Review: Roxio Game Capture

I know this is a first for the site, but hopefully in the future this is maybe what we could do with new items of hardware that gamers want to read up on before buying.

I know a few gamers out there that would love to record themselves playing videogames to show off on their Facebook wall via a Youtube video.
So in anticiption of us maybe reviewing future Roxio hardware (fingers crossed) I thought I would share my thoughts on what is still the cheapest option to capture yourself gaming.
I’ve had my Roxio game capture about 3 months now, so I feel that is long enough to share my views on it.
I will break the review into sections I believe are the strong points people will look at when buying one of these, but if you have any questions just ask in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter (@HXboxreviews) or Facebook (honest xbox reviews) if you have any questions I may have missed.
The Roxio game capture is still the cheapest game capture on the market, which can be pick up for little as fifty pounds from places such as Amazon, which is where I got mine from in a sale.

Ease of use
Early on with my purchase I did have a few issues with my Roxio game capture, as you can see below if my first ever upload, so I can’t stress this enough if you’re thinking of buying one or looking at buying one MAKE SURE YOU PC OR LAPTOP CAN HANDLE IT! and don’t just assume it will like I did.

Once I got myself an up to date laptop everything was fine and I was ready to get recording.

Out of the box the Roxio game capture is very easy to set up, with only a few wires running from your Xbox and your TV, even the most least teccy person will set this up within a few minutes.
All those cables run to the main Roxio game capture box, which with a simple usb cable runs to you PC/Laptop.
You may need the Xbox 360 component cable (see image below) if you only have a HDMI cable for your 360, as this does not come with it.

Once you’ve done all that use the cd provided to get the game capture onto your PC and away you go capturing game footage with the simple click of a button.

Quality
This is where the Roxio game capture lets itself down a little, but you also you see why the cost is low, with the lack of an HD upload on this version it really does show while streaming or on any videos you upload via Youtube.
Hopefully this will be ironed out when we hear news on the next Roxio game capture, as it will have HD recording, so fingers crossed for that.
It still does the job what you would expect it to do though, and will open up an avenue for anyone wanting to break into the Youtube era of of big uploaders looking to get their foot in the door.

It does take a bit of tinkering to get the right settings for a decent looking quality, which can easily be found by searching Youtube, as the settings out the box did nothing for me personally.
Audio was fine for me, nothing amazing, but also nothing that made me feel the need to complain.
The video files you’re able to capture in are Avi, Wmv and DivX with Avi being the winner with most Youtube uploaders for quality, but Wmv does an OK job (See below) if you find Avi files take a bit too long to upload.
Overall, you get what you pay for, if you want better quality you will need to spend at least a 100 to 150 pound.

Final thoughts:
For those wanting to dip their toes in the game recording market the Roxio game capture is perfect for that.
The game capture does what you would expect it to do for the price you pay and will show you if it’s worth spending more money on a better quality one in the future (such as the roxio game capture HD)
Easy to use, OK quality when capturing, let a down a little by streaming quality, but other than that a great first purchase in the world of capturing.

Tags: Hardware, review, Reviews, Roxio game capture, Youtube

About the Author

Tony Winkett Is a 33 year father of two, and a husband to a wife who lets him sit playing games most of the day. His gaming love started back with the Atari 2600 with games like Warlords and Keystone Kapers, but he was bitten by the gaming bug when Sonic and Mario showed up with their cute little faces. He will play almost anything you stick in front of him, but his most played game genre is shooters. You will find him as the guy behind the keyboard on our social networks, so chances are you love him already. GT: only toe knee