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How should I capture video from VGA?

R

Robuck

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Philadelphia PA
Hello

I am working on a project, and I need to capture video from my MS-DOS computer. It has a standard VGA output, 640x480. What is the cheapest way to do this? Ideally I would want to pay less than $50 for this.

In case you were wondering, the project is a video game I am developing- but it's top secret for now! I need the video for the kickstarter campaign.
 
I used a cheap VGA->HDMI scaler from a company called Lenkeeng I think? It's often unbranded from our friends in China.
Then I feed this in to a Elgato Game Capture HD (which captures the HDMI).

But this costs more than $50 even with a 2nd hand Elgato, and it was the cheapest solution I could find that didn't suck.

DOSBox would be the cheapest as Plasma mentioned. I normally use OBS Studio to capture these days out of habit and it's free.
 
If you ARE going to be pulling crazy VGA tricks, like per-raster effects or something, then there are various hardware methods to capture vga. We can revisit those if the need arises.
 
Pointing a video camera at the screen always works. (If that was good enough for Computer Chronicles, it's good enough for you.) In fact, if your project is designed to run on vintage hardware, then doing the video that way will help to prove that it's actually running on real hardware, rather than emulation.
 
If you're using a CRT, then yes, it depends on what the refresh rate of the video mode is, and it depends on the camera's ability to pick a shutter speed. For example, I've successfully shot video of my IBM CGA 5153 monitor with a mirrorless 4K camera because the video mode is 59.92Hz and the shutter speed was 1/60. (This works no matter what your capture framerate is -- even 24p looks ok, image-wise, if the shutter matches the refresh rate.)

If you use an LCD for your monitor, it doesn't matter; you can use just about any camera on any settings. LCDs don't have a persistence/refresh issue. But they're less authentic, of course.
 
Anyone have any experience using an Epiphan VGA2PCIe? I have a VGA2USB LR that I have used briefly with some devices where software screen capture is not an option. I might also try a VGA2PCIe.
 
gslick said:
Anyone have any experience using an Epiphan VGA2PCIe? I have a VGA2USB LR that I have used briefly with some devices where software screen capture is not an option. I might also try a VGA2PCIe.
Click to expand...

I've used an Epiphan AV.io HD with fantastic results. Captures every low resolution VGA image with odd refresh rates I've thrown at it.
 
Cheapest capture devices are those USB dongles that can capture analog signals like composite and s-video.
There are various VGA cards from the PCI/AGP era that have s-video out as standard, so you'd be all set if you have one of those.
If not, there are cheap scan converter devices that do this for you: they take VGA in and generate a PAL or NTSC-compatible composite and s-video signal.
I've used a cheap Koenig CMP-TELVIEW1 for this in the past: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Konig-VGA-TV-Video-Converter/dp/B000QB4QVC
And a Terratec Grabby USB capture device.
This was the result (not the ProTracker screens, only the demo):
 
phreakindee said:
I've used an Epiphan AV.io HD with fantastic results. Captures every low resolution VGA image with odd refresh rates I've thrown at it.
Click to expand...

Seconded. These are framegrabbers, so they're high-precision and flexible devices. The downside is that they cost much more than a consumer "capture vga" device.

I've had good success with the DVI version (ie. DVI2PCIe). Beware of imitations, though; a board named that with a green PCB is commonly sold on ebay but it's not the same board. The real board has a blue PCB.
 
I picked up an older Epiphan VGA2PCIe for $40 delivered.

Currently someone is selling 5 of them on eBay:
www.ebay.com/itm/Epiphan-VGA2PCIE-XPCB-EPH06-01-FRAM-GRABBER/112830679473
Just the board. If you need a VGA splitter and/or extension cable you need to supply your own. Those are not expensive.

I got it working on a 64-bit Windows 7 system without much trouble. The VGA2PCIe is supposed to go as high as 1920x1200, which is better than the VGA2USB LR that I got a while ago. So far I have only hooked it up to a VT525 terminal as an example of something that isn't a PC and can't be captured with a software only solution.

VT525-Setup.jpg

You get the best results using one of these if you know, or can determine, exactly what the video timing is and can configure a custom video mode instead of letting the software try to determine that. I hooked a digital oscilloscope up to the VT525 video output to measure and calculate all of the horizontal and vertical timing parameters.

CustomVGAMode.jpg
 
These are a steal at that price. Thanks for the link and for the VT525 capture!

Just to confirm, this stuff isn't for the faint-hearted -- common VGA resolutions and modes are included as templates in the software but if you're doing anything goofy, you have to enter the exact specs yourself. My DVI2PCIe is the same way.
 
gslick said:
I picked up an older Epiphan VGA2PCIe for $40 delivered.

Currently someone is selling 5 of them on eBay:
www.ebay.com/itm/Epiphan-VGA2PCIE-XPCB-EPH06-01-FRAM-GRABBER/112830679473
Just the board. If you need a VGA splitter and/or extension cable you need to supply your own. Those are not expensive.

I got it working on a 64-bit Windows 7 system without much trouble. The VGA2PCIe is supposed to go as high as 1920x1200, which is better than the VGA2USB LR that I got a while ago. So far I have only hooked it up to a VT525 terminal as an example of something that isn't a PC and can't be captured with a software only solution.

View attachment 44060

You get the best results using one of these if you know, or can determine, exactly what the video timing is and can configure a custom video mode instead of letting the software try to determine that. I hooked a digital oscilloscope up to the VT525 video output to measure and calculate all of the horizontal and vertical timing parameters.

View attachment 44061
Click to expand...

Wow, thanks for that link! I just grabbed one. I also offered $40, which was accepted.
 
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