding my purchase, even though I was like 8 months past the 30 day return policy, because the card had never worked right. I would not have kicked up a fuss if they said no and would have just tried to sell it if I had to. To their immense credit, a supervisor phoned me (yes, phoned) the next day and said "Look, we normally wouldn't do this but you've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure this out and it's clear this card for whatever reason, won't work for you. We're going to make an exception and refund you, just send both the original card and the replacement back with the pre-paid label." Super hyper mega huge, over 9,000 kudos to StarTech for that. That's the kind of service you never expect from a large company and I can't thank them enough.

The Thrillness strongly recommended the Elgato HD 60 Pro PCI-E card as the replacement. I have a bad history with Elgato but his review was very positive and he said for my purposes, it would work great and with less headaches than a Micomsoft card. I was about to buy one when the last place in Canada that had one, ran out of stock. The other places that carry them in this country had been out of stock for months and said they didn't know if they'd ever get more. It's actually become very hard to find ANY Elgato gaming products in Canada right now. I don't know if Elgato's having supply issues or getting out of that product range or what but there we have it.

So for kicks, I decided to buy a Razer Ripsaw from Best Buy, where there's a 14 day, no questions asked return policy. The Ripsaw is relatively new but it's just a sleeker looking rebadge of the AVerMedia Live Gamer Extreme, the successor to the ExtremeCap U3. The driver got renamed, the case looks different and otherwise, it's the same thing. The Thrillness didn't like the ExtremeCap U3 and said the LGX had issues but for most uses, it works quite well. Why not, there was no risk.

As people saw in my rant the other night, it did the exact same thing. At this point, I was losing my damn mind. This made no sense. Multiple devices that were completely different from each other, all with the exact same problem to a T. The only common elements left were software related. I did a fresh OS install when I built this PC but had all the same video utilities and codecs installed again. The problem was either Windows 10 (which all of these devices are supposed to be fine with) or one of my myriad other utilities was conflicting in some way.

So I asked my boss at work if I could borrow a Dell OptiPlex Core i5 workstation we had in our tech room. It has Windows 7, nothing else on it and Intel USB 3, considered the best chipset for video capture. It would rule out software. He was cool with me borrowing it so I did last night. I put nothing on it except the Ripsaw drivers and amarectv, a portable piece of free capture software that's incredibly obtuse but known for its super accurate reproduction. The same thing happened again. At this point, I was pretty sure this is what Hell is for YouTubers.

Here's where things get real weird. I was sitting and stewing and then I realised there was only one single last thing I hadn't ruled out: My monitors. I have two BenQ XL2411Z 24" gaming monitors. I've had them for a couple of years now and they've frankly been fairly disappointing but also decent enough. I've also had them for the majority of the time I've tried to capture from consoles. These monitors have some technology in them that's supposed to prevent excessive blurring in games by doing some kind of on the fly picture adjustment voodoo. You can turn it off in the menus but apparently it's never fully off, even when disabled.

It occurred to me that in the past, a few people had looked at my test clips showing the stuttering and said they couldn't see any issue. It then occurred to me that I don't think I'd ever looked at my stuttery clips on anything but this PC (which whether my old PC or the new one, had the same monitors.) So I captured a new clip on the Dell (also running through one of my BenQ monitors), which looked to be full of stutter, uploaded it to YouTube and asked a friend to watch it. He said it was perfect and this guy's a frame rate snob, he'd know if it wasn't. Then I watched the video on my laptop and again on my phone. He was right, it was perfect. Then I tried to watch it (both the original clip and on YouTube) from my desktop and it stuttered like mad.

I went and grabbed the 8 year old, 22" Samsung monitor from my girlfriend's desk and brought it downstairs. I tried to record a new clip on the Dell machine with that monitor plugged in. The stuttering in the capture preview was still there, not a good sign. However, I played back the recorded clip and it was perfect. I copied the clip to Zee RenderHaus and it stuttered. I did some research and especially in amarectv, preview stutter is fairly common and there's rarely anything you can do about it. Most people use an HDMI splitter to feed their console output both to their capture device and also directly to a monitor so they aren't relying on the preview. I actually do this normally too but had removed that element trying to fix this problem. However, the output was actually fine.

I did some more research and apparently this anti-blur feature in these monitors uses the amount of combined display motion to determine how to apply it's blur compensation. I always have a bunch of stuff open on my PC and when I'm working on stuff, almost always have something playing on the second display. I shut down Chrome and every other process that could put load on the GPU and tried to play back one of my stuttery clips. And it was fine. I then tried to play one of the test uploads I put on YouTube. Again, fine. As soon as I had browser tabs with any other kind of motion open (even on the second display), it got stuttery again.

Yep, for the last number of months, the recordings on all these different devices have basically been fine, my monitors have just been screwing with the output so they LOOK like they have stutter problems when in fact, they didn't.

I was both elated at this discovery while at the same time seeing red. Hours of time and hundreds of dollars spent trying to solve a problem that basically wasn't there, all because supposedly high-end displays have a half-baked feature that wasn't working right (even though it's supposedly disabled.) I still can't tell you why this only happens with console footage. I can record lossless footage from PC games in Dxtory and that stuff looks perfect. If all footage did it, I probably would have figured this out far sooner. It must be something with how the console output is structured or how it's interpolated by the capture devices.

So basically, the problem is solved. I now know not to trust what the preview window says and how to setup my environment so that I can make sure I'm viewing the output videos correctly. However, I now want to throw these monitors in a fucking creek. BenQ is its own company now but was formed years ago when Acer spun off its Acer Peripherals business. I should have known better than to buy anything with even a small genetic link to Acer, far and away the consistently worst brand in the PC space. I can't afford to replace these monitors now but if a couple of big freelance jobs greenlight, then I can. At that point, I'll be selling these, buying a 27" Asus ROG Swift as my main monitor and a good quality, 24", 60Hz display as my secondary. And like Acer itself, I will NEVER go near a BenQ product EVER again and go out of my way to make sure no one I know ever buys from them. These monitors were worth over $400 each when I bought them and they can't even properly handle 60fps console footage because of a blur reduction feature that doesn't work and that you can't even turn off. Screw that.

Anyway, this was an epic read and it took me over an hour to author it but several people wanted to know how this concluded so there you are. If doing YouTube has taught me anything, it's an appreciation why so many professional video people are constantly having issues and why when they get a setup that works, they NEVER change it. I also understand why many YouTubers do either PC or console but rarely both.

I am planning to make at least 3 videos this weekend and among them is one of a 60fps PS4 game. I feel bad now that I got StarTech to refund me for a card that was never defective in the first place but they've already been sent back. The Ripsaw is like $150 cheaper so at least I'm coming out ahead there I guess? At some point down the line, I'll probably step back up to a Micomsoft card but not today.

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