Ahoy and good day to you all!
After a kind invitation from EZ-Fan, I wanted to compile all the information I've gathered over the last 2 months or so using the Easycap108 that I have, and document all the issues I've been having with recording. I will do my best to keep this fairly straight forward, but there is a bit a of background you may be interested in. If not, please skip to the section below entitled "
Easycap 60hz help"
Firstly, I'll explain a little about what I myself am trying (and still trying) to achieve.
~Introduction~I am a PAL gamer from New Zealand. For any PAL game, the frequency it is broadcasted at is 50Hz. This is a standard across UK, Europe, Australia/NZ and I believe some parts of South America. I own a Gamecube, Wii and PS2 - all PAL consoles. I own (currently) an Easycap 108 DC60. I have an Xp Laptop and a Vista laptop.
I bought an Easycap similar to
this:

You can find these almost everywhere in ebay, Amazon.com, and several other major online websites. If you only want to record in 50Hz (for anyone with PAL games...this is fine), then this is the product for you. Cheap, generally free <or very inexpensive> shipping and best of all an abundance of them online.
For everyone else on this forum (or anyone googling this) - this does nothing but make you feel like you've been cheated, as most of us don't own PAL games, or want to record all those superb High Definition games - which this Easycap doesn't help.
Here is a very handy link for those who aren't even sure of which Easycap they currently own (Kudos to EZ-Fan...and I'll be saying that alot)
Also, I have a large amount of Japanese and a few US games, which I use a Freeloader for. A Freeloader (for those that don't know) changes the way a console thinks, tricking it into bypassing the normal region locking which game companies used to do (and still do....Nintendo...I'm looking in your direction).

This is for my Gamecube... I love using them.
For those in PAL countries who never get a chance to play Japanese/American-only releases, it's like being kicked when you're down. Not only don't PAL gamers get anywhere near the amount of games NTSC US and NTSC Japan regions get, but we get them broadcasted at 50hz - which hurts framerate slightly and overall quality of picture to a degree. Anyway, I Freeload all of the games I've wanted to play for many years, and finally got around to wanting to capture these and put them up on youtube. Easycap108 DC60 in-hand, I tried installing the drivers without success, Ulead 7 never loaded on either Vista or Xp, and all around I was thoroughly upset with my purchase.
In the past few months, I have been able to piece together a large amount of info about the different formats, what they mean, and how/when they apply in Video capturing. I have come to the conclusion (as if you google 'easycay 60hz' or similar, you should find forum after forum of the same thing), that the Easycap 108 simply cannot deal with the 60hz frequency.
In desperation, I purchased
this - an NTSC to PAL converter, thinking that the issue was that the signal (since I use freeloaders) was being mixed up between the PAL console, and the NTSC game being forced to play on it....this was a complete waste of money...
After reading around alot, I have noticed many different capture devices cannot capture in true 60hz - though people find this out AFTER they purchase it (as I have...). This is a problem many have faced, and only a few have ever been able to really get sorted out.
Easycap 60hz helpIntroduction out of the way, let's move on.
The main reason why so many people have issues with capturing good footage (and especially being able to capture either black and white only, or only sound) - is due to the Easycap you are using, and the fact that almost all games from Xbox360 titles to PS3 and Wii titles all generally use 60Hz to broadcast their framerates (especially all NTSC games <Japanese and US, I've found>). Though this can be a bit technical, the difference is also due to voltage for electrical appliances (ie. Devices with 50 Hz frequency tend to use 220-240 Volt and devices with 60 Hz tend to use 100-120 Volt). There has never been, and probably never will be any sort of international standard...which isn't very fun.
Anyway, I have had alot of trouble getting my Easycap to record my Japanese/US console games due to this difference between NTSC and PAL.
Here's what I've come up with:After a heap of reading around, alot of models of capturing devices (from almost ALL Easycap models, to Dazzles and even something like the Adaptec Game Bridge; which even I thought was a complete package)
don't support the 60Hz which almost all online games (and anything from NTSC countries via freeloader..as I've been able to ascertain) normally need. That's right. They don't. Plain and simple.
What this means is, that almost everyone who has already bought an Easycap USB capturing device has one which actually can't record 90% of the games they wanted to record in the first place.
However, I would like to set the records straight. All is not lost.
Thanks to alot of effort from EZ-Fan, another great article I've found
here:
...and alot of research, there
IS an Easycap product that will allow you to record proper 60hz games.
For recording in 60HZ you just need a DC60+ model of Easycap which supports NTSC 4.33. That's right, the entire article can be summed up in this one sentence.
As I know alot of you will probably skim through the above, here is a very straight-to-the-point run-down of what you need.
Here is an excellent video detailing what you need to do -
http://www.youtube.com/v/dpJ_ps_Rj5k&rel=0This video may explain a bit better than I can as to the benefits of NTSC 4.33 - which only a handful of devices (other than expensive DVD recorders) can actually do. I'm hoping and praying that the latest Easycap DC60+ does the job.
I have ordered
this product (The Easycap108 DC60+ - which explicitly states it supports the NTSC_4.33), and will update this with my own findings afterwards. This currently is my one and only hope of recording my Japanese games...
If you decided to purchase the above, or are having driver problems with Easycap, (thanks again to EZ-Fan) - I would highly recommend uninstalling ALL Easycap Drivers, then installing
the DC60+ update FIRST, before you connect the Easycap...
.....THEN plugging in your Easycap and running the normal install CD - this helped greatly, and turned my strange coloured static image I was getting, into
http://www.youtube.com/v/dialZI6qIf8&rel=0...which has nice quality and good sound. I highly recommend saving your videos as WMV files by using Windows Movie Maker...as I've had incredible issues with Video and Audio sync on youtube as well.
As far as Easycap help goes, that's about all you need. Oh yes, you will need to get atleast 2 or 3
RCA 1 female to 2 female Y-splitters
and another RCA cable

If you want youtube-uploading help...read on
Youtube uploading helpUse Windows Movie Maker, if possible, to save your work as a WMV file. That's the best advice I can give
You'll go from possible issues like Audio/Video out-of-sync:
http://www.youtube.com/v/pOzblKK71a4&rel=0To nicely high quality and in-sync videos like:
http://www.youtube.com/v/zmrgXQ7eZMM&rel=0and
http://www.youtube.com/v/yfhfh22el0U&rel=0Another tip is to try and leave the videos in the purest form you can, instead of trimming/re-encoding if possible, as this will eventually degrade the visuals...
There are numerous articles around, but the best by far I've seen are the ones below...
http://blogs.chron.com/makingmovies/archives/2006/04/youtube_and_the.htmlhttp://ask.metafilter.com/60799/Why-do-so-many-videos-on-YouTube-have-horribly-unsynchronized-video-audiohttp://www.squidoo.com/youtuberightHope this helps!
More Technical Stuff (For those interested)Just for those who want to know a little bit more, I've included this section, so that those who want quick answers don't have to trawl through a gigantic post to get a few bits of information. It can get a bit technical, please bear with me.
The main problem is, that most Easycap's are DC60 - what this means that it can receive a number of different signals; NTSC_M, NTSC_M_J, PAL_B, PAL_D, PAL_G, PAL_H, PAL_I, PAL_M, PAL_N, and SECAM_L.
These work for anyone using a PAL game, or for those who've tried to get around the issue of Easycap not working on an Xbox306 by changing the display settings to 50Hz. But generally, it doesn't quite cut it. The issues with PAL vs NTSC aside for a moment, alot of the time the driver's don't install properly, or need to be reinstalled constantly or any number of issues.
I've tested this (focusing on my Wii at the moment - which really is my primary concern) changing over to 50HZ from the Wii menu seems to work flawlessly for my Easycap108 (the Wii menu when you first turn the console on does anyway) with good sound and proper colour - until I try and load an NTSC game.
After this (and also after trying my NTSC--PAL booster....this DOES NOT WORK. Please do not waste your money, as I have...

), regardless of trying the NTSC versions on Windows Movie Maker (NTSC_M and NTSC_M_J), and every version of PAL_B through to N, the only thing I get is just a static image which refreshes roughly every 60 seconds or so - though sound comes in nicely. I was tearing my hair out, trying to get this to work. Though not my own capture, here is what it looked like
PAL_I:NTSC_M:For the records, I'll splash some numbers up, for those interested:
True USA-style NTSC is 60 Hz,
line frequency = 30 (full) Frames/second x 525 lines = 15750 Hz.
Colour subcarrier = 3.58 Mhz
True PAL is 50 Hz,
Line Freq= 25 (fps) x 625 lines = 15625 Hz.
Colour Fsc = 4.33 MHz.The issue is that there is a special frequency which plays at 60Hz called NTSC 4.33 (also sometimes known as PAL60Hz, NTSC@50Hz or even PAL 3.58. Effectively this is a clever bit of technology trickery to get around the NTSC -> PAL conversion, and alot of consoles (Xbox360 in particular, but the PS3 and Wii - and all Japanese games...) tend to be usable with at least one of these hybrids.
For general interest, some details about the differences can be found
here:
~Moral of the Story~Though this is still not fully tested (I will be getting my Easycap108 DC60+ soon enough...maybe a few more days... You will need to buy something like
this.
...download the
DC60+ drivers.
...install the supplied drivers for the Easycap.
Make sure you record it in NTSC_4.33 or PAL 3.58
And you *should* (emphasis on should) be able to record with high quality, good colour and good sound without too much hassle
*Phew*
What a long post. I'm sorry for dragging it out so much, however breaking it into sections seemed like a logical idea. Plus, as you can see, there is a ton of information to look into, think over, and trawl through on the internet. Hopefully, this should set most of you right. Feel free to ask any questions, and I'm sure either myself, or EZ-Fan, can sort you out.
Happy Gaming!