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This thread will be a basic guide on how to record your video games! It will include equipment and editing/rendering software. Please remember that this can be a lot of work, and will be quite a bit of money if you wish to record in HD. I will be explaining how to record in Standard and HD quality, where Standard obviously is the cheapest and lowest quality (even though it can still look pretty good) and does not require heavy system requirements, while HD is the most expensive and best quality and usually has heavier system requirements.

Equipment for Standard Recording
Despite what I have seen some people do, you cannot record Playstation 1's, Playstation 2's, Gamecube's, Nintendo 64's, original Xbox's, or Nintendo Wii's in HD. Nintendo Wii does have component cables, but only up to 480p, which is considered SD quality (Standard Definition) instead of 480i, which most RCA outputs display in (RCA outputs are the Yellow, Red, and White cables, which is a little less than SD, which has it's own SD cable).

To record in Standard Definition I would recommend a Dazzle capture card. These are cheaper than HD recording hardware, are easy to use, but require a little more complicated setup. They can record both SD signals and RCA (Yellow, Red, and White) signals, and do not require an extremely fast computer to use. If you wish to buy one, here's one off Amazon:
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If you have video outputs on your TV, setting up your capture card will be a lot easier. To see if you have them, look on the back of your TV; if you see the word Output, then in that section you see Yellow, Red, and White ports, you have the output! If you do not see that, you will have to use a splitter.

Setting Up Dazzle With Output
First, install the Pinnacle Studio software that comes with your Dazzle so you have the recording program.
Second, plug your Dazzle into your computer and see if a light turns on in the front. If it does, it means your Dazzle works.
Third, plug an RCA cable into your Outputs on your TV, and plug the other end into your Dazzle.
---Now you can start recording!---

Setting Up Dazzle Without Output
First, install the Pinnacle Studio software that comes with your Dazzle so you have the recording program.
Second, plug your Dazzle into your computer and see if a light turns on in the front. if it does, it means your Dazzle works.
Third, plug in three RCA splitters or Y-Splitters into your Dazzle.
Fourth, plug your game system's RCA cables into the splitters, and make sure the colors match the inputs on the Dazzle.
Fifth, plug an RCA cable into the other end of the splitters, and plug the other end of the RCA cable to your TV, making sure the colors on the RCA cable match the colors on the inputs of the Dazzle.

FAQ
Why must you do this? Well if you don't, you will see a significant amount of lag in your preview screen for your recording software, which is normal. Splitting your signal makes it so you can record on your computer and play on your TV at the same time. Also beware; the more splitting and cables you use, the worse your quality will be. The way I have explained has very unnoticeable quality loss, so don't worry, it usually affects people who have to have long wires going throughout their house since their TV and computer's are in different rooms, but even then the quality loss is little.

Equipment
RCA Cables: You must login or register to view this content.
Y-Splitters (you will need 3 of these if you have to use the Y-Splitter method): You must login or register to view this content. r=1-3

Equipment for HD Recording
HD recording itself is not a new thing, but uploading HD recordings up to 1080p definition to video sharing sites like YouTube is. HD recording can be less complicated to set up than SD recording, and about the same in editing. It is, however, much more expensive, and system intensive, as you will need more than a decent computer to be able to record in full HD.

There are two HD recording hardware's out there that I know of and that work; Black Magic Intensity Pro and Hauppauge HD-PVR. The Black Magic is an internal capture card, while Hauppauge is an external. Black magic also records in much more manageable formats than the Hauppauge, but I'll get more into that later. Because the Black-Magic is an internal capture card, it requires a PCI Express 2.0 port in your computer, which means taking off the covering and sticking it in like a graphics card or new RAM. After that, you install some drivers and either use Adobe Premier Pro CS4 or the Black-Magic recording software to record.

The Hauppauge, being an external capture card, is much easier to set up; you just need to plug it into an outlet, plug the USB to your computer, and put your system's component cables into the Input and the component cables included with the Hauppauge into the Output, which then go to your TV. The Hauppauge also comes with it's own recording software, and it seems that that is the only option for recording from the Hauppauge.

To buy the Hauppauge HD-PVR
(I would recommend this over Black-Magic): You must login or register to view this content.
To buy Black Magic Intensity Pro: You must login or register to view this content.

An important thing to remember:
The Hauppauge can not record HDMI signals, only component. The Black-Magic has Input and Output for HDMI. The Pro version of Black-Magic also comes with Input/Ouput component cable signal collector, I guess you could call it, meaning that you can have a component signal into the Black-Magic and Output it through HDMI to your TV, and vice-versa.

The reason I recommend the HD-PVR over the Black-Magic is just because of the simplicity of it. The only issue I've had is that because it only records in M2TS (Blu-Ray file) TS (ACVHD file) and MP4 formats, my editing softwares are limited (Windows Movie Maker and Sony Vegas 8.0c or 9 seem to be the only decent softwares that support these formats). I always record in M2TS or MP4 format. The Black-Magic exports in AVI I believe, and is much much much more manageable than MP4 or M2TS.

Editing Softwares
This is by far the most expensive part. If you do not plan on doing anything fancy, just stick with Windows Movie Maker; yes it isn't great, but it's free, it works, and on Windows Vista and Windows 7, it has some great exporting settings for 720p and 1080p recordings. However, if you do not mind *ahem* other ways of getting expensive software, Adobe Premier Pro CS4 (for Dazzle and Black-Magic recordings) or Sony Vegas Pro 9 (also for Dazzle, and Hauppauge HD-PVR recordings) are the way to go for fancy renderings.

Rendering Settings
The best settings for rendering SD to YouTube:
640x480 or 720x480
30 FPS
1500 KB/s
WMV, MP4, or H264 format

The best settings for rendering HD to YouTube:
720p
1280x720
60FPS
6000KB/s
WMV, MP4, or H264 format

I'm not sure for 1080p, use Google


Credit To assassinruler10

Hope this helps the people at NGU! Enjoy!

WOW, that is a lot of words

jk, nice thread