Modder Details How To Build A Really Cheap HDMI Capture Card And It's Awesome

HDMI capture cards open a world of options for anyone who needs to ingest a video stream from one system to another. Game streamers can use an HDMI capture card to offload encoding workloads to a separate computer while videographers can leverage them to use ordinary cameras for live broadcasts. Conventional HDMI capture cards can be expensive, though, which opens the door for DIY solutions.

YuzukiHD is one such DIYer who has created the YuzukiLOHCC (Loop Out HDMI Capture Card) Pro, an open-hardware HDMI to USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface complete with 4K HDMI passthrough. The YuzukiLOHCC Pro has impressive capabilities. It can capture either 4K30 or FHD60 footage like the Elgato HD60 X or EVGA XR1 which sell for about $200 and $130, respectively, all while offering the same 4K60 passthrough. Users who build their own YuzukiLOHCC, though, can potentially shave the cost down to just $10.

The YuzukiLOHCC Pro is available with an open-source design built around the MS2130 chip from MacroSilicon which takes care of the HDMI to USB conversion. YuzukiHD recommends ordering the PCB from JLCPCB and makers will need an SPI NOR EEPROM flasher to complete the chip’s programing prior to soldering. The only real gotcha appears to be sourcing the MS2130 chip itself, which is not widely accessible outside of China currently.

Still, it may be worth the effort to track down the chip. Twitter user @GLGH_ posted a video of the project in action, and it looks impressive. While the finer details cannot be seen, there is a remarkable lack of latency between the source passthrough on the right and the captured feed on the left. Cheaper capture cards can suffer from significant latency which makes them unsuitable for live streaming, so we are glad to see this is not the case here.


In addition, the YuzukiLOHCC is able to capture audio via the HDMI interface. This should help reduce cable clutter and presumably keeps the feed in sync. Even better, the capture card is natively supported on Windows 7 and up, Mac OS 10 and up, Linux and even Android without any additional software needed. This means it can be used with each platform’s native camera apps or with standalone software like OBS Studio or FFmpeg.

If you’d like to try your hand at the build, or just to check out the project, head over to the Github page here. As an open-source/open-hardware project, tinkerers can adapt the plans for their needs either to adjust the layout or potentially make improvements. It is available under the permissive variant of CERN Open Hardware Licence Version 2.