Retro Game Connect Recording Test

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Retro Game Connect

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Published on May 21, 2015 3:24:51 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IAn-AGnm58

Game:

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (2005)

Duration: 2:51

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UPDATE: Having been producing the show for a while, we've run into problems that weren't apparent in these tests. Namely, the Rocket does not like resolution switching. In games that switch between 240p and 480i (mostly seen on PS1/Saturn/N64 stuff), the video will sometimes become corrupted after a resolution change, seemingly randomly. Not sure anything can be done about this, aside from hooking in an upscaler prior to the Rocket, though that hurts the handy portability factor a bit. Along these lines, while it successfully continued recording in this test, during production a switch from 480i to 480p resulted in several files which seemed to only contain audio. In this case, it's probably best practice to not start a recording until after your game has switched to 480p, after which there should be no problem. Also, this issue is easily fixed in post-production, but the assumption that the Rocket can tell 16:9 from 4:3 was incorrect. Rather, it seems it simply records any signal of 480p or up in widescreen. Lastly, the Rocket is incapable of recording 240p over component, which according to Hauppauge is a hardware issue and not something that will ever change due to firmware updates. So, for instance, if you've been trying to record PS1 games that you're playing on a PS2 and the Rocket wasn't having it, this may be why.


Some test footage, seeing how the HD PVR Rocket which we use to grab game footage for the show handles some unusual situations, edited together and posted on YouTube to see how that footage looks after being re-encoded and also show people that, yes, we're actually working on things.

Some notes:

The NES is a stock top-loader passed through a VCR, as that model only has RF out. It could look worse.

PS1 seems to have recorded just fine; nothing unusual to report.

Saturn Boberman's ten-player mode is apparently formatted for widescreen. Obviously the HD PVR wasn't expecting this and recorded in 4:3. Thus the inclusion of footage that's been stretched in post, though obviously it doesn't look as good as it could thanks to compression artifacts affecting the small details.

Game Boy on N64? Just for three games. Pokemon Stadium allows you to play first-gen Pokemon games plugged in to the transfer pak. It's mostly fine, though there were a few weird compression artifacts in the Pokemon Center.

Killer Instinct Gold apparently switches between 240p and 480i constantly. The Rocket isn't crazy about it, but doesn't seem to lose video. It does seem to cause some audio sync issues that may be fixed by re-encoding. Further testing is probably needed.

A handful of PS2 games (well, relative to the full library) can actually run in 480p. There are also PS2 games that can output anamorphic widescreen. At the intersection of this lies God of War, which puts both options right in the settings menu. Switching to progressive scan didn't seem to bother the Rocket at all, though switching to widescreen mid-recording wasn't happening. However, if the recording is started while the game is already in widescreen mode, this is properly detected and a 16:9 video is produced, no stretching in post required.

Quite a few original Xbox games are capable of 480p. Not so many are capable of 720p. Unsurprisingly, switching from 480 to 720 mid-recording breaks the video, but starting the recording after the resolution has already changed works perfectly.

Our show is currently in production and we hope to be ready to start airing soon. If you want to know when the first episode is posted as soon as possible, please subscribe to our channel!

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