Monday 18 April 2016

Velocap TBOX Mini Plus / TeVii D614 HD HDMI Grabber / IT9910HD



Well this was up and coming for some reasons like the velocap u2 having problems not yet fixed in windows 10 November update as well as wanting to record without getting the laptop out and then edit much quicker on the laptop. But also my a christmas present for my sister, the recording to usb side of things would be quite useful too.

Now this version was NOT from Velocaps. Since that would be double the price, maybe this might explain a average review but i'm not so sure. This one was from a UK Ebay seller for about £35 which took about a few days to arrive. The TBOX MINI Plus which is on the velocaps site is nearly £80 including customs and postage. But when you look further down, this looks and actually is the mini plus which is sort of one less hassle. But this also looks like or works like a Tevii D614. But hoping that this can do what it says is another matter. Hoping this works with OBS as a mini streaming device is needed but lets see.

Enjoy a video review below:


The looks and contents.

The box is just a basic cardboard box which can be boring, but this is not really a on the shelf type of product to sell so i'm not surprised. However, inside has quite a nice layout with the following inside:

  • the box itself
  • a UK (due to regulations) Power cable for it
  • a short micro usb cable
  • a shortish standard HDMI cable
  • a Black and White Manual of how to use it
  • a mini unlabled CD with the drivers 
This is actually quite basic which for this makes things easier and also more to the point of this box. The charger does have a tablet feel as well as the micro usb not looking so solid but it is. 
The Top of the Box

Most of the sides are like this

Except this which is the only stickers on the outside

Looking inside

The manual (a colour version can be found here)

The other part of the Manual (can be found here)

The micro USB Cable

The small Blank not blank CD

A blurry version of the mains cable

A better look at the mains cable
A plain but golden HDMI



Then we go into the box itself, its actually pocket sized if you had big jeans or a hoodie, with clear labels for what is what and most connections needed, this is a nice size for a hope to be decent capture card.

3 of the main things you need on there

The top of the box, with the led and button

The micro USB port, now this is not a 3.0 port, just a 2.0

A USB, HDMI out and a Mic in, well you have to have some commentary for a lets play somewhere

the grills at the bottom of the thing

Setting it up: The USB Way

Now this is pretty easy minus a few important notes. The first is that, unless you change firmware (which as of this time i've not done that) there are some things to note:
  • the date of the recording is December 2013
  • the files are split into 2GB sections (related to fat32 rules of 4GB per file MAX) 
  • The bitrate can go up to 16mbits or as fast as your USB stick allows, in my case the Transcend can do up to 20/25mbits, which that is the 64GB edition for around £15 online.
But once you get that done, just make sure the hdmi device is turned on then turn this on then make sure its 1080p or 720p. Blue for 1080, green for 720 and then press the button and it will start recording to the drive. Common sense is to NOT unplug the stick until the led stops flashing or the thing is off after the power button. Which for me it was quite flawless in its recording of PACMAN CE DX and clear when trying a NowTV box out (there is a big note with this i'll go through near the end). But the test clips I tried only were less than 5 minutes and the bitrate can vary under a minute. But when you see the results, its looks clear and sharp and smooth too. 

What it looks like plugged in to the ps3 and TV. 

The floor view of the box. 
The detals of the first clip

The smaller bitrate of a test clip

A tiny bit higher but that constant framerate 

Setting it up: The PC Way. 

Now this is where the product fails in my eyes, using a micro usb cable, I plugged it in, it was detected, the drivers i used from the CD worked. (You can use the Velocap ones if you wish as well). Now I noticed it had drivers for the HDMI Velocap products on there as well which made me get the vibe this WAS a TBOX Mini Plus. It worked and the drivers were signed and device manager was showing all good. 
infomation

more details

notice it says IT9910HD, which is the same chipset as the Happauge Rocket which CAN stream

The contents of the CD

inside the tbox folder
Then it was time to get OBS running and well, things went sour, it didn't work. Luckily it was picked up but no matter what i set on the crossbar, no matter what custom resolution, it would not work and a red screen would appear. Which for me is a MAJOR ballache since i can't actually stream on this capture box. This stressed me out and really made the review harder to film, i'll be honest there. But while typing I found out that it has the same Chipset which is the IT9910HD as a Happauge PVR Rocket so this might change the entire review. 

The problem OBS has with it with the Velocap Drivers

Some of the settings the Crossbar gives you

The one in blue is the setting for HDMI

See, no luck

But when i installed the Happuage drivers, things seemed on the up, since it didn't install via the Capture software but it installed the drivers manually via the firmware installer and it actually worked. It successfully got the driver working and it was showing up in the Happuage Capture Software. This DOESN'T change the HDCP not working since it was never meant to. There is a longer delay than the velocap U2 but it works and thats the main point. I've not tried streaming.

It works with the PVR Rocket drivers. 
But the one problem with this is that it there have been problems with OBS and the HD PVR. OBS classic doesn't pick it up but OBS studio it does except the fact that it doesn't have sound and black screens until i disable Sound which is odd but a work in progress.


UPDATE: As of 05/12/16 I have managed to get this working WITH Sound (To capture only) via using the drivers provided by Ezcap for their 284 capture box. Basically, you install the drivers in the zip file then copy the Jedi.img to the USB and flash the firmware and then in obs studio, the audio should be included in the stream. Reminder that this does need a TV to play the games properly due to the passthrough causes lag to the PC. The link for the drivers and firmware just incase its deleted is here: 

OBS Studio working WITH Sound and picture

The HDCP Noting.

Now with the specs that the Asian rep mentioned on ebay, this was "HDCP Decode" which sadly this isn't, which for alot of people who solely buy this, they will go nuts and leave bad feedback and feel like they have wasted their life savings. But with a splitter or the velocap u2, it actually does let the signal stay. To try this, i tried one of those nowTV Boxes. Which does show the picture as normal but when Video is playing, a purple screen appears. The support document mention that HDCP is unauthorized which is fair to say. 

The box and the velocap u2

it looks more complicated than it actually is.


The Conclusion:

With the box, it is not as easy as it seems which is how you save money, lets be clear there. Now since the software that Velocap used which was the TeVii Player which is rubbish but when you realize there is better software out there which I've mentioned further back, it does make this easier to use. But its also useful if you wanted to recorded HD footage while streaming a console on twitch on a poor non ultimate high end package superfast broadband like myself (to record multi, similar to using OBS and Microsoft GameDVR to make the Roller-coaster Tycoon World Lets Play). It works or when you feel too lazy to record locally and just record whats on the console and edit in future, this works nicely.

omracer's Rating: 8/10

The Good Points:

  • Very entry level price
  • USB Recording is simple
  • Nice size and design
  • Connects to PC via micro usb 
  • Very good quality at high mbits @59fps on a good usb drive on 720p.
  • Final cut pro can import without conversion aka friendly file formats on osx. 

The Bad Points: 

  • The Drivers from TeVii and Velocap are a disgrace. Happauge ones work much better 
  • OBS doesn't work properly
  • No HDCP decoding without another device (Good in someways to make this more legal)
  • Micro USB is 2.0 to speeds will not be intense

And that goes the review. This might be useful for me making more videos in the coming months, especially with the u2 not working on 10 properly. Tweaking OBS studio to get it to work might complicate things for starters. 


New reviews next month hopefully, maybe more food and drink ones.

omracer