Hi, i want to share my experiences with anyone here who wants to record PC game play footage using hardware solutions which i hope may help those looking to do the same thing.

I have the latest version of FRAPS of course and it's good, but unless you have a really powerful PC your not going to get truly 1:1 game play recordings as you would see it on your screen whilst playing, quality is great, but as FRAPS records it takes the screen grab first and then your control of the game comes second, in short it lags your game/PC while recording as you play the game, so i needed a hardware solution which would capture my game play just as i would see it on my screen without frame-drops or slowing down etc.

Some use XFIRE as a software solution, but it's not as good as FRAPS, so what do you need?

NVIDIA/ATi graphic card with either a DVI-D out or HDMI out or a TV-out, NVIDIA cards have some good cable solutions which come with the cards, as does ATi cards, but all in all NVIDIA is the easier option.

I personally have a 5970 with 2 x DVI-D outs and a display-port out.
So you need a hardware device to capture with, most use the "Hauppauge-HD-PVR" which records console game play footage very well from both PS3 and XB360, it's an external HD capture device which connects via USB to your laptop or PC which takes component input (YCrCb) and S-VIDEO from your console (or PC with the right cables) and records up to 1080i (1920x1080 50/60hz interlaced) 720p (1280x720 60Hz) or VGA/D1 - it captures in three file formats *.M2TS, *.MP4, *.TS (M2TS can be edited in a new version of Sony Vegas) - the M2TS format is new and comes with a BIOS upgrade for the HD-PVR.

The HD-PVR does not need a super-powerful machine to record to as the H.264 encoding is done all in the box itself and then pumped via usb to your recording PC/laptop unit.

You also have the "Black-Magic Intensity Pro" which is a PCI-E card and has HDMI inputs and outputs and a component input cable, for this device you will need a RAID0 HDD array and a fairly fast PC as the data it can receive from it's HDMI input is massive, they also have a USB-device called the "Shuttle" but this needs USB-3 (don't bother with a USB-3 upgrade PCI-card) you will need a new motherboard (X58) Asus-Rampage Extreme 3 etc.
The "Black-Magic Intensity Pro" comes with it's own recording software which is simple enough and makes good recordings up to 1080i

I'll be concentrating on the HD-PVR as it's what i use, now the PVR (actually most HD-recording devices) can only record up to a maximum of 1080i, this is because of HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) 1080P is top quality, full screen progressive scans at 1920x1080 at 60hz, but 1080i is half that, resolution is the same but its 30hz interlaced usually and does not beat the quality of a 720p recording (1280x720 60Hz) So if you can record at 720p then this is perfect for sharing on video sites like youtube for example.

The HD-PVR records at 720p very well indeed at a maximum bitrate of 13.5 mbps (same as USB max-throughput at the moment) now all you need to do is route the output from your graphics card to the HD-PVR, this can be achieved in a number of ways but i'll show you the way i do this using my 5970-ATi card, if your an NVIDIA card user you may have a nice HDTV out with a component breakout cable which can easily be connected to the PVR.

You only need to connect one DVI-D out from your graphics card (unless you want to use two monitors and have an extended desktop etc) no need to connect a second monitor/device, we are going to split the source signal from one DVI-D, the way i do it is by attaching the DVI-D>HDMI dongle/adaptor which then routes via an HDMI-cable to an HDMI-splitter which from there one HDMI-cable go's to your monitor (which is HDMI capable obviously) and the other output go's to another converter called an "HDFury2" (you can buy a cheaper unbranded version from ebay) which takes that HDMI signal and translates that into component (and audio) which then go's into the HD-PVR, it's a convoluted method but a working one.

The only problem i have found with my ATi card is setting a suitable 1080i HDTV resolution which the PVR likes, 720p is fine all the way, but i have to match my main display resolution to 720p (1280x720) which takes away 50% of my gaming real-estate on screen, so i need to record at 720p on the PVR which is good quality anyway but i must play at 1080p on my main display while gaming, so something called an HDMI-scaler is needed, usually expensive but the right solution to my own needs which allows me to take my 1080p signal and down-scale it to 720p for the PVR.

I'll post more as i have it, with various solutions and links to products and videos etc, but i have run out of time for now, i'll be back

I have both the Shuttle and the HD-PVR, the Shuttle is obviously much better if you have the hardware for it, but the PVR isn't bad either. I usually use them to record off my PS3, never really considered PC though, seems too much of a hassle imo.

Yes it is a hassle Fwog, easier for NV cards using the HDTV out and the component breakout cable, but using ATI cards there's a bit more work involved sometimes, depending on what card you have, i have a working solution using the PVR as described above, i just need to invest in an HDMI-Scaler to take my 1080p game-play down to 720p for the PVR, what a palaver

Software solutions will always make you lag, but FRAPS is definitely the best software solution.

I'm not well informed on hardware recording devices, aside from getting a video camera.