The Datapath VisionAV-HD is a high-end PCI Express capture card, featuring two DVI-I ports that also support HDMI 1.3 via a cheap adapter or cable. It’s similar to the much-loved Vision E1s / E2s, with two very important enhancements: It captures HDMI audio via 44, 48 or 96k and it’s compatible with true 480i capture over HDMI. That means you can use it both for lossless 1080p60 4:4:4 capture and lossless direct 480i capture. While this card is over $2k new, I’ve been able to find them for under $100 used. I know it’s annoying to have to hunt down used equipment, but this has now become my go-to capture device in my main PC rig. Tons more info after the links:
The Seller I Used: https://ebay.us/RALESq
General eBay Affiliate Link: https://ebay.us/Pj4BQx
(both links are paid affiliate links, where we get a cut of the sale, but you pay the same price)
Using this card is essentially the same as using the Datapath Vision E-series; It’s the same software, that supports the same VGA/YPbPr analog inputs and very high quality digital capture. Even though I’ve never have a Datapath card perform different than it’s spec’d, I ran the 1080p60 lossless color compression test and proved it’s just as good as the Vision E-Series. Click all pics for full-sized views…especially this one, as it won’t look right as a thumbnail:
Since I’ve covered the Vision E-Series quite a bit, the rest of this review will stick to the differences. I already mentioned audio support over HDMI, however the VisionAV-HD didn’t perform very well when tested with an MDFourier equipment test file. The best way to describe the audio capabilities, would be “Totally fine for streaming or ‘webcam’ use and probably even fine to capture noisy home videos, but never use this for archival captures. I tested three different ways and verified my setup with the Live Gamer 4K (literally just unplugged the HDMI cable from this, connected it to the LG4K and ran the same test), however the problem seems to be in the VisionAV-HD itself. I’ll update this post if I ever find a fix and if you’d like to see an example of what a digital audio capture is supposed to look like, scroll down to the audio section in the Live Gamer 4K review. Here’s the MD Fourier comparison showing all the differences from the source file for reference:
The next thing to note, is since this card has a true HDMI receiver in it, I believe you no longer require an HDMI splitter to get around the “green speckle” issue. I’ve personally tested this, however I’ve logged thousands of hours on the E-Series and only a few with the VisionAV-HD, so I want to be transparent and say “it should” work fine. I’ll update this paragraph if I find other results, or after enough time has passed that I can confirm for sure there’s no more green speckle issue. Basically (other than the above audio issue), HDMI capture can now be treated like any other HDMI capture card, you simply need a cheap adapter or cable to convert the HDMI pinout to DVI-D. All that said, I find using HDMI splitters to often be really handy for things like PS3 compatibility, so you’ll probably still want one “in your toolbox”. This is still my favorite: https://www.retrorgb.com/hdmi-2-0b-1×2-splitter-audio-extractor.html
The next feature to note, is the VisionAV-HD’s ability to capture true 480i over HDMI. No tricks needed, simply set your software to 720×480 at a 29.97 frame rate (for two interlaced fields per frame). This is excellent news, as the E-Series would only capture 480i at an oversampled 1440×480, which could cause issues. I was able to confirm this with both VDub and the official Vision software and they both matched. Please note that I had connected a Sega Genesis via RT5x passthrough for these screenshots, which is why the refresh rate isn’t exactly 29.97:
I ran the same capture tests I showed in the TINK 480i video via that Genesis and confirmed not only is each field properly encoded, but there’s no color compression added. It simply appeared to be a perfect 480i capture!:
The VisionAV-HD also has a composite video input between the two DVI-D ports. While it can also capture at 720×480, its comb filter is pretty lacking and can’t keep up with the RetroTINK 5x or 4K’s. In fact, it’s closer in quality to the $50 I/O Data GV-USB2, which is surprising for such an expensive capture card. I’d simply consider it a “bonus feature” and wouldn’t recommend buying this card with heavy composite video use in mind. Here’s a demo of the comb filter against the GV-USB2:
So, overall, this card is absolutely excellent – A 480i-compatible, dual-input HDMI card that can also do direct RGB and YPbPr. It’s basically everything most retro gamers would need, up to 1080p60. It sucks that since it’s out of most people’s price range new, you’ll have to rely on waiting for them to become available on eBay. And while people always get really mad at me for promoting stuff that’s hard to get, I’d rather have this info out there than not.
…and if you want more info as to what that “numbers” test was, or why 480i passthrough is a big deal, please check out this video:
