Elgato HD60 vs Elgato HD60S Review and Comparison
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-Overview
-Pros of both
-Differences
-Verdict
Overview
Both the Elgato HD60 and HD60S are 1080p 60 frames per second capture cards. They record at 40 Mbps.
These devices take an unencrypted HDMI signal and transfer the video and audio to your computer to be recorded or streamed. They also passthrough the footage to a separate monitor for playing on lag-free. This makes them ideal for recording console footage from systems such as the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. They both also work with next gen consoles such as the Xbox Series S/X and the Playstation 5.
The caveat with next gen systems is these capture cards are limited to both passthrough and capture of 1080p 60 FPS. Meaning, if you try to send 4K footage through these, they simply won’t work. You’ll need to drop your console’s resolution down to 1080p and cap the framerate to 60 FPS. If you want to record 4K 60 FPS footage, or high frame rate footage, I’ve reviewed both the AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K and the Elgato 4K60 S+. (Spoiler: the AVerMedia is better)
These cards can be use for more than just video games, however. They can record HDMI signals from other devices such as camcorders and DSLR/mirrorless cameras. I use mine to record footage from my second PC to make the some of the OBS tutorials on this site.
Encrypted Signals
To protect against piracy, Blu-ray players and most modern consoles have built-in HDCP protection (wikipedia). This is to prevent recording of movies and TV shows from apps like Netflix. You can turn this off in your console’s settings. This will still allow you to play and record gameplay, but will disable movies and TV show apps until you re-enable the encryption. If your card only displays a black screen when you first plug it in, turn off HDCP.
Pros of both
Performance
These cards record at 40 Mbps. At the time of launch, this was quite impressive, but with 4K out, cards are recording up to around 150 Mbps. The footage from both the HD60 and HD60S is slightly softer than what you see on your original screen. You’ll mainly notice this with text, but the image overall is quite good. At one point, I had tinny audio coming from my HD60S, but I learned it due to was a loose USB port on my PC. If you’re having audio issues, check a different port to test.
Simple setup
Both devices are super simple to set up. Install the software from Elgato's website, plug the USB cable into the device and your computer. Then the HDMI in goes from your console to the device, and the HDMI out goes from the device to your monitor. Elgato's program will recognize it instantly and you can customize the settings based on your computer's performance. I have a very underpowered secondary laptop - (i5 6300HQ, GTX 960M), but I'm still able to record at the highest settings without problems. Alternatively, you can record and stream through OBS.
Elgato Game Capture HD Software
Game: Pokkén Tournament.
Game: Dragon Ball Xenoverse.
Differences
The main difference between the Elgato HD60 and the Elgato HD60S is the HD60 uses USB 2.0 and the HD60S uses USB 3.0. USB 3.0 significantly decreases the latency, so you see the image and hear the audio from your capture on your computer much faster. Here’s why that matters:
Synchronized audio in streaming/recording software
With the HD60 in OBS, you have to manually add render delay filters to your microphone and webcam to sync them up with the video and audio feed that comes in from your card. This can be delayed by around a full second. Not only is this a pain to set up and test by trail and error, but the longer you stream and record the more out of alignment audio gets.
I wish someone told me to just get the HD60S in the first place, but that’s why I made this review. Elgato’s native software works around this problem by automatically adjusting for your other sources. Unfortunately, the Game Capture HD software is way more CPU intensive then OBS, much more limited in terms of functionality, and frankly pretty buggy.
In my experience, the HD60S also performed better in OBS. With the HD60 I would have artifacting in OBS regardless of the bitrate when there were lots of particles on the screen like explosions. This wouldn’t happen in the native software, however. The HD60S did not have this problem.
“Instant” preview window.
I have instant in quotes because, as shown in the review video, you still see the the gameplay image in your OBS or Elgato Game Capture preview window 2-3 frames later than what’s actually happening on your main monitor. You probably won’t be playing the game directly off the preview window anyway, so this is more of a warning not to buy too much into Elgato’s instant preview window hype.
The other difference between these two devices is that the HD60S does not allow you to both record and stream and different qualities. So if you’re streaming at 40 Mbps, but want a smaller file recorded to your PC, you can’t make the recording 30 Mbps. However, this limitation only applies to Elgato’s native capture program. In OBS you can stream and record at completely different resolutions and bitrates.
Mario alredy landed on my main monitor before seeing it in the preview window.
These two images are almost synced up.
Verdict
I highly recommend the Elgato HD60S. The USB 3.0 will save you a ton of headache syncing up, but they both record in good quality. The difference in price when I bought them was only $10, but I’ve linked current pricing below on Amazon.
HD60: https://amzn.to/2tGQzv4
Elgato HD60 S http://amzn.to/2EATM5U
