Thank you for making this video. You have no clue how annoyed I've been with their marketing campaign on Instagram. Whenever someone would ask if its a capture card, their pr would always try to sidestep the question to try to confuse people and hide the fact that it's just a reengineered cheap capture card
you can actually enable 1080p60 on the genki, it just requires a dumb extra step and in my experience is a bit flaky. Entering the komnami code will change the selector for 'perfomance' or resolution to a pair of drop downs for fixed resolution and refresh rate settings where you can force 1080p60. This works both in the dedicated app and in chrome. It also unlocks some color grading settings.
Good god, the graph at 5:40 really does say it all, doesn't it? The thing's designed for live play on what the 'card' sees, and yet clocks in at almost double the latency of Elgato's 4K60 Pro. Cheap? True. But it still stings pretty dang hard and though I appreciate that the main selling point is use on a switch (which, as you said, could be played handheld) when you add in the compression artifacts, you're arguably spending money to have only a marginal improvement (if that!) over the free PS and Xbox remote play apps, oof!
I backed this as well. It's an okay device but definitely not as premium as an Elgato or Avermedia device. Wish it was USB 3.0+ based instead of 2.0. That's the roughest thing about it but is unfortunately a large flaw in its design.
I backed this project and tried to play Zelda botw. It was alright but when it came to be a little more fast paced it was difficult to adjust to the input lag. I should have gotten an elgato. 🤣
Yeah no, playing through a capture device just isn't fun, not even an Elgato or whatever. There is plenty of latency in the game and console to begin with, it isn't really kind to adding even 30ms more on top. You're better off finding some solution which doesn't involve a capture device, like a basic used monitor or TV can't be too expensive. If you need to also capture, an HDMI splitter can be very cheap, and you can get even Cantlinks with a built-in HDMI splitter for less than $15 shipped.
I have both an Elgato hd60s+ and the ShadowCast. I initially bought the Elgato so I could stream my Nintendo Switch gameplay, but I came across a problem because I didn’t have much knowledge on capture cards and didn’t do enough research. The problem was that I don’t own a desktop PC, I have a 6 year old gaming laptop that is good enough for me. I don’t have a monitor or TV to hook up to, so I haven’t been able to use the Elgato that much. Also, there were many times when playing the Switch in my room were I wished I could use my laptop screen, but no matter how much I tried with the Elgato I just couldn’t get it to work. So when I saw the Genki ShadowCast on KickStarter, it really sold into me considering my use case. Also I didn’t feel like paying that much money considering that I had just spent a lot of money on the Elgato. IMO it has worked great and I was initially satisfied with the product. I was just glad that I could finally use my laptop screen to play docked mode. Also glad that I could play on my Switch and talk to my friends through Discord at the same time (Switch audio and Voice Chat are both output to the same headset). Latency is there and immediately noticeable, but for most games I’ve played it has been manageable and not an issue (Zelda: BotW is one of the games I could comfortably play with some noticeable latency). I think I had similar gameplay latency, maybe even a bit worse, when I tried playing on the Elgato (borrowed a monitor for a week). Video quality is quite disappointing though, therefore I have never used the ShadowCast for streaming to Twitch. Even with the “resolution mode” it still doesn’t really look that good and it makes the latency a bit worse. The reason I like it is because it solved a really niche problem that I have. But now that I have a bit more knowledge and experience with capture cards, I wouldn’t be surprised if I can find a cheaper and equal/better product in Amazon.
I'm curious about your latency testing of the OBS viewer you talked about, I haven't done anything extensive but I didn't seem to have a noticeable delay(unless side by side, then it 'looked' like a frame or so?). I've only tested with my Avermedia C985, and a Datapath VisionRGB-E1S. The latter of which I got off ebay cheaply to use for capturing and streaming DOS games and retro PCs in general. I played a few levels of Wolfenstien 3-D with the Datapath through OBS and didn't really 'feel' anything, but then again, that's not a very... 'twitchy' game. I'm wondering now if I should use a VGA splitter and an extra monitor for the retro PC, instead of playing through OBS as I had planned.
A family member of mine keeps REALLY trying to convince me to get this (when he knows I have a ton of capture cards, work for a capture card company, and don't need it). I think he's more trying to convince himself it was worth buying 😅
thanks for this eye-opening review. What do you prefer/recommend as well so I can play/stream consoles to my laptop in a portable manner? especially now, 2 years later?
The pattern on the chip is laser etching. You won't be able to read what it is. I wonder if it's still VID 534D PID 2109 though :D But it can probably be edited via attached EEPROM, so they probably changed that. A little not sure how i feel about this chip being run in plastic without cooling. Also i wonder, all previous cantlink have an audio issue, they present as a 96KHz Mono device. This is a result of a minor hardware bug, and we expected that MacroSilicon will fix it eventually, to make it 48KHz Stereo, but in this day and age, spinning up a new chip revision is kinda rough due to semiconductor industry's shortages. Has Genki gotten stereo audio working?
I got this I was one of the first Kickstarter supporters, I haven't actually used it yet though lol got super busy with work anyway, the main reason I got it was for capturing gameplay from my PS3 why I choose this is because it's simple and easy to use and everything that was available at the time I was looking for something didn't support anything before PS4, so while I may not use it for anything but my PS3 I am very happy with my purchase.
do you know if you can use this just as a capture card using a splitter (one monitor tht is only for ps3, and another monitor for ur computer to record on)?
I find using MPV for video rather than OBS or the Arcade app to have a decent bit less latency. It's a bit of a pain to set up and still far from perfect and you shouldn't have to setup a completely separate program just to make things playable but I'm willing to put up with the hassle for the sake of convenience and the lag gets low enough to feel good enough for me. Playing on a CRT seems to really clear up the compression artifacts too.
(Definitely justifying my purchase here lol) it's fine for what i wanted to do which is to play my switch games on my laptop (don't have the space for a monitor). I don't have any plans streaming, and i mostly play turn based rpgs with only a few action-based titles. So for my use-case, definitely an okay buy. Won't say a good buy, because the cheap Asian ones might just do the same thing, but the app is lightweight and easy to use, so i'd say it's okay. Great review, nonetheless.
do you know if you can use this just as a capture card using a splitter (one monitor tht is only for ps3, and another monitor for ur computer to record on)?
It's such a shame there ain't any worthwhile cheap HDMI-capture card capable of 1080p 60Hz. I have no wish to capture games, so latency doesn't really matter to me and I can deal with MJPEG, but getting 60Hz out of it at 1080p is something I do need. Oh well, I'll just have to continue watching your videos in the hopes of you eventually finding a suitably cheap one.
So is there a better solution for using my laptop screen as a monitor for my console(s) than this? (Preferably one that allows output/throughput at 1080p @ 60fps?)
I thought kickstarter was discredited with so many scammers, but it continues even today? I was looking to use hdmi for real time car rearview camera processing and everything but the cheap ones were too expensive, so starting looking into making my own hardware, and found there wasn't a lot of options, but did find some chips that can do it, need two, one to decode hdmi into 24 bits and another to encode 24 bits into usb3.0, both chips are about $8 each, so $16 about as cheap as it could get at cost, and the hdmi decode was still maxed at 1080p 60hz.
in a pinch, it works for me. but my main issue is there is no Stereo audio. it bugs me enough for Animal Crossing or other slow-paced games. but i can't imagine trying to play COD or something with mono audio.
Ah, so this isn't fixed yet, good to know. Funny thing, on the original Can'tlink, Linux kernel developer Hector Martin found that the audio bitstream is actually 48KHz stereo underneath. You can see it if you capture the full 96KHz audio stream, and you have two different signals in left and right channels, you'll see a value of the left channel following by right interleaved. Or alternatively if you treat it as 96 KHz mono, like the card wants you to, on a frequency plot, you will see a big spike at 48 KHz which shouldn't be there. When you capture it to 48KHz or less, the interleaved signals for two channels end up getting averaged to a convincing mono stream. Due to a hardware bug, sometimes one sample gets lost, and then the two channels would switch positions between left and right. So they presumably hotpatched this issue by redeclaring what would normally be a 48KHz stereo stream as 96KHz mono, which hides this defect. Hector has contributed a Linux kernel patch that reconstructs the original 48KHz stereo audio and also applies some special magic sauce to the USB device to fix the intermittent channel swap bug. I could test this, as i both have a Can'tlink and use Linux occasionally, but so far i didn't, so i can't tell you right off the bat how much effort it is to get it to work, but if you're willing to mess with Linux, at least this is hypothetically possible now. If i'm not mistaken, the fix has been shipped in Linux kernel 5.8-rc5 and newer. You also get OBS on Linux, so it is something you can actually use. If you wish to try it, do keep in mind that OBS for Linux doesn't support MJPEG video capture directly, and you get YUV2 by default which is like 5 frames per second due to limited USB2 bandwidth, you need instead to cycle through several "Emulated" video modes until you find one where V4L2 actually uses MJPEG to connect to the capture device behind the scenes and where you do get full framerate, but it's not at all obvious. Also it is my understanding that left and right channels can remain continuously swapped, though that too apparently got fixed with Linux kernel patches eventually. One might expect that a newer respin of the chip would fix stereo for real, but this seems difficult to expect for the time being. Oh also it appears ToadKing made an application "mono-to-stereo" for Windows which reconstructs the stereo audio, though it requires a virtual audio cable of some sort to route it back into software. I have just discovered it a minute ago and haven't tested it. I might take a stab at making an OBS plugin or something of a kind out of it to make it more straightforward to set up.
One of their strangest decision is hiding a more functional settings panel in the Genki Arcade app behind an arcade code (UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A). In any case, I was happy to back the project, thinking it's a nice solution for some games that I own on the Nintendo Switch - but the input lag is only acceptable in 720p mode for games, that don't require critical timed inputs.
It may be a clone, but it’s much better than what they’re doing with the other Hdmi input USB output I tell you I watched a review on one of those hdmi-in usb-out and there was so much delay this only has delay when used on m1 macs, also it may be weird on switch since it has a screen built in but I can be a simpler capture card instead of adding a capture card you just record the genki arcade window, also I understand your criticism, your reasons were well very reasonable, but you have to understand, it’s only 50 bucks you can’t expect that much quality if you can find something that’s better at the same price or less then let us people know.
@@EposVox it really does. I swapped out the provided cable for a higher end cable and the difference is significant, especially at 1080p. Hopefully we’ll see a USB 3.0 version sooner than later.
Difference in… what? The quality is set based on the onboard encoder and the MS2109 chip they used is incapable of 1080p60. Also I was using USB 3.2 rated cables and ports anyway lol
i heard this lets me use my ipad as a monitor though, which is a feature that should just be built into usb c, and makes it worth using imo. If i could just natively use a 12 inch ipad pro as a monitor, id hook it up to an itx pc and never use a regular monitor again.
Hey, this was a very informative video. I'm planning on getting some type of this device, for the main purpose of using my laptop as the display for my console (Xbox One S). The latency is a bit concerning for me, and I was wondering if the Shadowcast isn't too good of an option, what else is in the market? I would prefer 1080, 60fps with low latency. Thanks to anyone who helps out!
I bought it for my Switch but my dock (Skull&Co Jumpgate) doesn't like it (the Shadowcast is too wide, blocking the charge port) so I popped it into my facecam and use my Camlink 4K for my switch (too much of a cheapskate to get an extension cord)... It works fine for a facecam tho but idk how it handles the faster movement of games...
The video compression here treats every frame separately, without referencing prior frames, It has a fixed bitrate budget not only for each frame but also for separate sections of the frame, not sure if per run of lines or per underlying JPEG block. So it doesn't at all particularly degrade due to motion per se; but it also doesn't benefit from lack of motion, the quality is just constantly mediocre.
@@FinlayDaG33k USB2.0 device. Not enough bandwidth for uncompressed video. This is also how all the affordable HD webcams work, so MJPEG is a very compatible solution, though obviously it's a lot less flattering for synthetic video than for a slightly blurry webcam.
I think compatibility is the main issue (as well as cheapening a bit). I use my Camlink 4K with 1080p60fps on a USB2.0 port just fine :| So either that thing falls back to MJPEG too or the USB2.0 isn't the issue...
@@FinlayDaG33k You're right. It depends, i don't have first hand familiarity with elgato camlink (too expensive for something that i don't strictly need) but i suspect it should use video compression too. Besides MJPEG, H264 is also an option that can be employed by some capture devices, and of course it can look spectacularly good, as it exploits frame-to-frame cohesion efficiently and doesn't need to re-transmit the same details every frame. Even if MJPEG is used, it's definitely possible to utilise it better if the compressor has good quantisation control, where it buffers the whole frame in the intermediate state of compression and can flexibly determine how much data it must throw away to fit within a given bandwidth limit. Quantisation control can get computationally quite expensive, and obviously the MacroSilicon chip here aims for the very lowest cost bracket. Another leverage is Huffman table optimisation, you can expect precomputed tables to be used on the lowest end hardware, but data dependent tables to be used at the higher end. The interaction between Huffman optimisation and optimal quantisation can get particularly iffy to deal with. As a UVC class device (USB device standard for cameras that requires no custom drivers), either must run in isochronous mode rather than bulk mode. Isochronous mode is typical say for a soundcard - within a 1ms long USB frame, the host reserves a timeslot dedicated to this device, where the transfer must take place, and once the connection is established, this slot remains the same. USB hubs (as opposed to say Ethernet switches) don't repackage the data within the frame, they just commutate the signals electrically as they come, without buffering - the timeslots are the same from the USB host port (or port group if internal hub) all the way downstream. The maximum timeslot duty cycle and thus bandwidth is limited, i don't remember what the exact legal limit is, but i believe it's intended to support several such devices on the same bus. On USB 2.0 HighSpeed, the maximum you get out of YUV2 uncompressed UVC is 640x480 at 30fps. For a UVC device, it's difficult to expect any software compatibility besides straight up RGB, YUV2, and MJPEG modes. If the device also has custom drivers and custom non-UVC modes, it can potentially use USB bulk mode, these transfers are scheduled in the remaining time between isochronous and interrupt transfers flexibly by the host, and can utilise full USB bandwidth. This is the mode used say by USB storage devices. Of course the problem is then that it's not guaranteed that you get any bandwidth at all, which can result in all sorts of jank when there is bus contention, and the 33MB/s thereabouts that you get max are still too constrained for uncompressed HD video. Custom drivers can also translate the H264 video on the wire into more widely compatible formats like RGB and YUV2 for the software.
Is there a capture card around the $100 mark that does low-latency pass-through so I can play my console games on a screen with good quality and latency, and stream them to my friends?
I mean I guess it's neat that it could (maybe?) offer Live Gamer 2 Portable quality footage at a low price, bar no 1080p 60fps. Its just a shame though that the problem is everything else, there was a great opportunity to appeal to people wanting to capture or stream high quality footage from their consoles without breaking the bank, and they just dropped the ball.
backed this pretty early on, since I've been looking at something similar for a while but didn't wanna play the no name roulette on amazon and I have previous good experiences with genki I had pretty low expectations and those were met nothing beyond that, but for my camera or the occasional switch only game streaming its fine enough to me (also most people miss this one, you can input the Konami code (for some reason) you get more control over the resolution and fps tho I have no options of actually testing how accurate that is)
Sure but you can get the exact same capture card for $6 on Amazon right now, so it’s still a terrible value. And USB 3 started rolling out 11 years ago. If you’re on a PC without it, you’re going to have a terrible time trying to use this anyway
Thank you for this. Maybe someday they'll be something.... I just want a usb device to use for mirroring my console to my pc. Uncompressed, cheap (not $200) and 4:4:4 or 4:2:2, honestly want it to use because i want to use my audio system with my switch without having to swap cables anytime i want to use my headphones, speaker, speakerbar and be able to swing the screen to my tv without having to fiddle with hdmi splitters and a another 25ft hdmi cable. I'd like to be able to share it in discord, when i have starlink but mehhh.
@@KathyXie Try subsampled chroma on something like red text on blue-ish background, and be appalled at how it looks. Chroma subsampling isn't a major concern for natural/photographic imagery, but for synthetic, particularly HUD overlays in modern games, 2D games in general, text-heavy content, etc. it can be quite nasty.
Its literally just a rebranded Hong Kong/Mainland China capture card knockoff you can get on amazon for 20 bucks. The guys literally just became millionaires from the Kickstarter and shipped off rebrands they sourced from China for probably less than a million and pocketing the rest. Its a scam in all the same sense and purpose. The hardest thing those 3 had to do was program the inhouse capture app and even then its so barebones that you could hire a high school coder and they would have done a better job.
Looks like my commet got deleted? I said I liked mine. For the swith it seems fine. I did try my camlink which often decides it likes turning everything purple and yes the image is better with less lantacy on the camlink. So I'll just use my shadowcast for my Lumix G7.
It’s incredibly disappointing they gathered this much attention and money on the campaign but Genki couldn’t even go for USB 3.0 but 2.0 instead that makes no sense whatsoever
@@EposVox what a scheme and a lot of people fell for it including me, ya win some ya lose some, thanks for the vid I now know better than to fall for this again hopefully lmao it is what it is
5:02 - Wait, Linus was wrong but picked a fight anyway? Again? (or rather, the time he did it recently is again) Good, he's turned into such a tool in recent years. Huge respect to him for managing to build an empire from unboxing videos, but he as a person has become so awful.
No problem was super curious about it because ppl was posting it In my group but after your review I think will stick out with my old AVerMedia live gamer portable until I can afford the Elgato 4K 60. But awesome video you got my sub
![Eminem - Fuel (feat. JID) [Official Lyric Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/t5H_CewqpKA/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you for making this video. You have no clue how annoyed I've been with their marketing campaign on Instagram. Whenever someone would ask if its a capture card, their pr would always try to sidestep the question to try to confuse people and hide the fact that it's just a reengineered cheap capture card
Lmfao really?
IM GLAD YOURE TALKING ABOUT THIS, it was my first thought when I saw the crowdfunding
you can actually enable 1080p60 on the genki, it just requires a dumb extra step and in my experience is a bit flaky.
Entering the komnami code will change the selector for 'perfomance' or resolution to a pair of drop downs for fixed resolution and refresh rate settings where you can force 1080p60.
This works both in the dedicated app and in chrome. It also unlocks some color grading settings.
What do you mean flaky?
Good god, the graph at 5:40 really does say it all, doesn't it? The thing's designed for live play on what the 'card' sees, and yet clocks in at almost double the latency of Elgato's 4K60 Pro. Cheap? True. But it still stings pretty dang hard and though I appreciate that the main selling point is use on a switch (which, as you said, could be played handheld) when you add in the compression artifacts, you're arguably spending money to have only a marginal improvement (if that!) over the free PS and Xbox remote play apps, oof!
I backed this as well. It's an okay device but definitely not as premium as an Elgato or Avermedia device. Wish it was USB 3.0+ based instead of 2.0. That's the roughest thing about it but is unfortunately a large flaw in its design.
well to be fair its a cheap ass one
I backed this project and tried to play Zelda botw. It was alright but when it came to be a little more fast paced it was difficult to adjust to the input lag. I should have gotten an elgato. 🤣
Yeah no, playing through a capture device just isn't fun, not even an Elgato or whatever. There is plenty of latency in the game and console to begin with, it isn't really kind to adding even 30ms more on top. You're better off finding some solution which doesn't involve a capture device, like a basic used monitor or TV can't be too expensive. If you need to also capture, an HDMI splitter can be very cheap, and you can get even Cantlinks with a built-in HDMI splitter for less than $15 shipped.
@@SianaGearz if you have money to throw, get an HDFury and pair it with an Elgato or other recording device.
I have both an Elgato hd60s+ and the ShadowCast. I initially bought the Elgato so I could stream my Nintendo Switch gameplay, but I came across a problem because I didn’t have much knowledge on capture cards and didn’t do enough research. The problem was that I don’t own a desktop PC, I have a 6 year old gaming laptop that is good enough for me. I don’t have a monitor or TV to hook up to, so I haven’t been able to use the Elgato that much. Also, there were many times when playing the Switch in my room were I wished I could use my laptop screen, but no matter how much I tried with the Elgato I just couldn’t get it to work. So when I saw the Genki ShadowCast on KickStarter, it really sold into me considering my use case. Also I didn’t feel like paying that much money considering that I had just spent a lot of money on the Elgato.
IMO it has worked great and I was initially satisfied with the product. I was just glad that I could finally use my laptop screen to play docked mode. Also glad that I could play on my Switch and talk to my friends through Discord at the same time (Switch audio and Voice Chat are both output to the same headset). Latency is there and immediately noticeable, but for most games I’ve played it has been manageable and not an issue (Zelda: BotW is one of the games I could comfortably play with some noticeable latency). I think I had similar gameplay latency, maybe even a bit worse, when I tried playing on the Elgato (borrowed a monitor for a week). Video quality is quite disappointing though, therefore I have never used the ShadowCast for streaming to Twitch. Even with the “resolution mode” it still doesn’t really look that good and it makes the latency a bit worse.
The reason I like it is because it solved a really niche problem that I have. But now that I have a bit more knowledge and experience with capture cards, I wouldn’t be surprised if I can find a cheaper and equal/better product in Amazon.
I managed to get two NEW cantlinks for under 18$ , it’s disgusting how Atomos charged $80 for it.
Got mine for $12. It's none of my business but it really irks me to know people buy and praise this genki product. When it's no better.
Just make sure to open it up and check, if it has the cooler. Mine doesn't, so i had to retrofit that.
I'm curious about your latency testing of the OBS viewer you talked about, I haven't done anything extensive but I didn't seem to have a noticeable delay(unless side by side, then it 'looked' like a frame or so?). I've only tested with my Avermedia C985, and a Datapath VisionRGB-E1S. The latter of which I got off ebay cheaply to use for capturing and streaming DOS games and retro PCs in general. I played a few levels of Wolfenstien 3-D with the Datapath through OBS and didn't really 'feel' anything, but then again, that's not a very... 'twitchy' game.
I'm wondering now if I should use a VGA splitter and an extra monitor for the retro PC, instead of playing through OBS as I had planned.
A family member of mine keeps REALLY trying to convince me to get this (when he knows I have a ton of capture cards, work for a capture card company, and don't need it).
I think he's more trying to convince himself it was worth buying 😅
Bahahaha if you bite then it’s totally cool for him to buy it!
thanks for this eye-opening review. What do you prefer/recommend as well so I can play/stream consoles to my laptop in a portable manner? especially now, 2 years later?
The pattern on the chip is laser etching. You won't be able to read what it is. I wonder if it's still VID 534D PID 2109 though :D But it can probably be edited via attached EEPROM, so they probably changed that. A little not sure how i feel about this chip being run in plastic without cooling.
Also i wonder, all previous cantlink have an audio issue, they present as a 96KHz Mono device. This is a result of a minor hardware bug, and we expected that MacroSilicon will fix it eventually, to make it 48KHz Stereo, but in this day and age, spinning up a new chip revision is kinda rough due to semiconductor industry's shortages. Has Genki gotten stereo audio working?
I got this I was one of the first Kickstarter supporters, I haven't actually used it yet though lol got super busy with work anyway, the main reason I got it was for capturing gameplay from my PS3 why I choose this is because it's simple and easy to use and everything that was available at the time I was looking for something didn't support anything before PS4, so while I may not use it for anything but my PS3 I am very happy with my purchase.
do you know if you can use this just as a capture card using a splitter (one monitor tht is only for ps3, and another monitor for ur computer to record on)?
My 4 month son actually loves documentaries, we watch animals for the most part but I'm curious about curiosity. I'll give them a shot. Thanks epos.
:D your son is going to be smart
How a 4 months baby can love documentaries? He/She doesn't even know who you are.
I am using Avermedias 4k60 capture card ever since to play in Preview, tbh, I don't feel a difference to my TV
can you record using obs on pc but also play on console on seperate monitor if you have a hdmi splitter?
Last video you did of these cheap cards had me buying 3 of them lol.
I've been waiting for this video since they announced it
Whats this amorank (honestly don't know how to spell it) he was talking about at 04:50???
Thanks for doing a better job at this than me!
I find using MPV for video rather than OBS or the Arcade app to have a decent bit less latency. It's a bit of a pain to set up and still far from perfect and you shouldn't have to setup a completely separate program just to make things playable but I'm willing to put up with the hassle for the sake of convenience and the lag gets low enough to feel good enough for me. Playing on a CRT seems to really clear up the compression artifacts too.
how much less latency does MPV have than OBS? also what capture card do u use to get hdmi from ur console to ur pc?
(Definitely justifying my purchase here lol) it's fine for what i wanted to do which is to play my switch games on my laptop (don't have the space for a monitor). I don't have any plans streaming, and i mostly play turn based rpgs with only a few action-based titles. So for my use-case, definitely an okay buy. Won't say a good buy, because the cheap Asian ones might just do the same thing, but the app is lightweight and easy to use, so i'd say it's okay. Great review, nonetheless.
do you know if you can use this just as a capture card using a splitter (one monitor tht is only for ps3, and another monitor for ur computer to record on)?
It's such a shame there ain't any worthwhile cheap HDMI-capture card capable of 1080p 60Hz. I have no wish to capture games, so latency doesn't really matter to me and I can deal with MJPEG, but getting 60Hz out of it at 1080p is something I do need. Oh well, I'll just have to continue watching your videos in the hopes of you eventually finding a suitably cheap one.
Love the video BTW your hair is super cool 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thanks!
@@EposVox also your shirt is dope! Looked all over for it so I figured I’d ask where you got it!
EPOSVOX , PLEASE TELL ME WHERE YOU GOT YOUR SHIRT AND WHERE CAN I FIND ONE!!!
So is there a better solution for using my laptop screen as a monitor for my console(s) than this? (Preferably one that allows output/throughput at 1080p @ 60fps?)
What’s the best way for stream pc monitor clone?
I thought kickstarter was discredited with so many scammers, but it continues even today?
I was looking to use hdmi for real time car rearview camera processing and everything but the cheap ones were too expensive, so starting looking into making my own hardware, and found there wasn't a lot of options, but did find some chips that can do it, need two, one to decode hdmi into 24 bits and another to encode 24 bits into usb3.0, both chips are about $8 each, so $16 about as cheap as it could get at cost, and the hdmi decode was still maxed at 1080p 60hz.
You are a part of my Video Swiss Army knife! Essential viewing, thank you!
in a pinch, it works for me. but my main issue is there is no Stereo audio. it bugs me enough for Animal Crossing or other slow-paced games. but i can't imagine trying to play COD or something with mono audio.
Ah, so this isn't fixed yet, good to know.
Funny thing, on the original Can'tlink, Linux kernel developer Hector Martin found that the audio bitstream is actually 48KHz stereo underneath. You can see it if you capture the full 96KHz audio stream, and you have two different signals in left and right channels, you'll see a value of the left channel following by right interleaved. Or alternatively if you treat it as 96 KHz mono, like the card wants you to, on a frequency plot, you will see a big spike at 48 KHz which shouldn't be there. When you capture it to 48KHz or less, the interleaved signals for two channels end up getting averaged to a convincing mono stream.
Due to a hardware bug, sometimes one sample gets lost, and then the two channels would switch positions between left and right. So they presumably hotpatched this issue by redeclaring what would normally be a 48KHz stereo stream as 96KHz mono, which hides this defect.
Hector has contributed a Linux kernel patch that reconstructs the original 48KHz stereo audio and also applies some special magic sauce to the USB device to fix the intermittent channel swap bug. I could test this, as i both have a Can'tlink and use Linux occasionally, but so far i didn't, so i can't tell you right off the bat how much effort it is to get it to work, but if you're willing to mess with Linux, at least this is hypothetically possible now. If i'm not mistaken, the fix has been shipped in Linux kernel 5.8-rc5 and newer. You also get OBS on Linux, so it is something you can actually use.
If you wish to try it, do keep in mind that OBS for Linux doesn't support MJPEG video capture directly, and you get YUV2 by default which is like 5 frames per second due to limited USB2 bandwidth, you need instead to cycle through several "Emulated" video modes until you find one where V4L2 actually uses MJPEG to connect to the capture device behind the scenes and where you do get full framerate, but it's not at all obvious. Also it is my understanding that left and right channels can remain continuously swapped, though that too apparently got fixed with Linux kernel patches eventually.
One might expect that a newer respin of the chip would fix stereo for real, but this seems difficult to expect for the time being.
Oh also it appears ToadKing made an application "mono-to-stereo" for Windows which reconstructs the stereo audio, though it requires a virtual audio cable of some sort to route it back into software. I have just discovered it a minute ago and haven't tested it. I might take a stab at making an OBS plugin or something of a kind out of it to make it more straightforward to set up.
One of their strangest decision is hiding a more functional settings panel in the Genki Arcade app behind an arcade code (UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A).
In any case, I was happy to back the project, thinking it's a nice solution for some games that I own on the Nintendo Switch - but the input lag is only acceptable in 720p mode for games, that don't require critical timed inputs.
It may be a clone, but it’s much better than what they’re doing with the other Hdmi input USB output I tell you I watched a review on one of those hdmi-in usb-out and there was so much delay this only has delay when used on m1 macs, also it may be weird on switch since it has a screen built in but I can be a simpler capture card instead of adding a capture card you just record the genki arcade window, also I understand your criticism, your reasons were well very reasonable, but you have to understand, it’s only 50 bucks you can’t expect that much quality if you can find something that’s better at the same price or less then let us people know.
Man I really be out here typing paragraphs
Thank you was helpful for me tho
Is there a cheep but good device to do this ? Stream the game ? Starting to stream so 6.6
They should've included a higher quality higher bandwith usb-c cable, it really makes a difference.
Given that the physical port on the card is still USB 2.0, nope
@@EposVox it really does. I swapped out the provided cable for a higher end cable and the difference is significant, especially at 1080p. Hopefully we’ll see a USB 3.0 version sooner than later.
Difference in… what? The quality is set based on the onboard encoder and the MS2109 chip they used is incapable of 1080p60.
Also I was using USB 3.2 rated cables and ports anyway lol
@@EposVox if you used the OEM Genki cable you would’ve noticed that significant difference in input lag, especially at 1080p
i heard this lets me use my ipad as a monitor though, which is a feature that should just be built into usb c, and makes it worth using imo. If i could just natively use a 12 inch ipad pro as a monitor, id hook it up to an itx pc and never use a regular monitor again.
That shirt looks awesome
Hey, this was a very informative video. I'm planning on getting some type of this device, for the main purpose of using my laptop as the display for my console (Xbox One S). The latency is a bit concerning for me, and I was wondering if the Shadowcast isn't too good of an option, what else is in the market? I would prefer 1080, 60fps with low latency. Thanks to anyone who helps out!
There’s a can’t link that can do 1080p60fps YUV2 with USB 3 for around 30$. I have the classic usb 2 one and the usb 3 one and love it
You got a link for that?
@@joe.dormido it’s the “USB 3.0 Loop U3”
a.aliexpress.com/_vtIDrN
I guess I can jump to the conclusion that a "can't link" is just as capable with a lower price tag?
Yep
I bought it for my Switch but my dock (Skull&Co Jumpgate) doesn't like it (the Shadowcast is too wide, blocking the charge port) so I popped it into my facecam and use my Camlink 4K for my switch (too much of a cheapskate to get an extension cord)...
It works fine for a facecam tho but idk how it handles the faster movement of games...
The video compression here treats every frame separately, without referencing prior frames, It has a fixed bitrate budget not only for each frame but also for separate sections of the frame, not sure if per run of lines or per underlying JPEG block.
So it doesn't at all particularly degrade due to motion per se; but it also doesn't benefit from lack of motion, the quality is just constantly mediocre.
@@SianaGearz I see, thanks for the explanation : >
It's quite a bummer they use JPEG for it instead of just sending the raw frames :|
@@FinlayDaG33k USB2.0 device. Not enough bandwidth for uncompressed video. This is also how all the affordable HD webcams work, so MJPEG is a very compatible solution, though obviously it's a lot less flattering for synthetic video than for a slightly blurry webcam.
I think compatibility is the main issue (as well as cheapening a bit).
I use my Camlink 4K with 1080p60fps on a USB2.0 port just fine :|
So either that thing falls back to MJPEG too or the USB2.0 isn't the issue...
@@FinlayDaG33k You're right. It depends, i don't have first hand familiarity with elgato camlink (too expensive for something that i don't strictly need) but i suspect it should use video compression too. Besides MJPEG, H264 is also an option that can be employed by some capture devices, and of course it can look spectacularly good, as it exploits frame-to-frame cohesion efficiently and doesn't need to re-transmit the same details every frame.
Even if MJPEG is used, it's definitely possible to utilise it better if the compressor has good quantisation control, where it buffers the whole frame in the intermediate state of compression and can flexibly determine how much data it must throw away to fit within a given bandwidth limit. Quantisation control can get computationally quite expensive, and obviously the MacroSilicon chip here aims for the very lowest cost bracket. Another leverage is Huffman table optimisation, you can expect precomputed tables to be used on the lowest end hardware, but data dependent tables to be used at the higher end. The interaction between Huffman optimisation and optimal quantisation can get particularly iffy to deal with.
As a UVC class device (USB device standard for cameras that requires no custom drivers), either must run in isochronous mode rather than bulk mode. Isochronous mode is typical say for a soundcard - within a 1ms long USB frame, the host reserves a timeslot dedicated to this device, where the transfer must take place, and once the connection is established, this slot remains the same. USB hubs (as opposed to say Ethernet switches) don't repackage the data within the frame, they just commutate the signals electrically as they come, without buffering - the timeslots are the same from the USB host port (or port group if internal hub) all the way downstream. The maximum timeslot duty cycle and thus bandwidth is limited, i don't remember what the exact legal limit is, but i believe it's intended to support several such devices on the same bus. On USB 2.0 HighSpeed, the maximum you get out of YUV2 uncompressed UVC is 640x480 at 30fps.
For a UVC device, it's difficult to expect any software compatibility besides straight up RGB, YUV2, and MJPEG modes.
If the device also has custom drivers and custom non-UVC modes, it can potentially use USB bulk mode, these transfers are scheduled in the remaining time between isochronous and interrupt transfers flexibly by the host, and can utilise full USB bandwidth. This is the mode used say by USB storage devices. Of course the problem is then that it's not guaranteed that you get any bandwidth at all, which can result in all sorts of jank when there is bus contention, and the 33MB/s thereabouts that you get max are still too constrained for uncompressed HD video. Custom drivers can also translate the H264 video on the wire into more widely compatible formats like RGB and YUV2 for the software.
What about their V2 version? seems to be usb 3.2
Is there a capture card around the $100 mark that does low-latency pass-through so I can play my console games on a screen with good quality and latency, and stream them to my friends?
Well it’s nature of backing - there always will be lots of scam campaigns
Any chance doing a review on their updated shadowcast2 + shadowcast2 pro
Yep! Got them and working on it
@@EposVox any estimate on when that video will be released?
I mean I guess it's neat that it could (maybe?) offer Live Gamer 2 Portable quality footage at a low price, bar no 1080p 60fps. Its just a shame though that the problem is everything else, there was a great opportunity to appeal to people wanting to capture or stream high quality footage from their consoles without breaking the bank, and they just dropped the ball.
3:30 what game is that?
backed this pretty early on,
since I've been looking at something similar for a while
but didn't wanna play the no name roulette on amazon
and I have previous good experiences with genki
I had pretty low expectations and those were met
nothing beyond that,
but for my camera or the occasional switch only game
streaming its fine enough to me
(also most people miss this one,
you can input the Konami code (for some reason)
you get more control over the resolution and fps
tho I have no options of actually
testing how accurate that is)
I’ll have a separate video about the Konami code thing ;)
@@EposVox
nice to hear,
was hoping you'd cover this device
happy to see it 💜
Great for lower spec'd computers with bad or no usb 3. The Camlink is pretty picky about what usb 3 ports it decides to work with from my testing.
Sure but you can get the exact same capture card for $6 on Amazon right now, so it’s still a terrible value.
And USB 3 started rolling out 11 years ago. If you’re on a PC without it, you’re going to have a terrible time trying to use this anyway
@@EposVox yeah
What game is at 5:01-5:14 ? On video above.
1:58 i use mine too stream my switch to friends
hey man is this good i just ordoed this and i want to know if this is good
Cool there’s a video right above the comments section that answers all of your questions, just gotta hit the magical play button.
@@EposVoxnobody wants to watch a 10min video anymore. Thank you tiktok for destroying our patience
Selling a $10 product for $50...
These people just know how to make money, and not great products...
Thank you for this.
Maybe someday they'll be something.... I just want a usb device to use for mirroring my console to my pc. Uncompressed, cheap (not $200) and 4:4:4 or 4:2:2, honestly want it to use because i want to use my audio system with my switch without having to swap cables anytime i want to use my headphones, speaker, speakerbar and be able to swing the screen to my tv without having to fiddle with hdmi splitters and a another 25ft hdmi cable. I'd like to be able to share it in discord, when i have starlink but mehhh.
Why do you need 4:4:4 Chroma? is not like you are going to heavy color grade your game footage
@@KathyXie Try subsampled chroma on something like red text on blue-ish background, and be appalled at how it looks. Chroma subsampling isn't a major concern for natural/photographic imagery, but for synthetic, particularly HUD overlays in modern games, 2D games in general, text-heavy content, etc. it can be quite nasty.
does this make it possible to record and stream In portable mode
Portable mode for what?
@@EposVox i prefer being able to record my switch gameplay in handheld mode but so far there's nothing out there capable of doing this that
I got one, I hate it! :)
Another A+ vid! LOVE your tee btw. So cute! Have a fab day.😀
This is useful to watch tv in laptops using hdmi.
why such a great video with 286K sub youtube only get less than 10k views? does Genki pay Google? :(
I would buy it, if it has Stereo, if not then I'll get it for the 1080p60fps
it has neither of those things
How did this even get funded if it's falsely advertising a different/weaker output?
That’s most of Kickstarter. Just sucks when SO many people get invested in it
That’s a cool shirt
How I have waited for you or Harris to cover this
The wait is OVER
@@EposVox I actually had a friend ask me about it and told him to either wait or just get a reputable brand. Buy once cry once ya know.
Its literally just a rebranded Hong Kong/Mainland China capture card knockoff you can get on amazon for 20 bucks. The guys literally just became millionaires from the Kickstarter and shipped off rebrands they sourced from China for probably less than a million and pocketing the rest. Its a scam in all the same sense and purpose. The hardest thing those 3 had to do was program the inhouse capture app and even then its so barebones that you could hire a high school coder and they would have done a better job.
Looks like my commet got deleted? I said I liked mine. For the swith it seems fine. I did try my camlink which often decides it likes turning everything purple and yes the image is better with less lantacy on the camlink. So I'll just use my shadowcast for my Lumix G7.
I didn’t see another one from you, but even my own replies have started vanishing so I don’t know what’s going on with RUclips lolol.
Wow, they didn't even put the clear plastic case that they show on the Kickstarter. Literally everything about this is a scam.
Pretty sure they had that listed as a kickstarter exclusive variant
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
It’s incredibly disappointing they gathered this much attention and money on the campaign but Genki couldn’t even go for USB 3.0 but 2.0 instead that makes no sense whatsoever
Makes perfect sense when they just wanted a ton of extra money to clone an existing product
@@EposVox what a scheme and a lot of people fell for it including me, ya win some ya lose some, thanks for the vid I now know better than to fall for this again hopefully lmao it is what it is
I said that all the time
I it is literally a scam and should have be banned from Kickstarter day 1
5:02 - Wait, Linus was wrong but picked a fight anyway? Again? (or rather, the time he did it recently is again)
Good, he's turned into such a tool in recent years. Huge respect to him for managing to build an empire from unboxing videos, but he as a person has become so awful.
I mean, he played devil's advocate for a project that wasn't supposed to be a hyper-critical event. That's quite the leap
the tl;dr of this: don't buy
Wolfdenn send me here
Thanks for coming over!
No problem was super curious about it because ppl was posting it In my group but after your review I think will stick out with my old AVerMedia live gamer portable until I can afford the Elgato 4K 60.
But awesome video you got my sub
LGP is still solid compared to this. Which just shows it isn’t great, haha.
Thanks for subscribing!!
lol $50 genki shadowcast is just same as $15 chinese knockoff hdmi capture, it just a scam.
Whole kiskstarter scene is just scam
👌🏻
wowow
It’s garbage worst purchase I made