VGA2USB Review - how to capture and record images and video from any VGA display

VGA2USB Frame Grabbers 

VGA2USB is a line of video capture and frame grabbing devices manufactured by Epiphan Systems, based in Ottawa Canada. VGA (Video Graphics Array) is a graphics display standard developed by IBM in late 80-s and it become de-facto standard for personal computers. Designed initially to support 640x480 screen resolutions - it was soon improved to support higher resolutions of up to 2048x1536 pixels.

VGA standard found it's applications in other non-PC solutions - such as medical ultrasound devices, video outputs of high resolution CCTV cameras, and also specialized equipments such as radars, navigational and even military device.

Epiphan Systems came up with VGA2USB device as purely external solution for high quality frame grabbing applications. Traditional approach for video recording and VGA video signal capture tasks presumes either installation of internal PCI frame grabber boards and/or adding special software on a source computer that asists in video and image capture applications. Not so with Epiphan's VGA2USB device.

VGA2USB can be connected to any source of video signal such as:

• Any computer running any operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OS or specialized)
• Medical device, such as ultrasound machine, radiography and cardiology equipment.
• Radars - civil and military
• Navigation systems and screens with VGA outputs
• Traffic control monitors
• Security cameras
• Surveillance equipment
• Specialized research and military devices

VGA2USB device is very small - about the size of small pocket snapshot camera. As a solution VGA2USB is totally transparent toward signal source and does not require any additions or modifications at source. It does not even require power supply as it draws power from USB bus itself.

VGA2USB device receives VGA signal, digitizes it and sends it to the target computer for acquisition with the assistance of the supplied software application.

VGA2USB device comes with a software package to be installed at a target computer. Software supports Windows (2000 and higher), multiple flavors of Linux, as well as Max OS Tiger and higher. Packaging of device includes USB cable, VGA cable, VGA splitter to connect both monitor and VGA2USB device, CD with image capture software.

Software allows you to set a multitude of parameters and modes of video capture, such as:

• Exposure
• Brightness
• Contrast
• Sampling phase (horizontal resolution)
• Wide format VGA mode compatibility
• PLL adjustment (vertical sync)
• Frame Shift
• Color inverting for printing
• Single frames or continuous video recording
• Pause and other params

   

VGA2USB software supports all standard formats of still pictures (JPG, PNG, BMP) and video.

The rule is the lower resolution - the faster frame rate (FPS). VGA2USB basic device captures 640x480 resolutions at 29 fps, 1024x768 at 10 fps and 2048x1536 at 2 fps interlaced.

Epiphan also manufactures higher end VGA2USB frame grabbers that are capable of capturing high resolution signals in non-interlaced mode at much faster frame rates. For example VGA2USB LR model can achieve 30 fps in compressed mode for 1280x1024 resolution. VGA2USB HR - maintains 30 fps in compressed mode, while capturing 1600x1200 resolutions. The most advanced model - VGA2USB Pro can capture 1920x1200, 2048x1536 and 2048x2048 at 30 fps in compressed mode.

VGA2USB devices are priced between $300 for basic and $2000 for advanced model.

Yet for specialized commercial, industrial, military, medical and research applications - they deliver exceptional quality and performance that are second to none.

Buy VGA2USB - Information - Specifications - FAQ