Review: The Elgato Game Capture HD

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For some time now I’ve wanted to have a gadget that would allow me to grab footage from games I’m playing and either stream that content to a service like Twitch.tv or post it to YouTube or VideoPress. Over the last two weeks I’ve purchased a couple of solutions to try them out and after some testing I think I’ve found the winner, at least for now.

The one I won’t be returning is the Elgato Game Capture HD, and for most people who would like to capture gameplay, I can recommend it as a starting point for capturing gameplay video. I’ve done some tests with the device and will insert them throughout the review; all YouTube videos in this post were captured in my living room using the Game Capture HD.

What’s in the Box?

The Game Capture HD is a pretty simple package. You get:

  • The Game Capture device
  • A 1-meter HDMI cable
  • A 2-meter mini-USB cable
  • A 1-meter PS2/PS3-to-DIN cable
  • A very short DIN-to component/RCA stereo breakout cable

In short, everything you need to use the device comes with it, which is very handy. As far as the computer hardware you need, it’s best to look this up on Elgato’s site, but it works with USB 2 (something its competitors sometimes don’t), is completely external, and works with both PCs and Macs. (I did my testing on a Mac.)

The device itself is not much larger than a deck of standard playing cards:

DualShock 3 and a 360 controller for comparison.

As you can see, there isn’t much to it. On one end, there is an HDMI out, which is a passthrough to your TV or other monitor, and the mini-USB connector that goes to your computer:

And on the other end, there is the HDMI in and the DIN in, which can accept either the Ps2/Ps3 cable or the component breakout:

That’s the extent of what you get when you buy it. You’re not left without anything, which considering the price of the unit, is quite nice. All the cables you need to hook it up come with it. You will need to download the software from the Game Capture site, which is a small (<100 MB) download and consists of only one application that is installed to your computer. It’s as minimalist as I think a capture box can be.

What About the Software?

The software itself is pretty simple and easy to grasp. When you start it up it will wait for you to connect the device if you are in the Capture screen.

Your input to the capture device is shown on the left. To the right, you can set options for the GCHD, check sound levels if input is running, give title information for the video before you start, and start the recording. The options that are available are pretty easy to figure out as well:

“Input Device” will tell the GCHD what to expect, from a choice of Xbox 360, PS3, and iPad, though as long as you have the input source selected properly, I found that it was pretty good at adjusting to whatever I had hooked up to it. You can adjust the bit rate of the compression used as the device sends the video to your computer for storage, and if you want you can also make some image adjustments – though those adjustments will also be reflected on your display, so I didn’t use them.

On the Capture screen, there is a short timeline in the corner near the big giant record button:

This acts as a buffering interface, much like a DVR. If you are running your game through the GCHD, it will automatically buffer the last hour of gameplay for you. If you want to begin recording, the default option is just to start with the current live point of the video, but if you would rather back that up to catch something awesome you did before starting the record, you can scrub the marker back on the timeline and adjust the starting point.

This is a nice feature and if you are cool with running your game through the GCHD all the time, can save a moment here and there that you might not otherwise have caught.

When you want to work with the video you have already collected, you use the Edit screen.

Your already-recorded videos are arranged based on the game title you entered when recording each video. There is a timeline view that has rudimentary razor and delete tools, and you can review the video as you please. There are also built-in exporting options in the lower-right. You can configure GCHD to use each of those services and it will appropriately compress the video for you and then upload the video as you need. You can see that it will also create local files for you optimized for your devices—or if you would rather move to something like Final Cut you can just dump a ProRes version and carry on.

What Makes the Game Capture HD Awesome?

The one-touch record and export are definitely the best parts of the package. Hooking up the GCHD is dead simple and using the software is even easier. It’s game recording at the push of a button, and you don’t have to know the slightest thing about video codecs, compression, or editing to get your footage shared to a bunch of services. In that way, if you are just looking to show people some games, and you don’t want to drop a serious amount of cash, it’s a great device. I never had a problem with it doing exactly what it advertised, and never had a hardware freeze or a software crash in all the time I tested it.

The video management is pretty good and keeps things organized and easy to find. File sizes and types are manageable, and you don’t need a high-performance computer, hard disk array, or data transport to use it. Having it run on USB 2 must not have been simple, but it works and means that a lot more people will be able to use it.

It will also record video from an iPad 2 or later, or an iPhone 4 or later, as you can see:

This is really neat, because I figured it wouldn’t be this simple. With the GCHD it’s just plug-and-go. If you are a software developer and you would like to give demos of iOS applications using video, this would be a great tool to have.

That said, there are a few hangups, depending on what you really want to do.

Where Does It Fall Short?

You shouldn’t buy the GCHD if any of the following are really important to you out of the box:

  • You want to stream your gameplay to Twitch.tv instead of record it.
  • You want to record your voice while you play the game and have that be part of the video.
  • You want to play the game on your computer monitor or don’t have a TV handy.

Let’s talk a bit more about those.

The main problem that gets in the way of those is that the device itself is doing a lot of the encoding before the video even makes it to your computer. Because of this, there is a delay (depending on the bit rate you are using) that is a few seconds between what you are doing and what appears in the GCHD software. (This delay doesn’t affect the passthrough, which works flawlessly.)

The GCHD software doesn’t have any method available to mix in additional sound sources such as a microphone to your video. I hope this is something they are looking into adding in a future update because I know the lack of commentary ability will turn off a lot of people, like Minecraft players for example. If you wanted to you could record audio at the same time and then mix it in using an app like Premiere after the fact; you would just need to deal with the timecode difference—but it’s a lot of work to do all that.

Similarly, you can’t stream the video directly from the device. It doesn’t function unless the matching software is running on your computer, and it doesn’t appear as a capture device in any other applications. I did some gymnastics with my computer using CamTwist and recording the GCHD software window to pipe that into Flash Media Encoder, but that just made my MacBook sound like it was going to take off and the footage didn’t look all that awesome. I think it’s too much work for most mortals. As with the commentary thing above, I hope this is in mind at Elgato for a future update. It’s definitely on my wish list.

Other limitations that might give you pause but are far from stowstoppers:

  • You can’t record or passthrough at 1080p, but not much other than super-pro gear can. You’re limited to 720p or 1080i. And the GCHD can’t capture older SD sources.
  • The GCHD won’t passthrough Dolby Digital audio, or at least it didn’t in my testing. You’ll need to run an optical from a 360 direct to the receiver, and if you are trying with the PS3 you are pretty much out of luck. You’ll get Pro Logic II (matrixed surround) and that’s it.
  • If you leave it hooked up all the time, the passthrough won’t work unless you have the GCHD hooked up to your computer and the software running. It’s both or nothing.
  • You can’t record any HDCP-protected content via the HDMI connection. This includes PS3 games, which for some inexplicable reason, have their video output copy protected.

Some of the stuff that’s listed above can be alleviated with a software update or two (or so I would guess), but there are some things that are just limitations of how the device is made and intended to be used.

What Else Did I Test?

For purposes of making a wise decision, I also tested a Blackmagic Intensity Shuttle Pro. I was originally going to keep it, but after some additional testing I decided against it. Without getting into that device too much, my comparisons:

What it does better: is a capture device and so can stream directly: theoretically no audio lag: can be mixed with other audio sources; can capture from SD sources; more powerful overall.

What it does worse: definitely not plug-and-play; requires USB 3 or Thunderbolt (depending on model); much more CPU-intensive to use; doesn’t compress on the fly; had an audio lag I couldn’t resolve in practice; brought my computer to its knees; streaming was promising but ended up muddy and choppy in the end.

In the end, I kept the option that was simpler mostly because I can’t afford a new computer right now. I really want to stream gameplay, but I think I am going to have to look into building a PC specifically to do that at some point and use an internal card solution from AVerMedia.

Conclusions: Should You Buy One?

If you are looking for a low-cost ($180 on Amazon) and easy-to-configure way to capture your gameplay footage and post it to YouTube or share it on your blog, it’s a winner. It’s quick to set up, portable, simple to use and figure out, and gets the basics right. With some additions to the software in the future, it could be the only piece of hardware you would ever need for capturing footage from the current crop of consoles.

It works with lower-spec computers than many of the other options out there, is pretty much the best solution I have seen for the Mac, and can ever grab stuff like iOS footage without needing to goof around with settings and video formats.

It’s a winner.

If you have questions about my review or the GCHD, drop a comment below. Otherwise, watch 10 minutes of Pai and don’t forget to tip on your way out:

72 comments on “Review: The Elgato Game Capture HD”

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  1. I read through this, and it has helped me to choose. But my question is, does it work for PS2, and what is the quality for it like? Thank you.

    1. I no longer have a PS2 so I can’t comment on this with certainty, but I have tested some non-HD sources with it and they looked pretty good. The cable that connects directly to the PS3 should also work with the PS2.

      If you want to see a sample of quality I could do a test with my PS3 in BC mode with something PS2. Let me know if that would be helpful for you.

        1. As long as you are using a Windows or Mac OS version that’s within the specifications, it should work fine as far as I know.

    1. You do; without a connection to a computer, the unit doesn’t have any power and so it won’t even pass the signal through to a TV on the other end. It needs to be connected to a computer if you want to have it hooked up at all.

      1. Actually, I just plug the USB power cable into my PS3. It says it detects an “unknown USB device”, but it powers the Elgato and allows me to play without having to record or have my Mac out :)

        1. Yup – I discovered this later and often will just plug it into any powered USB port on whatever system I’m capturing at the time.

  4. I don’t have to connect an hdmi cable from my ps3 to my gaming monitor right? Cause mine has only 1 hdmi slot.

    So all I need to do is

    1) Connect the PS3-to-DIN cable from the Elgato to my ps3
    2) Connect an hdmi cable from the Elgato to the monitor
    3) Connect an usb cable from the Elgato to my mac?

    And the image will show on both my gaming monitor and mac?

    1. That’s right; you pass the video through the Elgato. (As much as I know, the PS3 won’t let you output using both cables at once anyway.)

  5. Thanks for the fast reply and info, I’ll probably get this in a week or two from best buy, can’t wait to try this with my asus vh236h!

  7. I play on ps3 on a computer screen, so does that mean it won’t record the audio?

  8. through a hdmi cable but the audio at the moment is through separate Logitech speakers

  9. i was thinking i could just record the sound through my computer with a program like audacity and then that would record my voice as well. and then just put them together in premier.

    do you think that would work?

  10. My grandson has an Elgato Game Capture for his Xbox and so far hasn’t been able to get it set up. Does he need to buy another HDMI cable, or is everything in the box he needs? He has an Apple MacBook Air computer.

    1. Everything needed is in the box. For the passthrough to work, keep in mind that all the cables need to be connected—including to the computer—and the Game Capture HD software should be running for the best results.

  11. So if i just connect this normally from my 360/TV to my macbook pro, the sound from the game should be recorded and heard through playback correct?

    And if i set my settings so that voice plays through the speakers and not just my headset, it should record those voices of others too correct?

    Basically, all I’m trying to do is record gameplay from halo/cod, and I want the sound from the gameplay to be included as well, because currently I have a dazzle that i used to use with a windows but isnt compatible with macs and it only records the video, not the gameplay sound.

    If thats all I want to do, would this be a good choice? I essentially wanna upload videos just like you did from this review, so I’m assuming this works, but I just wanted to clarify and make sure you werent using another program or something to get the gameplay noise onto you computer.

    Thanks for the help!

  13. Hi,

    I am experiencing audio delay on my PS3 recorded video, like half to one second delay.
    I have a very powerful laptop, the latest version of Game Capture HD software and the hardware firmware updated to the most recent.
    With the XBox 360 I have no problems at all.
    Any idea of what the reason could be?

    Thank you very much in advance for your answer.

    1. I haven’t seen such a problem myself so far; it may be something with your PS3 audio settings (make sure they are set to output through the AV out).

      If you have other technical questions about it, give the Elgato team a shout; they are really good at getting back to you.

      1. There is Mac software too if he were running Mac OSX though. Just as long as you have a Windows or Mac OS, they have software for it.

  16. So I can plug my el gato to the usb port on my xbox and it’ll record without me having it plugged to my computer?

    1. Actually, no; it will power the Elgato so you can use your console and not have to have it hooked to a computer, but if you want to record you will need to have it hooked up to a computer running the Elgato software.

  17. so you did this review quite a while ago, im wondering, is your “lack of commentary” problem fixed now that it has the live commentary feature or were you saying that the fature doesnt work very well?

    1. I don’t believe so, no. I would say that it’s not a fully-fledged editing solution for your videos; if you are looking to create something more complicated you’ll probably need an editing application as well.

  20. Hi Ryan,

    Thank you for your wonderful review. I have a specific question and would be grateful, if you have an answer or could help me. I run a microsurgery training laboratory. We have four Leica microscopes. I am planning to connect a HD camera to the C mount of these microscopes (http://www.lumenera.com/products/microscopy-cameras/infinityHD.php)

    I was hoping to connect a Elgato game capture HD to each of the HDMI cables coming off the cameras. My question is “will I need four PC’s to record the videos from each Elgato or will I be able to connect all four USB cables to one PC and record 4 videos simultaneously on one PC’

    Thank you.

    Cheers,
    Sandeep

    1. Interesting.

      I do not think you can connect more than one and use the provided software, but it’s possible you might be able to do it with external software that works with them like Xsplit.

      I would suggest you contact Elgato regarding this.

  22. Hey Ryan,

    I need to be on the road all next year and I am looking to use my MBP as a monitor for my 360 (easier than lugging a TV around). So two questions about the Elgato: 1) Do I need a TV/Monitor in addition to my MBP? 2) Will the lag be so bad, playing will be frustrating?

    Thanks for your help,
    -T

    1. You will need a TV or monitor that supports HDMI. The device itself does the video encoding, and as such, the feed to your computer will lag behind the action on the screen, in some cases and situations significantly.

      It’s unplayable directly on the computer itself.

      1. But my computer is in the other room. Are there extension usb ports or wireless?

        1. You can always use a USB extension cable to run it, but all the controls are in the app you have to run.

          It would be pretty hard to use this without a computer nearby.

  25. I’ve connected this up pressed the red button to start and the same to stop, it still appears that it’s constantly recording even after you press the button to stop (is this the buffer recording?) Does it only record an hour buffer and then deletes itself or does it record continuously? I’m worried about how much of the computers memory this will use if it just continually records.

    1. It keeps a 30-minute buffer at all times so you can go back and capture things you missed if you forgot to turn it on. It’s not a permanent recording and it won’t continue to take up additional disk space.

  26. My ps3 was plugged to a computer monitor without speakers. I got the sound from a logitech sound kit plugged on the RGB plug. I bought a elgato HD but i can’t have sound cause the RGB is now taken by the elgato. what are the ways (cheap if possible) to get direct sound from my ps3 ? sorry for my bad english

    1. I think it will depend on some of the other specs of the laptop. I have been able to use the GCHD with a slightly under-speced MacBook Air in the past, but your mileage may vary.

  28. Hello first of all awesome review!
    Second,
    Could i record my laptop screen with the elgato?
    It has 1 hdmi port, if i’d hook up a decent HDMI splitter would it work then with no extra screen?

    Thank you in advance!

  29. Will i be able to use my 16gb solid state drive mini laptop with the elgato? Can’t seem to get answers at all. Help?

    1. I do not know if this would work or not; it would depend greatly on the machine itself. That might not be enough room for the buffer required for the software, though.

  30. this review is very helpful
    I’m planing to get Elgato and may main purpose is to use may msi gt683r laptop as main screen of my ps3 and NOT TO capture a game.

    but the review says this.

    Where Does It Fall Short?

    You shouldn’t buy the GCHD if any of the following are really important to you out of the box:

    You want to play the game on your computer monitor or don’t have a TV handy.
    Let’s talk a bit more about those.

    The main problem that gets in the way of those is that the device itself is doing a lot of the encoding before the video even makes it to your computer. Because of this, there is a delay (depending on the bit rate you are using) that is a few seconds between what you are doing and what appears in the GCHD software. (This delay doesn’t affect the passthrough, which works flawlessly.)

    my question is this

    It this means using laptop as main screen with elgato for gaming purposes only is a big NO NO?since it will have delay on the game-play? Or is there any setting or hook up that will eliminate the delay?

    I’m hoping for the best reply.I will appreciate Any response.thanks in advance

    1. It this means using laptop as main screen with elgato for gaming purposes only is a big NO NO?since it will have delay on the game-play? Or is there any setting or hook up that will eliminate the delay?

      It would be unplayable on the computer you have it hooked up to. I would not recommend this at all.

  31. Ryan, we got an Elgato for our 10 year old for Christmas. It seemed so easy to setup but our problem, I believe, is that we have a Pioneer receiver connected to our media center. It’s easy to run right from the tv to Xbox 360 but I don’t know what to do with the receiver. Can you explain in layman’s terms (I’m not a very techy mom) what I need to do with the receiver in between?

    1. Hello,

      With the Elgato, you should run the HDMI like this:

      Xbox 360 > Elgato > Receiver

      Assuming you have an HDMI-capable receiver. Otherwise, you’ll need to run a digital audio cable either from the Xbox 360 to the receiver, or from the TV to the receiver to get audio.

  32. Does the laptop have to be on the entire time as you are playing?

  33. I updated the firmware on my Elgato HD and now it says (is the HDMI connected?) all the time and won’t change no matter what i do. Do you know of any solution?

  34. Thank you for the same. Will it work with the following. Just need to play PS4 on Macbook Air and not record it:

    OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 (14F1605)
    MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)
    Processor 1.4 GHz Intel Core i5
    Memory 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
    Graphics Intel HD Graphics 5000 1536 MB

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