Hmm maybe someone can capture some comparison video f.e. voodoo2 / unreal flyby using a VGA to HDMI converter and hardware H264 encoding?
Also the achieved encoding Bitrate/Quality/maximum Framerate would be interesting.
And maybe how well the HDMI scaler works when converting f.e. 1024x768 to 720p.

Yea that would be awesome!

Now with Windows cards...

It will be much easier if you can find a card that has component out. Because then you can use a PVR or DVD recorder or any of the current HD capture cards.

There are quite a few AGP cards from ATI and Nvidia with such cables.

Not sure about Voodoo 2 though because they are pass-through. But maybe someone did a Voodoo 2 with component out?

And the final step is getting a card with DVI / HDMI out. That's also possible with AGP and shouldn't be an issue with W98 / WXP.

And regarding scaling. At least under XP you can have the display driver do the scaling. So you can set the desktop to 1920 x 1080 and launch a game in 1024 x 768 and it will letterbox it for you.

I tried cheating a Voodoo2 with a WinGlide driver (which draws voodoo2's framebuffer to the host card) so it could be captured through the host card. Too slow for it to be worth it.

leileilol wrote:

I tried cheating a Voodoo2 with a WinGlide driver (which draws voodoo2's framebuffer to the host card) so it could be captured through the host card. Too slow for it to be worth it.

I thought with Voodoo's the contents of the framebuffer didn't represent the actual screen output because there is more filtering still to be done after the data leaves the framebuffer but before it reaches the screen which was why pics captured by reviewers always made the Voodoos look worse than they were.

Last night I tried the HDMI port of my new I5 system (Sandy Bridge CPU come with a GPU).

Now I don't have a TV, so I could only use the HDMI cable into a PC LCD Monitor.

The POST and BIOS screen looked weird. Like zoomed into the left or something like that. Part of the right side was missing.

I booted FreeDOS and had some game to test and the 320 x 200 image was filling the whole screen, which was great.

I used the OSD to see what frequency it's running but it just said 1366 x 768 @ 60 Hz. So yea who knows what's really going on.

But still, quite optimistic and it might be time to buy a HDMI capture card and see if they can talk to each other.

leileilol wrote:

3dfx Voodoo3 and Keen 4 scrolling should be fine IIRC.

I should also mention Voodoo3's s-video out doesn't like 320x200 so this VGA stuff's the only method in that case. It also doesn't initialize until Windows is loaded so you miss the fun of the boot process being recorded.

Ok, i'm wrong here. VGA unplugged will make this work.

sliderider wrote:

I thought with Voodoo's the contents of the framebuffer didn't represent the actual screen output because there is more filtering still to be done after the data leaves the framebuffer but before it reaches the screen which was why pics captured by reviewers always made the Voodoos look worse than they were.

Thats right, so f.e. my Vooodoo2 recordings show the actual output. (like the Unreal Flyby).

Ok, i'm wrong here. VGA unplugged will make this work.

TV-Out and VGA in parallel usually won't work. You have probably experienced that the card uses one 'view mode' primarily whereas the other output went offline in certain frequencies. Still I wonder how the cards handle the original 70 Hz mode when TV-Out is used since NTSC is 60 or PAL 50 Hz. If they reduce refresh then all timing based on VSync will be affected. Someone noticed slowdowns or unusual behaviour with some software when running TV-Out?

Are there cards that show correct 70 Hz from software side?

Thanks for the videos, they look fantastic! You should capture the 3DFX intros 😁 😁

RichB93 wrote:

Thanks for the videos, they look fantastic! You should capture the 3DFX intros 😁 😁

Well, how about Dethkarz?
ftp://78.47.153.163/video/dethkarz.mkv

RichB93 wrote:

You should capture the 3DFX intros 😁 😁

I can do that. Should be fairly easy enough to do even in emulation.

3dfx splashes make up the bulk of the drivers' size 😜

How a Voodoo3 looks for 320x200 DOS games with its TV out

EDIT: NVM, DAMN COMPRESSION TO HELL

Sweet!

Could you list the gear you used? Capture card and what software for capturing and encoding. What de-interlacer did you use?

Someone remembers Cronologia / Cascada?
Low Quality YT Version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzfZ23TFR3A
Full Length, nearly 47 minutes of Action, every part runs to the end, second part starts at approx. 25 mins.
Read about Spacepigs infiltrating the scene and Meet Yoghurt Man !

Ofcourse HQ Version also available here: ftp://78.47.153.163/video/cronolog.mkv

Some technical notes:
System used was a 386DX-40 with a ET4000AX, SB16 ASP CT1740. Sound is of course plain SB.
The third part 'Time' runs originally in a 70 Hz (as some screens in the vector part), the whole video though is captured at 60 Hz.
I would like to note also that there is no mirroring of the 'Presents' Text on the very first screen when it scrolls down.
The flickering bar due to not deleting memory that appears in the vector part in late scenes with vector balls is real.

YT detected some copyrighted third party content in the cronologia demo recording.... wtf.

Awesome...

Funky music, love it!

A short one:
Joop 2 by INC Europe, some demo with VGA hardware tricks
Full Framerate: ftp://78.47.153.163/video/joop.mkv
Half Framerate: http://www.youtube.com/user/elianda?feature=m … u/0/TiZzp-LrWNE

Streets

I recently bought a Hauppauge Colossus HD HDMI capture card.
Features and picture: http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_colossus.html
It is targeted for recordings from game consoles.
- S-Video cable is optional.
- no HDMI cable included.
- no 1080p mode support.

The card comes with driver, WinTV7 and ArcSoft Showbiz software.

Driver installation worked without problems (Win7x64), for driver updates I recommend to remove the old drivers manually.
Updated software CD images from the web check for the original CD in the drive.

WinTV7 is mainly for Live watching and is also capable of recording to HDD as MPEG4-TS.
Basically the software saves the data from the H.264 hardware encoder chip.
It has also a network streaming service, though it is running here, but from the http interface it doesn't finds any channel (as HDMI or Composite) even when trying on the same PC (localhost). It seems this has to get polished some more. (I would like to see a simple shoutcast stream or similar)

ArcSoft Showbiz is a video recording / editing software. It supports MP4, TS and MP2TS container. The interface looks nice, but it's very mouse oriented. I found no way to enter exact time stamps for cutting f.e.
Also questionable: If you want to save the cutted H.264 video again the only format option is MJPEG (WTF?!?).
So I used this application only for recording and
defaulted to a more H.264 compliant workflow and used MKVMerge for cutting.

Now the more interesting point: Compatibility

The colossus is not HDCP capable.

Virtualdub: Colossus shows as device but has no available Audio or Video stream to capture.

WinTV7/Arcsoft Showbiz recording:
PC graphics card HDMI out to HDMI: On PC the 1080i mode is 1080 at 30 Hz.
Using a NVidia card some applications seem to use a fullscreen mode where the Nvidia card sends 1080p instead, which results in no-signal.
(f.e. ASD butterfly effect in 1920x1080).
If the mode changes while recording between different HDMI compatible modes, f.e. 1080i to 720p the video stream changes too. MPC-HC f.e. supports also correct playback. It stops though if there is a unsupported mode in between.
Bitrate can be adjusted upto 20 MBit/s constant and variable (with peak value). Default is for 1080i 9 MBit/s VBR, 13.5 MBit/s peak. Quality is ok and as expected for single pass encoding. There seems to be 1-2 seconds buffering. I have not checked if I do recording from HDMI and analog RCA Line-In Audio if Audio and Video is still synchroneously. (just HDMI vid+HDMI aud)

PC graphics card DVI (GF6800GT) to DVI->HDMI adapter to HDMI: Does not work - no signal. Original mode setting was HDMI compatible. I tried different modes.

analog PAL 50Hzi composite signal -> blue component in (composite is decoded via blue component): works
C64 composite signal -> blue component: gets signal, but no sync possible

So the card seems to be very sticky about a correct PAL signal. Already a C64 does not work.

Final words:
The cards works as the specification says. Anything beyond this seems to be difficult, like signal from DVI with DVI2HDMI adapter or 'a bit off PAL' signal like from a C64 at the composite-in.

I'd liked it if there would be some broader support for well known recording applications.

The included video streaming option is a good idea, but it would be fine if it uses some standard that it can be accessed with VLC f.e.
This can run in addition to the http web interface. I can not say much more to the quality of this here, since it did not worked here.

I'd also like it to see to have a VfW encoder that accepts video streams from the PC and utilizes the hardware encoder chip on the card.

That's a bit disappointing...

You could try playing games at 1280 x 720p? It makes hardly a difference when watching, but the Colossus is compatible with this mode and encoding and storage requirements are also lower. And you should be able to record at 60fps which does make quite a difference when watching.

The newer C64 have S-Video signal on the AV port. Might be something to test if it applies to your situation. Also what happens if you route the C64 signal through a VCR or something like that? Maybe the signal gets boosted / fixed?

That the DVI>HDMI adapter doesn't work is a real shame. But here also try if you can test 1280 x 720 if that machine / video card supports such a mode.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

That's a bit disappointing... […]
Show full quote

That's a bit disappointing...

You could try playing games at 1280 x 720p? It makes hardly a difference when watching, but the Colossus is compatible with this mode and encoding and storage requirements are also lower. And you should be able to record at 60fps which does make quite a difference when watching.

The newer C64 have S-Video signal on the AV port. Might be something to test if it applies to your situation. Also what happens if you route the C64 signal through a VCR or something like that? Maybe the signal gets boosted / fixed?

That the DVI>HDMI adapter doesn't work is a real shame. But here also try if you can test 1280 x 720 if that machine / video card supports such a mode.

Yes 1280x720p works of course and it is the highest mode supported at 60 Hz.
As for the C64, I have not the optional S-Video cable. I can try the VCR solution. I have a analog SAT Receiver with SCART In/Out. Still this doesn't change the input signal acceptance of the colossus card.

The DVI to HDMI adapter setup was like you wrote. I used a PC with a GF6800GT that has a DVI output. There runs a current NVidia driver in XP SP3 and I added all HDMI compatible modes. The driver has already templates for all of those modes as additional custom modes. I checked on a normal TFT if the set mode was correct and then changed to the other cable. I couldn't get any signal on the colossus while the TFT showed all the different modes fine. (Except 1920er since the 17" TFT caps at 1280x1024)

I think there's something wrong with your FTP server, elianda:

1ss@li45-163:~$ ftp 78.47.153.163
2Connected to 78.47.153.163.
3220 Welcome to ... FTP service.
4Name (78.47.153.163:root): anonymous
5331 Please specify the password.
6Password:
7230 Login successful.
8Remote system type is UNIX.
9Using binary mode to transfer files.
10ftp> cd video
11250 Directory successfully changed.
12ftp> ls
13200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
14500 OOPS: vsf_sysutil_bind
15ftp>

I'll try with another client, maybe your server doesn't like active mode.

Edit: Yep, nevermind, working just fine with a different FTP client. 😀

1ss@li45-163:~$ pftp
2ftp> open 78.47.153.163
3Connected to 78.47.153.163.
4220 Welcome to ... FTP service.
5Name (78.47.153.163:root): anonymous
6331 Please specify the password.
7Password:
8230 Login successful.
9Remote system type is UNIX.
10Using binary mode to transfer files.
11ftp> ls
12227 Entering Passive Mode (78,47,153,163,55,19).
13150 Here comes the directory listing.
14drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0            4096 Apr 30 03:12 6581_overviews
15drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0            4096 Apr 18 03:02 browser
16drwxr-xr-x   11 0        0            4096 Apr 04 04:00 chips
17drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0            4096 Jun 22 22:55 patch
18drwxr-xr-x    5 0        0            4096 Jul 05 23:48 pictures
19-rw-r--r--    1 0        0              21 Mar 30 23:11 test.txt
20drwxr-xr-x    7 0        0            4096 Aug 07 03:15 video
21drwxr-xr-x    2 0        0           12288 Mar 31 12:57 wavetable_recordings
22226 Directory send OK.
23ftp> by
24221 Goodbye.