Need help! Looking for a good screen capture device!

[Dangerboy]

Apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong spot, but I *am* using it for capturing PSX Game screens, so it fits.

Basically, long story short is that I used to have a Dazzle device, and used it to grab screen shots off of my game systems. Worked rather nicely, and dumped the grabs as JPGs right to my desktop.

However, the version I had is not compliant with XP, and the software updates didn't help. So I need a new Dazzle like device. However, most of the ones I saw at Best Buy and Cicruit City seemed strictly video based, including the Dazzle 80 and 150.

Can anyone refer me to a killer device? I'm looking to spend about $70 - 100 on one. Any and all help would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Jason

[Flack]

Apologies to the mods if this is in the wrong spot, but I *am* using it for capturing PSX Game screens, so it fits.

Basically, long story short is that I used to have a Dazzle device, and used it to grab screen shots off of my game systems. Worked rather nicely, and dumped the grabs as JPGs right to my desktop.

However, the version I had is not compliant with XP, and the software updates didn't help. So I need a new Dazzle like device. However, most of the ones I saw at Best Buy and Cicruit City seemed strictly video based, including the Dazzle 80 and 150.

Can anyone refer me to a killer device? I'm looking to spend about $70 - 100 on one. Any and all help would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Jason

Yeah, the Dazzle completely pissed me off. I have the older one that is only compatible with Windows 95/98/ME and not 2000/XP as well. Believe it or not, for years I've kept a 98 machine around, just so I could continue to use it!

Recently, I switched over to an ATI all in one video card. You're right, on the box they tend to push the idea that you can watch television on your TV, but the back of the card has both coax and RCA inputs, which is perfect for capturing screen shots. If you're lazy, you can hook your VCR up to the capture card and then plug your PSX into the VCR. I haven't compared results to see if the extra stop in the chain drops the signal much.

I know I paid under $100 for the card. Actually I have two now, one is ATI and the other is a generic off brand, both work fine.

Here is a screenshot I took with the ATI card of a PSX game and sent in for the new Digital Press Advance guide.

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsightz/psx/pacmanworld_2.jpg

[Dangerboy]

Flack,

Thanks for the input! Does the card also have S-Video, or just RCA? and does it really matter since that screen shot of your looks fantatsic?

I've got some research to do. Thanks! :D

[slownerveaction]

Let me second the ATI line of "Wonder" cards. I've got an All In Wonder (video card + capturing), but they've also got standalone capture cards.

Mine has S-Video, RCA/composite, and coax. I've used it to take pictures for a lot of the articles/reviews I've done, and it has never failed me.

[kai123]

If you have USB 2.0, Ati just released one that does uncompressed video through it. Here is a review of it. This might be the tuner that I pick up if I don't get an all in wonder that is. http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/multimedia/ati/tvwond/usb2/index.shtml

[Flack]

Flack,

Thanks for the input! Does the card also have S-Video, or just RCA? and does it really matter since that screen shot of your looks fantatsic?

I've got some research to do. Thanks! :D

I will have to double check when I get home, but I believe it has composite and coax INS, and composite and svideo outs. I've never used the outs, like I said I have coax running from my VCR to the back of it using coax, and then I when I need to do screenshots I jack the PSX or whatever into the front of the VCR.

[Dangerboy]

Well, I picked up the ATI TV Wonder Pro, and after all the installing and everything, I find out I need a Radeon class graphics cards to use the DVD / TV functions. No biggie, I figure, I'm just using it for input capture.

Apparently the DVD part of that refers to the screen capture part, because all I can do are access the players, and the one window that has a snap shot option is only if played from a file..which i can't do because I can't access the TV option. :o

I really wish they would have said I needed a Radeon class card on the box before I opened my pc/installed everything. Back to the drawing board.

[zmweasel]

Can anyone refer me to a killer device? I'm looking to spend about $70 - 100 on one. Any and all help would be appreciated!

Have you considered using a PS1 emu for screen-grabbing? You can't do any better than pixel-perfect uncompressed .BMPs.

-- Z.

[Iron Draggon]

COOL, I need some help with this very same issue. I have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Am I completely out of luck here, or is there a way? I don't have a few hundred bucks to buy a new All-In-Wonder card, so is there a cheap solution? A capture only card was mentioned, would this work out for me? I have a couple of free PCI slots, but that's it, so a PCI solution would be best.

[Dangerboy]

ZMWeasel:

If I could ever get one to run right, probably. I think the only emulator I got to run was nesticle and genecist. I tried psxe ort whatever and couldn't get that to do squat. If you can point me in the right direction, I'm there.

IronDragon:

The TV Wonder with Remote was $99. If you have the radeon card, it should work brilliantly then. I think I"m just going to remove this and return it if I don't hear from ATI"s customer support about seeing if there's a way to bypass the TV option and just go Video In.

Jason

[TheRedEye]

I have an ATI, but the program that comes with it sucks. I used a great one for a while, but the free trial is way past expired. Any recommendations on a good program to use?

[Flack]

If I could ever get one to run right, probably. I think the only emulator I got to run was nesticle and genecist. I tried psxe ort whatever and couldn't get that to do squat. If you can point me in the right direction, I'm there.

I run ePSXe ... and crap, now that I think about it, I'm wondering if I didn't do my screenshots with that instead ... :embarrassed:

Anyway, there are some instructions out there on the web on getting ePSXe to work. Basically I found two things with the program, one, getting it to work with your specific video card (whatever it may be) was a pain, and two, while it often loaded games, switching games was always clunky. The program would often lock up or just quit reading the CD and I'd often have to at least close/restart the program. It was not uncommon to have to reboot.

[Sylentwulf]

Just to be different, I'm going to suggest making your PC a dual-boot computer. Put windows XP AND windows 98 on there.

[robotriot]

Using something like a cheap Hauppauge TV card works just fine, it's got both RF and S-Video/Composite inputs.

As a capturing program, I'd recommend DScaler for screenshots or VirtualDub for videos. Don't use software supplied with your hardware, it usually has ugly skins, little functionality and tends to crash a lot.

[dj898]

If I could ever get one to run right, probably. I think the only emulator I got to run was nesticle and genecist. I tried psxe ort whatever and couldn't get that to do squat. If you can point me in the right direction, I'm there.

I run ePSXe ... and crap, now that I think about it, I'm wondering if I didn't do my screenshots with that instead ... :embarrassed:

Anyway, there are some instructions out there on the web on getting ePSXe to work. Basically I found two things with the program, one, getting it to work with your specific video card (whatever it may be) was a pain, and two, while it often loaded games, switching games was always clunky. The program would often lock up or just quit reading the CD and I'd often have to at least close/restart the program. It was not uncommon to have to reboot.

Hmm...
when I tried it runs just fine on missus WinXP P4-3 with GF3 card.
The reason I don't use is it has some issue with FMV as it render the movie with two few colour than it was intended - so you can very dithered look. Otherwise it works ok.

cheers

[kevincure]

If you just want PSX screenshots, ePSXe is the way to go. It works on 90-something% of PSX games, and I've set it up in minutes on two different computers. If you have any problems with it, shoot me an IM and I'll see if I can figure out why it isn't working for you.

[NoahsMyBro]

@Dangerboy -- which card is it that you have, exactly? I've been toying with building a MythTV box, and if your card will work for that, and if you can't return it, I might consider taking it off your hands.

-- Steve

[Dangerboy]

My graphic card is whatever is in my computer when I bought it. According to HP's web-site, that's a "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator with up to 128MB shared video memory" for what it's worth.

Hence why trying to get a emulator that requires a real graphics card brand name for it's drivers might be hard to run. :o

Noahsmybro:
If I can't return the TV Wonder Pro, I'll let you know.

Off to shower, return item, and work.
Jason

[Iron Draggon]

IronDragon:

The TV Wonder with Remote was $99. If you have the radeon card, it should work brilliantly then. I think I"m just going to remove this and return it if I don't hear from ATI"s customer support about seeing if there's a way to bypass the TV option and just go Video In.

Jason

OK, so how exactly do I hook it up for taking screenshots from my consoles? I only have what looks like it's an S-video connector on the back of my card. Joe had said that I need to plug my console directly into the card, so it will use my monitor as it would my TV screen, but I don't think that I have an S-video cable for any of them. Is there a special adapter or something that I need from Radio Shack? And where do all the sound connections go in my sound card? None of the jacks on it are red and white like the cables, I just have black, green, pink, blue, orange, and none of those are the same kind of jacks as the red and white ones on my TV anyway. Do I need an adapter for those too? I've never done anything like this before, so I have no idea.

RedEye, a friend of mine recommended Snag-It, so that's what I'm planning to use, if I can ever get everything hooked up right. I hope it works well.

[Ed Oscuro]

My graphic card is whatever is in my computer when I bought it. According to HP's web-site, that's a "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator with up to 128MB shared video memory" for what it's worth.
Ugh. It's stealing your RAM, and "shared" "video memory" is so slow! A real graphics card would be nice if you want to do anything much with that PC, I'd say.

Lots of good suggestions in this thread, too.

[NoahsMyBro]

IronDraggon -- Regarding the 's-video-looking' connector - Assuming it's on your video card (VGA card), and not the video capture device (ATI TV Wonder), then it's most likely that the connector on the back of your card is an output, not an input. This would mean you run a cable from the card to the input on your TV or VCR, to view the computer display.

To view the game console on the computer, on the other hand, you would need to hook the console up to the video capture device (the TV-Wonder, for example).

To determine precisely which card is the VGA adapter, and which is the capture card ==> 1) the VGA card in all likelihood has your monitor plugged in to it. 2) The VGA card will have a connector that looks like a 2600/C64/Genesis/PC serial mouse plug, but with 15 pins instead of 9 pins.

[Iron Draggon]

CRAP. That's exactly what I have. So the only way that I can do it is to buy some kind of new card now? What's the cheapest that I can get one just for that purpose? Any suggestions? It'll have to fit into an empty PCI slot.

[Dangerboy]

I was able to return the card. Yay.

As for the required card, I think the lowest was about $150ish.

Jason