How to Record Xbox 360 Gameplay Videos

[...] How to Record Xbox 360 Gameplay Videos at Good Blimey! How this fellow records high quality game footage from a 360. (tags: video recording tech games) [...]

I have a question. Can I plug the ethernet cord between the HAVA and straight into my 360? I am not sure how I’d go about plugging it into my router since it is so far away from my 360 (in completely different rooms). Would that work? Thanks in advance, and thanks for the awesome tutorial.

Andrew: No, that won’t work. In your situation, you would need to invest in the wireless version of the Hava, which costs a bit more.

Although I’m not a networking guru, I think another possible solution would be to use a wireless bridge near the Hava and Xbox 360, which is connected to your main wireless router. However, you’d need to do research on this to see if it works, as I can’t say for certain this a solution.

Thanks man, I have contacted the HAVA support staff and hope to get this figured out. Your solution seems very doable and I am very grateful for the help! Thanks a bunch.

hello, i just ordered the hava platinum and stuff, now when they arrive i will be recording gameplay thanks for all the help. do you think you could give me a tutorial on how to both watch TV and record it at the same time?

What type of video does the hava record into? Does it allow raw uncompressed capture or does it only capture to pre-defined codecs or some sort of proprietary codec?

Mike: It records to MPEG2, so it is pre-compressed on the fly as you are recording. On one hand, it’s nice as it does the compressing for you via the hardware, but on the other hand it limits your control over the output during recording.

Why is it that when I’m recording HD footage from my Xbox 360…the quality doesn’t look HD on my computer.? I have the same thing that you do, but for some reason it just looks like I’m recording HD footage with a VCR…Help..

Krypto: Make sure in the Hava Player, go to Options>Quality and set it to the highest. Also, make sure you’re recording the Local Hava, and not recording it via Remote.

For some reason, my HAVA device has 4 blue lights and not green lights. They don’t even have that on their site. I have it set to the best quality possible and local viewing. It stills has crappy quality. Does it have anything to do with the couplers that I am using? I bought 3 packs of 2 single couplers. They all have white colors as opposed to the 2 triple couplers with the red, green, and blue colors….Hmmm….Help…

Krypto: Your Hava should have 4 blue lights, so that is correct. Mine doesn’t have any green lights. My guess is that the couplers you’re using are for composite, rather than component. Composite video is on par with what VCR-quality would be.

Will this work on a non-HD TV?

This will work on a non-HDTV provided it has either S-Video or Composite inputs.

umm….why is your 360 up side down??

Jeremy: I wasn’t paying attention to the Xbox 360 when I was setting it up on my desk to take the pictures above (I normally have it on a bookshelf next to my desk, laying down flat.)

Do you think this would work with a Mac using OS X?

And can it work for just the red, yellow and white cables as I don’t have a HD TV yet. So I want to record low-def now and then high-def when I get a HD TV in the next couple of months.

Jason: I don’t think it will work on a Mac, since Hava don’t seem to have any OSX software to install. You’ll have to find a placeshifter with Mac OSX support.

It will work fine with the red, white, and yellow cables (called composite.)

Since the drivers for the device would come with the software, I would assume I could run it on OS X emulating Windows in a virtual environment.

I also take it you can do this with both 50Hz and 60Hz games. Been struggling to captures Gears matches because it runs at 60Hz.

Thanks a bunch for putting this together. It is very helpful.

Ok I found a thread for anyone else seeking OS X support.

http://myhava.com/forum/viewto.....os+x#p4876

An alternative is the Slingbox as mentioned there.

http://myhava.com/forum/viewto.....os+x#p5466

Here they mention Mac support is definitely coming out.

I am sure it will work using Windows emulation on the OS X platform until the native Mac software is released.

I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to format long links into HTML or not. I left them as raw links.

Jason: I had no problem recording 50hz/60hz games.

As for Mac OSX support, not sure when they plan on releasing any, but I can attest that it works fine via Bootcamp booting into Windows XP.

There is no reason why this should not work in the UK right? We have the same 60Hz/50Hz America has. I would imagine a simple voltage adaptor would power the unit?

Jason: Sorry, I have no idea, I’m not familiar with the differences the U.K. has.

Thanks for posting the detailed guide to how you did this. I’ve been looking for a consumer-priced way to record HD-output from the X360 for over a year now and have yet to find much that didn’t require thousands of dollars and a dedicated workstation.

One question though: Is there an option to save the video as an uncompressed file, perhaps as a straight .avi?

Doug: Glad the guide helped. Unfortunately it is hardware-encoded to MPEG2 on the Hava unit, there’s no way to select uncompressed .avi or any other compression formats. It’s the biggest flaw it has.

Well it does work with Parallels on Windows. The setup wizard is useless. My advice to anyone using OS X and Parallels is to select

Devices > Network Adapter 1 > Default Adapter

Then run the wizard and update the software. Let it do the firmware update and it will probably fail on the preview. Just click exit. Then go to the player and voila it shows up.

It would be nice to have a native Mac client but this works fine.

I have this setup. It’s working very well, but the video seems to be interlaced, even if I have the Xbox 360 set to 720p.

Is there a way to get the video to not be interlaced? I’ve looked at the options, but found nothing.

Just picked one up and I must say its great because its alot simpliar then other methods I have used in the past (which included vga splitters then downconverters and direct capture cards).

Only 2 flaws.

1. While the device does show up in external applicaitons like dscaler and virtual dub, its unusable. probably due to the mpeg2 compression by the hardware and the pripriotary nature of the device. That said, using the official hava application for recording in mpeg2 is good enough quality, at least for making online videos and is very simple to use and user friendly. I suppose if your looking for HD quality tho, your still gonna need a component distribution amp along with a 720/1080 capture card which will run you around $500. I think ill stick with the hava for $150 for the time being until more HD recording products are adopted to market to get their prices down.

2. The placeshifting feature works great, but you cant record whats placeshifted, only watch. So basically if you did an awsome gameplay stunt and forgot to record, you can rewind with placeshifting to see it but you cannot record it since you did not hit record before you captured it. Perhaps with some sort of screen capture software you could do it but that would probably butcher the video. Unless some1 knows how to access the save file of placeshifted content? (Currently the placeshifting folder just shows 0 files while in use and then deletes itself once you shut down the player)

Do you do any post-processing or other clean up before pushing the video to flv? And you should totally go for a refferal/kick-back setup with that hava provider. I know I wouldn’t have picked one up if it weren’t for this article.

Thanks!

Is there any way to use the HAVA as a webcam capture source? I want to capture my tv or 360 and broadcast it using webcam software, not HAVA’s remote viewing software.

Steve: You would have to use virtual webcam software such as WebcamMax or a virtual screen capture driver available here. If you’re on OSX, CamTwist will do this, as well.

burningtrees: The only post-processing I do is to up the brightness because certain dark areas of the games are too dark when playing back on the web.

Great tutorial.

However, I expect the life span of your 360’s HDD to be shorter than normal… you’ve got the entire system up side down!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Matt: If I wanted to capture my 360 and be able to play on my TV in HD and also broadcast it using webcam tools, do you have any suggestions as to other hardware I could use for this besides the HAVA device?

[...] Recording 360 Gameplay I like the look of this because you can still play it on your HDTV (as normal, no lag) as well as recording on your [...]

Thanks for the tip, Matt!

Ok, so quick question.

I’m a network noobie…and I was just wondering…My computer has a wireless adapter, so I have wireless internet in my room. So that means, my ethernet slot in the back of my computer is unused…so will I be able to plug the ethernet cord from the Hava directly into my computer…or does it have to go through a router? I don’t know if I explained my question properly…But I hope you can help me.

Thanks!!!

Trey: No, it wouldn’t work plugging the Hava into the back of your computer, you would need to plug it directly into the back of your wireless router (most wireless routers have 4 or 5 ethernet inputs.)

However, if your wireless router is too far from where you plan to have the Hava device, you can spend a bit more to get the Hava Wireless HD or the Hava Titanium HD WIFI, which is similar to what I’m using above, but has wireless capabilities built in to connect to your wireless network without wires.

ok, thanks

Ok, so sorry for double posting…but I have one more question…

Does the router that you plug into the back of have to be hooked up to internet…or does the signal just have to go through a router? Because I have an extra router that I could use…would that work?

Trey: You mean a second router used as a bridge? As long as it works fine, then yes that’ll work.

If it doesn’t have access to the internet the Remote Hava function won’t work. I don’t know if the Hava absolutely REQUIRES an internet function, even just for local network viewing, as I haven’t tested this, but I don’t see why it would.

If you need more official answers, you could try the official forums where I’m sure people much smarter than me when it comes to the Hava can help: http://myhava.com/forum/

Thanks for al your help, tour a lifesaver lol

Thanks for the tutorial. I have everything setup on a Hava Wireless HD and I’m using an ethernet cable to connect to a switch that my computer is tied into. Everything looks on the TV, but the recording quality is pretty poor…it seems low resolution. Any ideas? I have the bitrate set to best, but switching it to 16000kps didn’t seem to help.

Brian: Do you know what the resolution it is recording at? What media player are you using? Also, be sure you have a good MPEG2 codec installed. A good one is available here.

If you want, you can send me a short recording (about 5 seconds worth) and then I can give you more information. My email is listed on the Contact page.

Do you do any recording of multiplayer games? Any noticable lag going through the device before your TV? Does the game still show up in 720p or 1080i on your TV or does it come through as standard?

No lag in multiplayer games, and it’d likely never happen as online games don’t even go over 100kB/sec, which is a tiny amount in the bandwidth pipe of wireless and wired routers.

It shows up as 720p or 1080i/1080p on the TV, depending on what you have it set up for on the console.

If I have my hava platinum wired to my wireless router, can I send the video wirelessly to my laptop, or does my laptop have to be wired to the router.

is Hava going to be viable long term? I know there is a long standing debate about hava vs sling and id just like to get anyones opinion since the hava website seems kind of strung together vs sling whos is great.

thx!

Marcel: I don’t think a website is any way to determine long-term viability of any company. While Slingbox’s website is flashy and cute with the commercials embedded in the site, you have to go digging to get information on their site. Hava explains what a placeshifter is right on the front page. So both have their pluses and minuses, it’s all about preferences of which you favor.

Can you edit the video like you can with normal capture cards? Like, if you want to make a montage with effects and things?

BaBoooooooooooN: Sure you can, in any video editing program that supports MPEG2. I can edit videos in VirtualDub, Windows Movie Maker, and iMovie (on OSX).

Thanks so much! I have this coming tomorrow and can’t wait! BTW, someone told me that Windows Movie Maker cannot handle HD videos. That’s not true, right?

BaBoooooooooooN: Awesome, hope you enjoy it when it comes in.

Well, actually it is true, real uncompressed HD cannot be handled by most any applications or computers today. It takes up terabytes of space in no time, and require a godly computer to edit it.

However, what you and most people think is “HD” in relations to devices like Hava and other companies calling HD is not true HD. Most of the time actual HD is compressed heavily, and other times like with the Hava it isn’t real HD in the 720p or 1080p sense. When they say HD, they just mean high resolution, which can be ambiguous.

The Hava outputs at 720×480, which is also compressed. So yes, Windows Movie Maker (or any video editing software) and a fairly decent computer can edit what Hava outputs just fine.

Thanks for the quick response. About how much video can I record with just 55 gigs left on my harddrive? Lol.

A rather lengthy video, you have nothing to worry about with that much space. As a reference, an average 15 minute video takes up about 700MB on my hard drive.

You have helped me alot with all of this. Thanks for your time.

Having a problem… when I try to import my recorded videos to Windows Movie Maker 2, an error comes up and says “C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Hava Recordings\Tuesday, June 10, 20089-00-28 PM.mpg could not be imported. An interface has too many methods to fire events from” Any idea how to get past this?

A search on Google all pointed out the same thing, that you don’t have the proper MPEG2 codec installed. You can get a free one here.

Thanks once again. This truely is an amazing capture card.

I’m having a huge problem with the quality, it looks really really bad. I have the settings all the way up and have the same setup as you. Why is it doing this?

Nevermind, after I set my TV to 1080i it looks 100 times better! Woot!

Is there a guide for the HAVA WIRELESS HD for 360 setup?

Thank you.

Matt, after reading this long page of posts, i kinda feel sorry for your to answer so many questions. Thanks for the guide, it really helped a bunch. ^^

So after all these wires are running through this is the picture on my tv still in HD as if it wasnt connected at all ?

Also Any way to do this with a HDMI Cable?

Thanks,
Josh

Nathan: This guide should work with the Hava Wireless HD as well, the only difference is how your’s accesses the network.

Houston: Glad it helped! :)

Josh: Yes, as long as your component cable is switched to HD and it’s plugged into an HDTV, it”ll show up on the TV as HD.

There’s no way to do this with HDMI, because the Hava doesn’t support it (nor any other placeshifter) and also because the Xbox 360 is protected with HDCP.

Ive tried everything and im getting really frustrated. I use the RCA cable from my HAVA to a Triple Phono to my Xbox 360 Red/white/and yellow which then is hooked up to my Xbox 360. Then i use my component cable which is hooked up to my HAVA then to a triple phono then to my Xbox HD cable then to my Xbox. And i have the 2 other wires for my Power and cable. The only thing i get is a laggy Xbox screen on my HAVA computer screen and can barely play with the lag, i dont get no picture on my t.v. and dont know what to do. Im just about to send ti back seeing as no one can help me.

If any of you have AIM and can help me please give me it.

Scratch that last post.

I have it hooked up now properly, my brother came over and helped me, it shows up on my t.v. and it did show up on my computer but now it doesnt. Everything is right because it did work, and now it doesnt show up when it did earlier.

How do i get it to come back up?

So, does this save to your computers hard drive? Can you choose which file to put the video in?

Are there any other devices besides the placeshifter that will work?

Much appreciated

Nathan: Without knowing what your brother did, I can’t help you.

Kevin: Yes, it saves to your hard drive, and you can save to any folder on your computer’s hard drive. If you don’t want to use a placeshifter, you can use a capture card.

Last and final question. I have everything hooked up, I just need a way to transfer all of my videos from HAVA WIRELESS to my Macbook Pro. Is there a website i could use to trasnfer these videos or what could i do?

Nathan: You have many options available:

• Set up file sharing between your PC and MBP.
• Burn the videos to a CD/DVD and put it on your MBP.
• Put it on a USB flash drive (4GB can be gotten for ~$20 now) and transfer to your MBP.
• Get an external hard drive that can connect to both your computers.
• Use Boot Camp to set up Windows XP on your MBP and install the Hava software on there, to have it record to the MBP’s hard drive.

Would a newer computer be more helpful in recording?

kevin: Only if the newer computer has a capture card.

great how-to, matt! i picked one up myself and i’m in the process of recording my own gameplays. just a quick question: what software do you use to convert it from mpg to flash (flv)?

Sean: Thanks! Glad it helped you. I use Flix Pro to convert my .mpg to .flv. It’s a bit pricey, but well worth it if you plan on converting movies to .flv a lot.

I got it in trade for a web design job I did, and it wasn’t until a year later that I found a use for it (for MattPlays). Flix Standard, which is considerably more affordable, will also do nicely for gameplay videos.

Ha sorry Matt but i need to know something else.

Everything that i try to put my Hava Recordings on wont work.

I used a flash drive (my one from school), went to my Hava Wireless Recordings and sent it to my Flash Key. I put my Flash key into my MBP and i tried to upload it to Final Cut Express and it said the file was invalid and wouldn’t let me upload to my Mac.

I then tried to even use Windows Movie Maker, it wont even let me upload my Videos to WMM, honestly what is going on?

What can i do to put my files on my Mac, i tried Boot Camp and i dont have my Cd’s so that is out of the question. Is there any special disks or something to put things on the cd to upload it to Mac or what?

I dont know what to do help!

Nathan: Only thing I can think of is that you don’t have the proper codecs installed. For Windows, you’ll want to install FFDShow, and for Mac OSX, you’ll want to install Perian.

This should let you work with the .MPG files on both systems. You should also put the file from the flash drive to your laptop’s hard drive, rather than having Final Cut Express try to import it off the flash drive. FCE may not like importing from a flash drive.

Can anyone confirm that this works in the UK D:

I don’t need an HD hava cause I don’t play in HD. Is there a cheaper device that would do the same thing as this one that I could use to capture videos? Also, if I’m not capturing HD, I shouldn’t have to worry about the green/red/white cords right?

Gare: You have a couple of options for low-cost gameplay recording. You can use the Dazzle Platinum (about $75), which will allow you to record either via S-Video or Composite (SD, basically).

Or you can use any capture card. Cheapest you can get is about $17.

Keep in mind that I have no experience with either of these solutions, so you’ll have to find guides/how-to’s elsewhere on these methods. For example, here’s a video tutorial on how to use the Dazzle Platinum for Xbox 360 gameplay recording.

You don’t have to worry about the green/red/blue cord, called component, as you’ll be working with composite or S-Video for SD. Composite is yellow (with audio as red and white) while S-Video is big and bulky, easy to tell it apart.

Hi Matt,

I tried out flix pro, but was not able to get the quality that you have on mattplays.com.
What settings are you using for conversion?
I have my hava set to record at best possible quality, so I don’t think there’s a problem on that end.

Thanks,
Sean.

Sean: Source’s aspect ratio and framerate. For video, 2-pass 1500kbps CBR, Keyframe settings set to 45 max (30 for very fast paced games). For audio, 22050Hz, 96kbit/s stereo MP3.

thanks again matt. any suggestions on video splitters/joiners?

thanks again,
Sean

Sean: I have no experience with splitters/joiners, so I can’t help you there.

Thanks a lot for writing this tutorial, the quality looks amazing on your site.

I really want to purchase this, however I don’t have an HD tv. I saw the Hava has an A/V Out plug. I was wondering, if I used that instead of the HD Out plug, would everything still work and record in HD quality?

I assume it would work, since the Hava would send the HD quality footage through the ethernet cable, not what is being sent out to the tv.

Thanks in advance.

just a note for anyone from the UK considering using this:

it only supports 576p resolution in PAL

so my dream of playing in 1080i and recording at 720×480 is now pie-in-the-sky which sux big style however, its still better than using a dazzle and having to use s-video or composite to record and play. this info is based on using my ps3..

i had alot of trouble arriving at this conclusion… i couldnt get the hava to select PAL setting until i changed my ps3 res setting to 576p - also the sound was all screwed until i set this.

im gonna test whether my xbox360 can play ntsc games and mess around with the 50/60hz etc to see if i can actually play in a full HD res and record as normal with no problems..

UK users (PAL) update:

ok after a days messing around i’ve got it working. you can play your games in 1080i/p and record as normal with NTSC selected in the player settings. the mpegs produced wont render in windows movie maker or adobe flash encoder but they will in sony vegas pro 8 - and it also seems capable of sorting out the screwy sound. so, i play/record and then edit/render the resulting mpeg as a wmv in vegas which i can then convert easily to FLV using adobe flash encoder.

if any PAL users want to see an example of a resulting FLV/WMV rendered for youtube quality, just leave a request and i’ll osrt one out.

regards, paul.

I’ve been trying to use VirtualDub to convert the .mpg file made by the HAVA to .avi. What are some good settings that will help get a better quality look like your videos? Is there more to it than just getting the parts you want converted? I can’t seem to achieve the quality you get.

hey matt,
i can play my games on my tv on 1080? like i can have the hdtv on and set to 1080 and it will still record on my pc ..can i use the hava as a webcam like on justin.tv and broadcast it live ?

thanks alot
jose

Jordan: That’s correct, it can output HD even if your TV isn’t HD, so long as you have your console set to output as HD.

pbella29: Thanks for the update for helping out those outside the U.S.

Matt R.: It’s hard to say with VirtualDub because I don’t know what decoder you’re using, or settings. However, to make it easy, I recommend using Dr. Divx which is free, and can give you great quality if you use the High Definition preset. Most video sites out there accept divx video files, so that shouldn’t be a problem. If you want to display it on your site, you can use the Divx Web Player using the code generator.

Jose: Yes, you can still play on your TV at 1080 without any problems while recording. You can use the Hava as a webcam, HOWEVER, to do this you’d have to use a 3rd party virtual webcam software to do this, as the Hava doesn’t let any webcam software utilize it (due to it’s dynamic bandwidth adjusting feature.) Examples of software you can use to do this are WebcamMax (not free) or the VH Screen Capture Driver (free).

Thanks Matt. I look into using Dr. DivX. Being that Dr. DivX is just a converter tool. What should I use to edit the .mpg file to get the parts I want?

Matt R.: I have no experience with editing programs, so I couldn’t help with that. VirtualDub is the favorite free solution, but it’s also pretty complicated for people that are new to the whole thing.

Is it possible to use VirtualDub to cut out parts I don’t want and leave whatever is left over in the .mpg format? If that’s possible I can then use Dr. DivX to convert the remaining video.

I believe that’s possible, you would need to set in VirtualDub for both Video and Audio to Direct Stream Copy after you’re done editing. I’m not 100% sure this will work, I’m just going by memory of the program here.

Thanks. I’ll take a look at Virtual Dub again. I know last night I was able to set a start and stop point using VirtualDub and it encoded just the piece I wanted to .avi. But the output .avi was HUGE in size. This is why I was asking about the VirtualDub settings. I want to be able to upload to Vimeo for streaming purposes. I checked Vimeo site and they don’t allow .flv files. I tried Flix Pro for converting to .flv and it does a great job as far as file size which is perfect for streaming but is time consuming based on the settings you posted. But thanks again for the help. I’ll post back if I have any other questions. Also with so many people asking questions you MIGHT have to start a forum. lol.

Hi,

Is anyone else experienceing any issues with the hava when capturing video off your console (my ps3) that the text seems really sharpened and hard to read?

The recording settings are all best.

check my test video

http://foxtrot.willsanderson.c.....c_test.wmv

Will,

I’m currently capturing from my PS3 and from the looks of your video it looks good to me. Are you talking about the name of other players? What did you use to edit the .mpg that HAVA made?

Hi again,

Matt, you ddon;’t notice the text in my video is like all cut off on either the top or bottom? and it seems blurry when my game was in motion.

My ps3 outputs at 720p/1080i.

To edit the hava i used movie aker on the default dvd widescreen settings, but before this the video outputted from hava still semmed to have this text problem im noticing.

–

In the hava pc player before recording when i watch it live, its all blurry, which i dont understand why. When i record in 480p the quality is much cleaner/criper, even when i record in composite rather then component.

image attached, any ideas what i must be doing wrong? because the video on mattplays.com is so much nicer.

http://img301.imageshack.us/im.....867jn4.jpg

hey matt,
well thanks for your help , and with waht u said if used “Examples of software you can use to do this are WebcamMax (not free) or the VH Screen Capture Driver (free).” it can be used as a webcam on live stream site like justin.tv correct ??thanks i gonna and sorry if you already did answer but im just asking again to have no doubts..thanks

Matt,

My issue of the font gettin cutoff/distorted might be because im playing in 720p/1080i and while recording to the hava, it resizes the video feed to 480p therefore if my font on the game is thin, it will resize and most likely be out of place, or partially cut off like in this case.

What do you think?

Because i tried other games with font not as thin and it worked much better.

Will

Matt,
its me again the VH Screen Capture Driver (free). one u said just crashes my pc every time i open it and my pc then boots and tells me went thur a serious problem occurred any ideas

Yo, I’m a bit confused with some of this, so I connect a cable from my TV to the Hava, then a cable from my PS3 to the Hava, what cables do I connect?

This how it works.
PS3 component cables to a RGB coupler coupling the component-hava cable (included with hava) then attach the cable to the hava.

Then the hava comes with a component cable that you feed the signal to your tv.

Presto

great tutorial it really helped, I Have everything hooked up correctly but the display on my computer is really lagging and skips from frame to frame so im looking for a solution, one problem may be that when buying my triple phone couplers the colors are yellow/red/white and not the HD colors of green/blue/red but i dont know if it matters or it may it be computer problem

Did u set ur ps3 or xbox to output the video at 720p/1080i? I had my shit running at 1080p and it was skipping and didn’t show video, i couldn’t figure it out for a couple days.

What do you use for recording PC games, Matt?

Sean: I use Fraps, available at http://fraps.com/