Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:16 am
Hi,
I want to let you know that you are not alone in that situation. I bought this card not so long ago choosing it over other options due to the fact that it was able to capture up to 8 channels through HDMI.
At first I though it was working in 5.1 (uncompressed audio) on Xbox One, but I was wrong. It is only working if I use my audio/video receiver in between my capture card and my console. This is not an option for me since I have to cut the audio between my receiver and the amp to let the sound go through. This clear only one thing, 5.1 is achievable with the capture card. There is only on little thing I am not sure. I think the channels are not interpreted correctly. But let this aside for now.
My ultimate goal was to use my consoles normally using my home entertainment system and use a splitter to send the signal to the capture card. Then I realized the audio was not captured… I tried a lot of different things from there. From changing the splitter to trying different HDMI cables. Still not working.
Then changing the audio to PCM 2 channel on the Xbox crossed my mind. This worked! So I tried 7.1 uncompressed and… It worked too!
So I suspected the Xbox might be having a problem with it’s 5.1 uncompressed signal. Which is not making a lot of sense since my Integra DHC 80.3 receiver is able to use that signal.
But before then I suspected my splitter and connected my Xbox directly to the card. Same result. Works with everything but 5.1 uncompressed channel. So the problem is not due to any of my splitters.
I tried a Wii U which have 5.1 LPCM too. No sound. 2 channels… Sound!
Then I use my PS3. I know PS3 has HDCP protection so it should not work, but it appears that my splitters can strip HDCP. So I tried the PS3 since it has option to have LPCM 2, 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1. Like the Xbox LPCM 5.1 no sound captures. Sound is captured when I use 2, 6.1 and 7.1.
So basically the card works when 2, 7 and 8 channels are used. If you try with 6 channels (5.1) you won’t be able to capture the sound from the consoles.
So when I saw that I contacted the Blackmagicdesign support. The answer I received is that there is no guarantee the card will capture the audio from consoles. From my point of view this is a really strange answer when you see that the card is marketed toward gaming on their page.
Their exact words were : “The Intensity Pro 4k had not been tested with a splitter so I cant guarantee the functionality of your workflow. Under normal circumstances so long as the audio provided is in discrete channels the Intensity pro 4K should record all audio served in this manner. With the gaming consoles it can be hit or miss with whats compatible so you may have to adjust the sampling and bit rates to see what works. In normal circumstances as long as you are using a stereo audio mode you should be good to go but again with gaming consoles we can’t guarantee they are supported.”
As you can see they refer to the splitter, but I tried with and without it, so I can tell that it is not causing the problem. Then I saw the “discrete channels”. I am not an audio engineer, but I think we are already getting this from an LPCM uncompressed source, 2, 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 in that case. So I decided to try connecting the capture card to my HDMI port on my main computer. The card is an NVIDIA GTX 980. I configured windows on LPCM 5.1 audio channel. All I got was the channels going all over the places in the capture software. When playing the test sound for each of the individual channel it triggered two or three channels in the capture software. It is hard to explain. I don’t know if it seems clear… I will probably try to do a video or at least a screenshot of that when I have time. Then I tried 6.1 and 7.1 in the Windows audio setting. Guess what… All the channels are recording like they should!
I also plan to try it with and AMD card to see if I have the same result.
Then it gave me another idea. Try it with a different driver for the capture card. I did not try all of the older driver. I tried the newer 10.6.8 with no luck. I think I was using 10.6.6 before that. Then I downloaded 10.5 to make sure I got back in time enough. Still the same result…
My last attempt was to install Windows 7 suspecting that Windows 10 might be the problem. Same result…
Then, today, I came across your post! I tried to reduce the resolution of my Xbox to 720p and I have statics when in 5.1 uncompressed audio. This, for me, reinforce my thinking that there is a problem. I have my fair amount of computers building and hardware problems diagnosis. I am around computer since I am 12 and now I have been 13 years in my computer software career. It looks a lot like a firmware/software problem to me.
The support team also mention to look at the sampling and bitrate. Which I just did for the Xbox.
Xbox 5.1 Uncompressed: sampling rate 48 kHz
Xbox 7.1 Uncompressed: sampling rate 48 kHz
I have no detail on the bitrate. But knowing that 7.1 works, why 5.1 don’t…
On the PS3 I manually selected the options to make sure it was using 48 kHz as the option. Then it worked in everything but 5.1.
Same here for the bitrate. Not provided by my audio receiver or the console.
Wii U: unkown.
So right now I am using the optical outputs of my consoles (not possible on Wii U) to capture the sound into a soundcard that has an optical input. This is not what I was expecting when I initially bought the card. The HDMI 8 channels audio was a big selling point to me. The image the card capture is excellent, but it would be much better if I could manage to capture all at once through HDMI.
So, all this long post to basically say that I have no solution to your problem. But, now I know that I am not alone. So this should shave the “card is defective” option out of the way.
