Decent Equipment to record Let's Plays?

Hey everyone!

I was just wondering what you guys think are good equipments to make a decent LP. I recently got a Dazzle Video Creator Plus HD; I heard many positive comments about the capture card and hopefully it's better than the Diamond I use right now. I would like to change my headsets though, since I think the ones I use are not that good. What do you think are good headsets? As for the price, I'm looking for anything less than $120 I'd say.

Oh, and here is what I currently use for my LPs:

Diamond VC500 to record game play from my console
Logitech H530 Headset & WavePad to record/edit commentary
Vegas 9.0 to edit my videos

You can go check the quality of them in my videos.

I use Startech Capture Cable, Logitech Headset with Audacity and Vegas Pro 10, my logitech was about $24

The Startech seems similar to the Diamond, and the price seems the same too. Do you think the Dazzle records with better quality, though?

I guess it depends. I mean, the Startech I got is just a USB capture cable, 39 bucks with only standard cables (I don't need HD). So really I guess it depends on what you can afford and how you go about using it.

Just don't use what I use, you have been warned about the Dazzle.

Why? Is the Dazzle bad? I kept seeing good comments about it! D:

Dazzle is terrible, I had it once, regretted that $60 so much...

Birthday present, but for 30, I'm almost to 100 so I'm going to get something good.

PseudoKlassic wrote:The Startech seems similar to the Diamond, and the price seems the same too. Do you think the Dazzle records with better quality, though?

I've been doing my research and I'm someone who is very concerned with getting the most out of what he can get. And this message goes out to everyone here debating the whole Dazzle vs. Diamond vs. Whatever.

Essentially speaking, they are all more or less the same. The resolutions they record in all float around 480p. The dazzle can allegedly bump up to 720p with pinnacle but I tend to notice the 720p dazzle recordings look exactly the same as the 480p recordings. No matter where you look people will be complaining about dazzle, but then you will watch LPers like JoshJepson complain about their Diamond VC500.

I use an 8$ EasyCap and I was this close to buying a Diamond VC500 because of framedrops and whatnot. But then I worked with a handy program called "Debut Video Capture" and I got good quality (highest supported), auto de-interlacing, okay filesizes and NO LAG. And this EasyCap of mine is a FAKE. Some kid put it together for an extra buck.

Bottom line, there is likely no difference between component-svideo capture devices. You'd have to get into the HDPVR realm to start talking valid differences. Also note that a good processor and GPU is the most important thing when it comes to capture devices. My old computer would not record higher then 240p and would still drop frames at that.

My new computer using the SAME setup records fine at 480p. The difference? Quad-Core 2.1GHz processor (though Dual-Core 2.5+ is even better) and an ATI Radeon HD 5650 GPU with 1024MB of dedicated DDR3 memory. My old computer ran pretty much the same specs but the GPU was ATI Radeon HD 3200. The 3200 used Shared Memory, that was the difference. My new GPU has dedicated.

The Dazzle is the better buy simply because Pinnacle Studio is, from what I hear, better at capturing. For Diamond you get Ulead Studio which is similar and for my EasyCap since it was a fake I had to get my own, which is the great-working Debut Video Capture. So all in all this is my advice on the matter. =)

Well, that was a long answer, hehe. But seriously, thanks a lot for your advice. I actually just recorded a few episodes of my current LP and it seems that the Dazzle is a bit better, compared to the Diamond I used before. Thank goodness it wasn't a complete waste of money!

My old computer would not record higher then 240p and would still drop frames at that.

That might be my issue, I recently upgraded and haven't tried recording it yet, so thanks for that.

Mine is the basic:
Fraps
Sony Vegas 10
Plantronics Headset (basic)
Audacity for Sound Reduction and Editing.

ThatKrypton wrote:Audacity for Sound Reduction and Editing.

What does this "editing" entail? People keep saying they use audacity to edit their audio and stuff, and yet I only use it to record and remove noise. That's it. Everything else can be done in Vegas quite simply.

MrSethGodSOURCE wrote:

ThatKrypton wrote:Audacity for Sound Reduction and Editing.

What does this "editing" entail? People keep saying they use audacity to edit their audio and stuff, and yet I only use it to record and remove noise. That's it. Everything else can be done in Vegas quite simply.

Remove noise, increase volume, decrease/increase gain ect.

i got the i grabber is that a good one? I use MAC.

http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

I use this nice piece of equipment which may be fairly pricey depending on your budget, but will give you high quality footage and is much better than the dazzle.

I used the dazzle back in the day and the footage was fuzzy and not as crisp, but with the Hauppague and Sony Vegas you can create some high quality and beautiful videos. I even did some in 1080p, but then lowered it to 720 and eventually 480 to shorten rendering length and upload length.