Digital AV connection (HDMI)

[Kadano]

Hello!
I am active in the Super Smash Bros Melee scene. One major problem we face is recording gameplay in high quality. The easiest and by far most pupular connection used is composite, but this suffers from a range of problems: bad quality, deinterlacing, lacking of good, modern recording hardware. The only person in our scene that has managed to record composite in excellent quality is ajp_anton. He has written lots of complicated scripts that are optimised for his specific recording setup that mainly consists of a Leadtek PxDTV 2300 h, which is a PCI video card featuring uncompressed video. As this card is hardly available anymore, this is not a method that can be used by everyone.

The best thing would be to have direct access to the Gamecube's YCbCr connection, either through the digital av out port or by internal connection. What cable type does this signal support? Is it compatible with HDMI cables?
I've seen the thread about diy component cables, so I really really hope getting an hdmi connection is possible =)

[HomelandReloaded]

If you have a Digital AV Out port you can get analog component video out of it using an official or home made cable. An Intensity Pro PCI Express card from Blackmagicdesign can read the component video signal into your PC and you will get good quality, but the size of the video file will be so big that you will need more codecs or a video format conversion app to reduce it to something more manageable. It's a start though.

If you can get S-Video from your GameCube then an ultra cheap ezcap usb thing can give surprisingly good results in a compressed video format.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that the Intensity Pro card has an HDMI output connector, though I haven't tried using it.

[pr0ton]

HDMI is digital and component is analog, although term digital port is a bit confusing here. At some point when capturing analog video it needs to be converted to digital, so the weak point is this conversion. For your needs the best would be component or VGA in 480p, enough PCI cards do a decent job on converting this I think.

Dolphin runs Super Smash Bros Melee and Brawl very well, in 1080p with other graphics improvements.

[Kadano]

@HomelandReloaded: I'm aware of these methods, but I want to use the digital signal directly because I really don't like the idea of taking a digital signal, converting it to analog only to convert it back to digital again.

@pro0ton: Yeah, but component/VGA is analog as well. I'm looking for a way to get the digital signal directly to a HDMI or similar digital video interface capture device.
Dolphin is a good idea, but there are some problems:
1) Controllers. I do have a Magic Joy Box so I can use my GCC with Dolphin, but the analog L/R-sliders aren't working properly and I would have to get another 3 of them so that we can also play team matches.
2) CPU. I don't think it's possible to play on anything worse than a 2500k without the risk of frame drops.
3) Display lag. I'm not sure what this depends on, but a friend of mine, who is very sensitive to lag, says that playing on Dolphin is about as laggy as on LCDs.

[HomelandReloaded]

I'm looking for a way to get the digital signal directly to a HDMI or similar digital video interface capture device.

I've been looking for that too. I think it must be possible but I just don't know enough about video signals.

[pr0ton]

Well, you won't get a digital video signal from the Gamecube. Even since the video is transferred digital before the MX chip, I think without precise documentation about the MX, nobody can come up with this.

And Dolphin:

1) Yes, working native controllers is an expensive investment.
2) My C2D E6750 already can do many Brawl levels >50FPS all the time. But with recording software it can be a problem.
3) Noticeable lag in Dolphin? Something else is faulty for your friend I think. "about as laggy as on LCDs": Hopefully today lag for LCDs (or LEDs) is a minimum. Almost every gamer today uses LCD, I don't see competitive Counter-Strike players in front of a CRT anymore.. That said, also I like the visual quality of a CRT better, so still searching for a Sony FW900 .

[KirovAir]

3) Noticeable lag in Dolphin? Something else is faulty for your friend I think. "about as laggy as on LCDs": Hopefully today lag for LCDs (or LEDs) is a minimum. Almost every gamer today uses LCD, I don't see competitive Counter-Strike players in front of a CRT anymore.. That said, also I like the visual quality of a CRT better, so still searching for a Sony FW900 .

Don't underestimate the amount input lag which is noticeable for Melee players. :p I'm pretty sure dolphin will produce some input lag by the controller overhead only. (At least, lag that will affect Melee players)

[Kadano]

Well, you won't get a digital video signal from the Gamecube. Even since the video is transferred digital before the MX chip, I think without precise documentation about the MX, nobody can come up with this.

I read here that the digital av pins are known and carry a YCrCb signal. As far as I know, HDMI also uses YCrCb. So why aren't these two compatible?

And Dolphin:

1) Yes, working native controllers is an expensive investment.
2) My C2D E6750 already can do many levels >50FPS all the time.
3) Noticeable lag in Dolphin? Something else is faulty for your friend I think. "about as laggy as on LCDs": Hopefully today lag for LCDs (or LEDs) is a minimum. Almost every gamer today uses LCD, I don't see competitive Counter-Strike players in front of a CRT anymore.. That said, also I like the visual quality of a CRT better, so still searching for a Sony FW900 .

1) I've recently written Mayflash an email and they told me they'll have these available soon. If that's true, a full setup will cost about 30€, which is affordable imho
2) I only have a G530 (2x2.4) and I don't get full constant framerate. I installed an XFX 6870 a few weeks ago but it seems Dolphin can't make use of it at all.
3) I was expressing myself badly. I meant that the lag is (supposedly) comparable to that of hooking your GC to a LCD with the composite cable. I'm still sceptical whether the lag really doesn't exceed GC+CRT lag.

[Extrems]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY67MHI6Bp8&hd=1
Not sure why I bothered.

[Kadano]

What do you want to tell us with this video?

[pr0ton]

3) I was expressing myself badly. I meant that the lag is (supposedly) comparable to that of hooking your GC to a LCD with the composite cable. I'm still sceptical whether the lag really doesn't exceed GC+CRT lag.

You still use CRT for that reason . For Counter-Strike I understand, but why not .

I wonder how much input lag will be involved when doing Dolphin+CRT and GC+CRT then. And thanks for linking adapter, 30 euro sounds a lot better.

And HDMI, it can a digital color space, not analog.