I got a new laptop (Windows 8), but I occasionally needed to capture analogue video. What device to use with it? My older USB capture hardware was not compatible, so I needed a new one. Preferably something cheap. I found USB2.0 Video TV Tuner DVD Audio Capture Card Converter Record Receiver as suitable looking product with good reviews. One important feature was that it is WDM Compatible: It conforms to WDM standard and works with all video software compatible with this standard. And it does not need any special drivers, because looks like normal standard USB webcam.
I found this device very easy to install: Just plg the device to Window 8 PC. It is immediately recognized as USB webcam type camera, no need to install any drivers. Seemed to work for me with all the software that work with webcams.
The product feels pretty good for the low price ($6.99; I paid some time ago € 5.90, now € 6.62). Very usefull and easy to install. Worked on Windows 8 PC without installing any software! No need to install drivers saves the potential installation problems and possbility that supplied drivers are not that good (happens often at less known cheap products). I did not need anything that was in supplied CD.
This device looks to the PC as generic USB 2 web camera. Identified as such for software (I tested with Micam). It conforms to WDM standard and should work with all video software compatible with this standard. The CD has Ulead Video Studio 10.0 SE DVD video editing software, but I did not try that because I did not need video editing software just now (I had used that software earlier and found it that time useable software for video to DVD conversion).
The USB2.0 Video TV Tuner DVD Audio Capture Card Converter Record Receiver device seemed to work with both PAL and NTSC video signals (tested with tiny PAL and NTSC video cameras). By default (without configuration) the device takes signal from composite video.
The image quality is pretty OK, but not the sharpest one on video digitizers I have seen, but it does the job properly. Seems to output quite bright colors compared to other sources (web camera). It is enough to for example to display signal from surveillance camera in color. The device accepts also black&white video signal, but the result seems to have some color noise in it.
Works pretty well for the price. Recommend if you are looking for cheap way to connect composite video camera to a modern computer cheaply.
Pros:
Cheap
Works without driver installing
Compatible with pretty much any software that works with webcam
Supports S-Video & Composite RCA Video
Supports PAL and NTSC video
Cons:
It failed to work with the supplied short USB cable (broken), but worked flawlessly when directly plugged.
When I plugged in noisy black&white camera signal it was detected as color video and had some color noise in it.
Other notes: USB2.0 Video TV Tuner DVD Audio Capture Card Converter Record Receiver page comments mentions that this device might work with some smart phones as well “Samsung Galaxy NO root required. Free app UsbWebCamera”. I have not tested this, but looks interesting.
1 Comment
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mike Walters Unlocks an Elgato Cam Link 4K for Webcam Use with a Little Firmware Hackery
https://www.hackster.io/news/mike-walters-unlocks-an-elgato-cam-link-4k-for-webcam-use-with-a-little-firmware-hackery-91688f78c356
Looking for a fix rather than a workaround, Walters has created a patched firmware to unlock the Elgato’s webcam compatibility.
When an off-the-shelf device doesn’t quite work right, you could discard it and buy another — or, if you’re Mike Walters, you could take it apart and modify the firmware to unlock previously-unavailable functionality.
“A while back I got an Elgato Cam Link 4K, mostly as a reverse engineering target since it’s based around the ECP5 FPGA (which is well-supported by open source tools) and it has USB 3 & HDMI interfaces that would be interesting to play with,” Walters writes. “However, it works rather well in its intended form — as an HDMI capture device v so I’ve just been using it as-is so far.