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How to Make a Choice among DVI Capture Cards

Users may need to capture video from devices for multiple different reasons. It will take a long time just to name all possible application fields: security (e.g. CCTV, IP network), medicine (e.g. ultrasound and X-Ray imagery), education, engineering, simulation, control rooms, scientific and many other applications… As long as your device features a DVI or VGA port or an output adapter to DVI or VGA, the output signal can be captured by a DVI or VGA capture card and processed in different ways depending on its hardware and software capabilities. You can save the data to a computer and archive it, print the captured images, broadcast the data to the Internet, upload it on an FTP server and make it accessible for a remote user. A frame grabber allowing DVI input capture is an essential and popular market offering. There are no determined standards for this kind of products, therefore a customer looking for a DVI capture card should analyze their characteristics and make a right choice.

Choosing a DVI based capture card is the most versatile approach. A card that has a VGA only connector, cannot accept HDMI or DVI, whereas a capture card with only an HDMI port cannot accept DVI or VGA sources. The DVI connector is the most mechanically secure and most versatile and is able to support VGA, DVI, HDMI, and multiple resolutions.

If the DVI based capture card is the best choice, you then need to choose other options. The DVI solutions providing video capture are available in internal (USB, PCIe) and external (USB2, Ethernet, USB3 Superspeed, Thunderbolt) form factors. When you surf the Web and collect information about the current frame grabber offerings on the market, your first thought will be to decide: which DVI capturing solution should be preferred, an external or an internal one.

Internal DVI Capture Cards

Depending on your requirements the internal cards may suit your needs well accurately grabbing and processing the DVI signal. For instance, if you permanently use the same work-station, usually work in the same environment and do not need to capture dual-link DVI signals, Epiphan's DVI2PCIe card will do the job. Just install it and immediately benefit from capturing images. Epiphan's DVI2PCIe is an internal DVI frame grabber that allows you to capture single-link DVI, VGA, BNC/component or unencrypted HDMI video signals with frame rate up to 80 fps. You can capture full HD at a capture rate of 60 frames per second for 1080p video. The card is compatible with all popular OS and fits into a x1, x4, x8 or x16 PCIe 1.x slot

High Resolution and Portability

Very often users deal with situations when it is more applicable to capture images using an external solution. This may happen due to portability, security/size constraints, or when you need to switch the frame grabber to different devices or different capture computers. In case you work with high precision applications and need to get images of a very high quality, take a look at the external frame grabbers provided by Epiphan Systems. This is currently the only manufacturer on the market offering external frame grabbers for all needs. DVI2USB for VGA and DVI single link (available also in a dual-link modification as DVI2USB Duo) allows for saving the captured images and video on the computer via USB port with unbelievable resolution of up to 2048x1536.

In case you are going to capture only single-link DVI and HDMI signals, take a look at DVI2USB Solo frame grabber. It is worthy of note that each of these frame grabbers is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

If you need to stream the captured data directly via the Ethernet network to a capture computer, consider choosing VGA2Ethernet. Unlike the USB connected frame grabbers, this power-supplied device sends captured DVI/VGA data directly to the Ethernet with resolution of up to 1920x1200.

Choosing Appropriate Device

Before making final choice you obviously need to explore different solutions and take into account its characteristics that best match your application needs. What speaks well for the external and internal DVI frame grabbers from Epiphan? Their high performance capture resolution support, quality software drivers, support for multiple operating systems. They are ideally suitable for any high-precision applications. The wide range of Epiphan's solutions available, ensures that every demanding customer will find a product for his/her needs.