Budget Capture Cards Compared (Tech Review)

Comparing capture cards, with a primary focus on the $15 non-branded HDMI Capture card.

#streaming, #zoom, #capturecard

The Gear I use to Make Videos:
dchild=1&keywords=capture+cards&qid=1597138612&sr=8-15

[DannyMac]

WOW, there is something odd going on there with the audio in AGPTek. Awesome value on the unbranded $15 card.

[kevinh]

Picked one of these up from Ebay in the UK for the grand total of £5.99 with free shipping (less than $8). I was curious about it's capabilities and after some testing I found these devices ignore HDCP signals, I was able to record from BluRay and a Roku onto my laptop in testing. There's also a version which has an HDMI loopthrough which might be more suitable for game capture as this version has some major lag issues.

[GamerLuna]

well I got a Nintendo switch, so don't need 60fps or 4k just one to live stream at the least

[Spirow]

I have been looking through so many videos to see if this capture card records audio from the HDMI source, thank you for memtioning that!

[gabrielnedu]

This thing is an absolute cheat code. Managed to get a looped version of it aswell, which should be good for gaming .

[RegNatarajan]

Really useful video. I was about to go buy a Brio at the bloated prices because I need to do more videoconferencing due to covid lockdown where I am. This just saved me some cash while improving my quality.

[kathleenyang]

Woooow, one of the best videos I saw so far about capture card comparison

[ThriftyAV]

I ordered that exact same capture card, also from Ebay! It arrived just the other day, but I haven't checked it out just yet. On your test, the Ebay card did just fine, much better than the AGPTek. I puchased it for versatility in my "toolkit" as you called it. I plan on grabbing footage from my Atari Flashback 9, my multiple camcorders, my older 1080p Roku, the output on my VHS/DVD combo unit, and even the VGA output from my Win98 build (with the addition of a VGA to HDMI converter). Nice comparison, and I'm glad the product that you and I purchased is not junk.

[livesportsvideo]

My worry is reliability, sometimes cheaper means less inferior components. Now anyone who does this professionally wouldn't bother with el cheapo, but for the majority of us tinkering with such things, we need to make what little money we have spare go further. I purchased two of the HDMI capture USB sticks and was rather pleased with the result. It would be great to know if these units have longevity and won't burn out half way through an important stream. I suppose the answer really is to belt and brace and have set in place contingencies for such an event. Great comparisons on what one might expect. I should also mention that the latency on the cheaper card was very low, considering it's Usb 2.0 the response was fantastic with virtually no lag.

[johnwongtw]

You can get this USB capture card from Alixpress, pricing is all over the place with different sellers but if you have the patience to scroll through a bit you can get one for less than USD10. Maybe a bit more with shipping. Also, shipping may take awhile so dont bother if you cant wait a few weeks.

Great content by the way, love the comparison videos, this helps with making the informed purchase decision 👍

[suburbianmusic]

Damn, the only HDMI capture card I've found in Costa Rica is the AGPTek 🙃 to use with a GoPro or similar. Import taxes included, even a generic one will cost as much, probably less... and with that quality difference you showed? Seems like a no-brainer.

You're really helping me make a better, informed choice for my future live concerts. Solid stuff, thanks once again!

[VRJacky]

honestly if your on a budget get the $15 one and play through OBS, my brother didnt wanna buy a monitor when he had a laptop so he did that just to game, not even record, and he can still clutch warzone lobbies, other youtubers complain about 2MS differences when the only reason they notice is placebo

[noobykick]

Got a similar cam link for 15, 99 Euros (DIGITNOW HD Video Capture, resolution is up to 1080p at 30 fps max.). Works well here, too, with a Nikon D7200. You're right, you really do not need to spend more money for a capture card.

[joaovtaveira]

0:50 There are a USB 3.0 version that is just slightly more expensive and that records at 1080p 60fps. It is just grey, in stead of black.

[fnknwr]

So I connect this to a streaming PC and then get an HDMI from the GPU of my main PC to the capture card and then use ANOTHER port from my GPU for my monitor will it all work fine? Also will the sound work from the capture card? Am looking into this as a cheapo solution for dual PC streaming. Thanks!

[Itskooldown]

Hey man, Just wanted to pop in and let you know Amazon link in description is dead. I bought two from the updated video review :)

[nbshftr]

just as a warning to anyone planning on buying a budget card, do not buy any capture cards that have the same model as the red agptek one, they all come from the same factory, and preform like dogshit

[huangec]

OMG this is the very card I ordered! SO glad I clicked on your other video which linked me to this one! Can't wait to receive it! Thanks very much!

[TinkerbatTech]

Well. I'm going to jump into the deep end with these. Our church service Sunday will be outdoors, so I can't bring out the inside webcast equipment easily. So I've just finished pretesting two laptops with our presentation software on one and X-split on the other. One of these little HDMI capture cards hooked to a Canon camcorder for live source. So, new hardware, software, computers and technology all at once.. (And all bits I have lying about, except a few of these capture dongles...) Test setup worked well, even using WiFi and NDI to screen share. Shots set up well, camcorder output looks great, was able to get X-Split to talk to our akamai based stream servers and the results looked pretty good! I'll feed the 'projector' screen from the Xsplit laptop to our separate encoder box to stream youtube and Facebook from it. Lots of changes quickly due to Corona resurging.. here's praying it'll all hold together! Thanks for the vid! Stu

[RadOo]

Well my main problem with these capture cards are the color reproduction, I have seen many of these having really bad color, for camera, fine you might be able to get around with that, but for capturing windows stuff, I am better of using OBS, also HDCP, idk of any on them has that.