Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

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cosmowe
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Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by cosmowe »

Hey guys,
after a long period with a lot of hassle based on incompatible USB chipsets with Black Magic capture devices I found, or better, Joris helped me to find my new personal Holy Grail of capture hardware. Here I want to share my experiences with this really cool piece of hardware with you.

Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI
7.png
The manufacture Magewell promises a truly plug and play device. They don't lie! Just connect it via USB to your computer and you are ready to capture. This device don't need any drivers because it works with DirectShow like any webcam does.
This capture dongle automatically detects the resolution and framerate of the incoming HDMI Signal and scales it internally to the resolution and framerate you need. And this is the only "minus" when you are going to use it with Resolume.
Any common video capture software like Twitch, VidBlaster..ect. can access the dongle to configure its output resolution. Resolume can not do this because it not natively supports this capture device.

What does that mean?:
If you are using this dongle with Resolume via usb3 it gives you 1080p and via usb2 480p which is all-right for me.

I've made tests with an Alienware m18x R2 via usb3 and with a Lenovo T410 office computer via usb2.
The performance on each of the systems was really impressive. I would guess a delay of 2-3 fps with any tested input resolution.
In my test I captured another notebook which was playing a speech of a politician >> Watching the captured stream with Resolume and listened to the audio directly out of the captured notebook. Lip-synchronisation was okay.

Some tests:

Question:
What happens with the dongle when you change the input resolution while it playbacks in Resolume?

Answer:
short black and back to signal! Wuuuaht? Very nice!

Question:
What happens with the dongle if you pull out the HDMI Cable and re-plug it while it playbacks in Resolume?

Answer:
black for the period of the disconnected HDMI Cable. After plugging back in the HDMI cable you almost instantly get your signal back. wonderful!

Question:
What happens if you pull out the USB Cable out of your computer and replug it?

Answer:
Resolume shows the last frame of the caturestream and does not continues capturing. Hmm.
Ok - seriously - that was a hard one...but...just delete the capture clip inside the Resolume clipdeck and drag'n'drop the device inside the clipdeck again. voilá. You don't need to restart Resolume.

What shall I say? - This device is so handy and easy to use and sooo compatible. ALIEN-TECHNOLOGY Build for SPACECRAFTS :D ...ehm...sorry...you know what I mean!

Here you'll find the homepage: LINK

Where to buy? LINK

Pricing? I am from Germany...including fast shipping and tax it costs me round a bound 300€

Video? ....yes! >>



So...that's it for now... I hope it was interesting. Any questions?...just ask!


Greeeeetings
cosmowe
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drazkers
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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by drazkers »

Blackmagic devices are 2 frames, thats pretty damn impressive to be sitting around or just above it.

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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by hive8 »

Had a question how about EDID, did you do some test with that as well, BMD have problems with capturing none EDID streams.
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cosmowe
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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by cosmowe »

If you describe a hardware setup and I can recreate it I would do some tests for you.

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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by skulpture »

Would love to know if it's as good on Mac as it seems to be on Windows.

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cosmowe
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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by cosmowe »

A good question....but I'm a NOT-Owner of a suitable Mac device. ;) Maybe someone else?

All I know is... it also needs no driver on MacOS :)

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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by xcaliburai »

We recently also ordered the Magewell after reading your review, but in this case the SDI version
I am also very impressed with the results although we are experiencing one problem: the image get squeezed to the left as you can see in the attachment. Still trying to figure out why..
Attachments
XI100DUSB-SDI Video.png
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cosmowe
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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by cosmowe »

hmm...the pink/red grid is the squeezed input...and the blue background grid is just to show us how it should look like?..or is this the captured input in Resolume?

- What kind of signal does the dongle gets? Res/Hz/Colorspace
- What resolution Resolume shows you if you click on the input container?
Unbenannt.jpg
Unbenannt.jpg (5.23 KiB) Viewed 32735 times
- Make shure all possible transform/vfx configurations are reseted to default (I'm sure you checked this already)
- Preview your SDI signal with an SDI monitor
- Test your Magewell dongle with another software and check if the squeeze issue still exists. (VLC, Skype, xSplit...)
- Try another SDI source

That would be my suggestion hitlist to find the bug ;)


Greetings
cosmowe


P.S.:
I found the following in the manual!
Recommendation: In actual use, first plug SDI cable, then plug the USB3.0 interface.
Because an SDI signal sources are often not reliable grounding, Ground and the
computer will be relatively large voltage difference, it may cause the signal source or
capture not working properly.
&
Frame Rate: Set the output frame rate, currently supports
25/29.97/30/50/59.94/60 fps

Color Space / Compression: currently offers two kinds of color spaces, YUY2
and RGB 24

Output: Set the screen output size, resolution is currently supported
640x480/720x480/720x576/768x576 /
800x600/1024x768/1280x720/1280x800/1280x960/1280x1024/1368x768 /
1440x900/1600x1200/1680x1050/1920x1080/1920x1200, the default output is
1920 * 1080.
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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by xcaliburai »

Thanks for the input cosmowe, I will run some tests tomorrow too to try that out
Blue was the original source outputted to a v800, Red was the SDI coming out of it back into the laptop.

The odd part was the container sticked to 1920x1080 during my tests even when I was changing resolutions and unplugging and replugging. Need to run some more tests tomorrow trying to completely remove the source or restarting Arena.
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Re: Review: Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI Capture dongle

Post by 4eyes »

Bumping this thread to promote this device even more. A friend turned me onto them about a year ago and I've been showing every VJ I've encountered since. Used with great success on our fleet of Sager laptops.

I was previously buying them from a reseller in the UK, but now they sell the damn thing on Amazon for less than I paid.

Technology!

http://www.amazon.com/Magewell-XI100DUS ... 086&sr=1-1

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