Game Capture HD Linux driver

This project provides a userspace driver to natively support the Elgato Game Capture HD under Linux and Mac OS X. This is an unofficial driver and in no way supported by Elgato.

Use at your own risk! This software is experimental and not intended for production use.

Official Groupchat at Gitter: https://gitter.im/tolga9009/elgato-gchd

Supported devices

• Elgato Game Capture HD

Unsupported devices

• Elgato Game Capture HD (latest revision PID 0x005d) (planned)
• Elgato Game Capture HD60 (planned)
• Elgato Game Capture HD60 S
• Elgato Game Capture HD60 Pro

Firmware

This software needs Elgato Game Capture HD firmware files to work. Due to licensing issues, they're not part of this repository. You need to extract them yourself from the official Mac OS X drivers.

A brief instruction:

1. Download Elgato Game Capture HD Mac OS X driver version 2.0.3 from official website: https://www.elgato.com/en/game-capture-hd-support

2. Install dmg2img and hfsprogs. Please refer to your specific Linux distribution for more information.

3. Uncompress Elgato Game Capture HD Mac OS X drivers:

   dmg2img gchdm_203_970.dmg -o gchdm_203_970.dmg.img
   

4. Mount the uncompressed HFS+ image with root permissions:

   mkdir /tmp/dmg
   mount -o loop -t hfsplus gchdm_203_970.dmg.img /tmp/dmg
   

5. Copy mb86h57_h58_idle.bin and mb86h57_h58_enc_h.bin from /tmp/dmg/Game\ Capture\ HD.app/Contents/Resources/Firmware/Beddo/.

6. Place the firmware files either in /usr/lib/firmware/gchd or /usr/local/lib/firmware/gchd folder. You might need root permissions.
   Note: for testing purposes, you can also place the firmware files in the same directory, where the compiled executable gchd is located.

Install

1. Install the following dependencies. Please refer to your specific Linux distribution, as package names might differ.

• libusb >= 1.0.20
• clang (make)
• cmake (make)
• make (make)
• qt5 (optional) - for GUI support (not usable, work in progress)

2. Compile the driver:

   1. Either clone or download the Git repository and extract it.

   2. Open up a terminal inside the project's root directory.

   3. Create a new directory build in the project's root directory and navigate into it:

      mkdir build
      cd build
      

   4. Run CMake from inside the build directory to setup the make environment and compile the driver:

      cmake ..
      make
      

   5. The compiled executable gchd is located in build/src. If you have Qt5 installed on your system, the GUI qgchd will be located at build/src/gui.
      Note: you can copy the firmware files in those directories and test the application, without making any system-wide modifications.

3. If the application works for you, you can optionally install it system-wide, running make install from within the build directory. This will install the executables to /usr/bin.

Usage

Commandline

Usage: gchd [options]

Options:
  -c <color-space>   Color Space settings [default: yuv]
  -d                 Capture to <output> instead of using FIFO
  -i <input-source>  Input Source [default: hdmi]
  -o <output>        Output Path [default: /tmp/gchd.ts]
  -p <pid-path>      PID path [default: /var/run/gchd.pid]
  -r <resolution>    Resolution of Input Source [default: 1080]

Options for <color-space> are yuv and rgb. Consoles and PCs output in either format and usually don't support switching Color Spaces. If this option is set incorrectly, your capture will either have a green or purple tint. Default is set to yuv.

If -d flag is set, this driver will capture footage to <output>, instead of creating a FIFO. This is only recommended, if you plan to capture video directly to your disk anyway. For most cases, a FIFO will suit better (default). Please note, that FIFOs won't grow in size, making them optimal for streaming and more controlled capturing on systems with limited amount of memory or SSDs.

Options for <input-source> are composite, component and hdmi. Choose, whichever source you're using. Some Resolutions are not available on all Input Sources.

<output> sets the location either for the FIFO or the capture file, depending on whether -d has been set or not.

<pid-path> is unused at the moment. Once implemented, it will provide a single-instance mechanism, which will prevent this driver from opening multiple times. You can use this option in the future, if you're running this driver as a non-root user and don't have write access to the default <pid-path> location.

Options for <resolution> are ntsc, pal, 720 and 1080. Use whichever resolution your input source has.

General

This driver must be run as root, as it needs to access your Game Capture HD device. Under Linux, you can alternatively configure udev to make your device accessible by non-root users.

If no commandline options are set, the device will be configured for a 1080p HDMI source in YUV colorspace. By default, a FIFO will be created at /tmp/gchd.ts. You can open it up using any media player, which supports reading from pipes (e.g. VLC or obs-studio). There will be a slight delay, which is a hardware limitation and can't be worked around.

If you're done using this driver, close the file, stop the terminal using "Ctrl + C" and wait for the program to successfully terminate. The driver is resetting your device; it may take a while. If you interrupt this step, it will leave your device in an undefined state and you will need to manually reset your device by reconnecting it.

Currently supported input sources:

• HDMI: 1080p60, 720p60
• Component: 480p60 (NTSC), 576p50 (PAL), 720p60, 1080i60, 1080p60
• Composite: 480i60 (NTSC), 576i50 (PAL)

Contribution

In order to contribute to this project, you need to read and agree the Developer Certificate of Origin, which can be found in the CONTRIBUTING file. Therefore, commits need to be signed-off. You can do this by adding the -s flag when commiting: git commit -s. Pseudonyms and anonymous contributions will not be accepted.

License

This project is made available under the MIT License. For more information, please refer to the LICENSE file.