Recording/streaming PS3/Xbox360 games

[MisterBob]

Does anyone have any good suggestions on equipment for doing this? I'd like the signal to reach the TV in HDMI, but bringing it to the PC at lower quality would be fine (streaming HD would require ridiculous bandwidth anyways).

[braaaanch]

this is very relevant to my interest.

not to derail but is a capture card required?

[Furtwangler]

If you want tv hdmi I think either your tv will have to have some kind of video out (unlikely) or go through a reciever first which could also possibly have a video out. you can't output both hdmi and composite from the 360, it kinda flips out, i've tried. idk what else would work but that's all I can think of

[MisterBob]

I'm assuming there would be a way to split the HDMI signal and downconvert, but I dont know much about this stuff

[Furtwangler]

You need an active splitter to split HDMI, which are usually 30 bucks or so on avg, but going from hdmi down to analog seems to be quite taboo because of hdcp/copyright issues from what I see googling, sorry I don't really know too much more on the topic. The big issue is content that requires HDCP copy protection will require that both the HDMI and DVI devices support HDCP to properly view the video content, and when you go down to any analog source I think that goes away and the xbox may bitch.

[Darus Grey]

Consoles bitch about analog? WAT? Honestly have no idea what you were trying to convey there >.>

First off, for recording off HDMI you're looking at the higher end capture card spectrum to begin with, as always...I use and recommend

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/

If you want to buy a USB 3.0 card, the shuttle is really worth it.

Second, remember that for recording anything above SD you need to match your HDD speed to your input data rate, especially if you record uncompressed, for streaming it doesn't matter, just make sure you have a lot of RAM.

Third, you cannot record off an HDMI signal that requires HDCP at all, period. This isn't an issue for the 360 because it doesn't use HDCP ever, PS3 however uses it for everything, which means you can't record from it.

Solution? Use component, no noticeable loss in quality and same end result. The black-magic products also have HDMI-Pass-through but off the top of my head that's only for HDMI sources, it doesn't convert.

In all seriousness, just use component, no one who does this kind of shit uses HDMI, also streaming HD uses a lot less bandwidth than you think(150Kbs for half quality).

[Furtwangler]

"Third, you cannot record off an HDMI signal that requires HDCP at all, period. This isn't an issue for the 360 because it doesn't use HDCP ever, PS3 however uses it for everything, which means you can't record from it."

This is what I was referring to with analog, going from hdmi to any analog conversion will break the hdcp connection hence it not being practical to go into the comp like that