[MEncoder-users] Viewing while capturing

[Stroller]

On 10 Aug 2010, at 17:42, Martijn van Beurden wrote:
> ...
> As I'm messing around with my TV capture card I was wondering wether  
> I can see what I'm capturing with a latency as low as possible. The  
> problem is that I want to capture the analog output of an XBox 360,  
> but I don't have a analog splitter for the signal, so I have to view  
> it on the PC that is capturing, I think.

I have read claims that no capture card can offer latency low enough  
for playing video games enjoyably and without lag. Of course this will  
depend upon what the player considers acceptable. I believe this is  
particularly the case in games of the "Street Fighter" genre, in which  
a lag of tens of milliseconds (??) may be unacceptable.

If you're just messing around, enjoying spending your time playing  
with mencoder and trying to optimise is performance then please excuse  
me for interrupting the discussion, but if you have a practical  
purpose for doing this then a VGA splitter may be a cheap investment.

The question of capture cards and consoles is one that comes up  
regularly on video game forums, usually in a context like "i'm going  
to college, and want to minimise how much i take - can i use my  
capture card to display my xbox's video on the screen of my PC?" and  
the answer is invariably to suck it up and buy a VGA adaptor.

Stroller.