Mobo w/ HDMI in

[kyij]

When I was looking through motherboard a while back, I recall seeing one that supported HDMI in.. so you could say record game film from your video game console, or watch (and record) tv on your computer.

I never had a purpose for something like such, but now have one.. I think it would be nice to get eyefinity across my 6 monitors, and watch tv or play games..

So only requirements would be a board that has at least one PCI x16 and at least one sata slot

 

[kyij]

I found the ASRock Z87 PRO4. Someone mentioned it being the cheapest, but I do not want that to narrow my results by price. Let me know if anyone finds some!

 

[MattNo5ss]

AFAIK, the ASRock HDMI-In port is just a pass-through that only works with your monitor connected to the motherboard and using the iGPU of the CPU. So, the PC never sees the data going into that port, the HDMI-In just passes the signal to the HDMI-Out on the motherboard.

 

[kyij]

Hmm, I was afraid of that.. was not home to look into details to confirm.

Do you know if any boards would allow an HDMI in and display the picture on a Windows environment?

 

[MattNo5ss]

I don't know of any boards that can do what you want. I think you need a PCIe video capture card for that.

 

[kyij]

So that would be able to capture the video and stream live to my setup?

Do you know the lag on those cards, and I was in the impression you needed to spend a good amount or else it will not be worth the time with video capture devices.

 

[kyij]

I found some capture cards but they can only playback up to 1080 on monitors. SO I believe I will have issues running on 5760x2160..

 

[EarthDog]

I don't know of any boards that can do what you want. I think you need a PCIe video capture card for that.

Exactly. I do not recall seeing a board with HDMI input that behaves as you need...

 

[MattNo5ss]

I don't know of any capture card that can record at 5760x2160, but if there is one it would probably be a very hefty sum of money. However, you said recording console gaming and TV, which would be 1920x1080 at maximum. If you are recording PC gameplay, then you may not even need any additional hardware, just software capture if your PC can handle both the gaming and the recording/encoding at the same time. Even then, it may only record 1080 or downscale to 1080.

I haven't personally used hardware or software recording for gameplay, so I can't comment on how well the different options work compared to one another.

 

[kyij]

Sorry, let me rephrase what I am trying to do.

I am trying to take HDMI in, and display across my monitors, which will be in a 5760x2160

Pretty much take my tv output (like directv) and display across my monitors (act as one big tv).

Maybe I will just have to scale my eyefinity to 1920x1080 total (across the 6 monitors) to achieve this.

 

[MattNo5ss]

To watch TV you'll need a video capture card, and capturing 1080p video is all it needs to do since your source will be 1080p or less.

So, you will either have to watch on the PC in a 1920x1080 window or stretch it across the screen. The downside to watching 1080 TV across a higher res screen (5760x2160) would be that it could be be very blurry because of the stretching. I think there would need to be some REALLY good upscaling to make it look any good at full screen. If not, it may look the same as watching SD on a HD screen.

 

[kyij]

Makes sense..

Can any of the HDMI capture cards allow me to stream media, as I see things like Directv encrypt their outputs. I would use a tuner card, but would like the ability to also hook up a console and see if it is possible to play on..

 

[wagex]

a pci hdmi capture card will allow you to plug anything hdmi in and view it on your monitor. direct tv does not encrypt the receiver outputs afaik just the signal going into the box, i was able to connect my dish box directly to a capture card with no issues.

as for the playability of consoles through the capture card generally i would think you would want one that had an input and an output to a tv, im not sure if there would be alot of input lag on the monitor or not, probably depends on the capture card.

you could always setup profiles so you have one for when you wanna play a console on one of your monitors that would turn that one off and switch the other two to just extended desktop. then youd just switch the input of the third montir to hdmi in. when you are done with the console you can just switch back to the surround profile and switch the monitor back to dvi or what ever input you are using. if you are using hdmi on the monitor you might find use in an hdmi switch so you can switch between two hdmi inputs.

 

[kyij]

Thanks, this is pretty much the answer I was going for.

Except I wish a motherboard could incorporate a video capture ability..