Help With Let's Plays

[Daring Dylan]

Lately, I've been really been wanting to do a Let's Play from my game systems (Wii, Play Station 2&3) and I was wondering if any one on here knows how to make one and the equipment that's needed? And I want my LPs to be legit, and not just putting a camera in front of my TV and recording because that's crap quality. I'd also like to be able to record myself talking.



Criteria that MUST (or mostly) be met.


1) I'm not tech savvy, so something that's easy to learn and easy to use.
2) I'm only a teenager, so I have to beg my parents for stuff, so something that is sort of cheap.
3) Let's pretend I'm stupid and explain to me how to set up the things needed in simple terms.

And a plus would be how to record PC games, too.

 

[Chaos Raiden]

Lately, I've been really been wanting to do a Let's Play from my game systems (Wii, Play Station 2&3) and I was wondering if any one on here knows how to make one and the equipment that's needed? And I want my LPs to be legit, and not just putting a camera in front of my TV and recording because that's crap quality. I'd also like to be able to record myself talking.

Criteria that MUST (or mostly) be met.

1) I'm not tech savvy, so something that's easy to learn and easy to use.
2) I'm only a teenager, so I have to beg my parents for stuff, so something that is sort of cheap.
3) Let's pretend I'm stupid and explain to me how to set up the things needed in simple terms.

And a plus would be how to record PC games, too.

Does Let's Play means a recording of your own walkthrough of playing a game?

 

[Darth Angelo]

Does Let's Play means a recording of your own walkthrough of playing a game?

The difference between a lets play and a walkthrough is usually that a lets play has player commentary.

Although I have never done any let's plays myself I have heard from a lot that I have seen that doing it legit with direct feed, getting a decent recording of your voice and syncing them both takes a fair bit of work, equipment and devotion especially in the long run.

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

You need to buy something called a Capture Card that hooks up to your game, TV, and computer at the same time. I recommend, if you can find one, the one called Dazzle.

 

[Daring Dylan]

The difference between a lets play and a walkthrough is usually that a lets play has player commentary.

Although I have never done any let's plays myself I have heard from a lot that I have seen that doing it legit with direct feed, getting a decent recording of your voice and syncing them both takes a fair bit of work, equipment and devotion especially in the long run.

I actually heard that there was this thing that records your voice and the sound of the game at the same time. I'll probably have to look into that.

You need to buy something called a Capture Card that hooks up to your game, TV, and computer at the same time. I recommend, if you can find one, the one called Dazzle.

Awesome. Thanks DT.

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

Also, if you can't do live commentary, post commentary is the next best thing. (rewatching the video and recording audio to go along with the video)

 

[SpawnShooter]

Alternatively you can use a DVD recorder, they arnt as good as capture cards but they do the job quite nicely and they're a lot easier to set up than a capture card, I'm not too sure on price though you may be able to save some money that route. Granted it may be harder to put a commentary on the file, but you should be able to with a simple movie editor program, which you'll prob need also if you go for a capture card.

 

[Angelo Credo]

Alternatively you can use a DVD recorder, they arnt as good as capture cards but they do the job quite nicely and they're a lot easier to set up than a capture card, I'm not too sure on price though you may be able to save some money that route. Granted it may be harder to put a commentary on the file, but you should be able to with a simple movie editor program, which you'll prob need also if you go for a capture card.

Unfortunately DVD recorders tend to be significantly more expensive than a run of the mill capture card, but if you're really not confident in setting one up (though there's countless online guides), a DVD recorder probably would be the way to go, it's just infinitely easier.

To record PC games, you'd need an in game screen capture software, the most commonly used one is FRAPS, it's not free, but it's not horribly expensive either, about $37 last time I checked.
Still, if you plan on recording somewhat demanding games, you'd better hope your hardware is up to snuff too otherwise your framerate in game will just crash through the floor.

Example, playing Bad Company 2 on PC, I usually get about 40-50 frames a second on max settings without recording, but during recording, my framerate has been known to drop to about 15-20 when the action gets really intensive, it's not always noticeable slowdown though, because you can set up FRAPS to record at a specific framerate, which, even if your in game FPS drops significantly, the gameplay will still look pretty smooth when you watch over it again in video.

Example:

In that, my framerate was edging around 25 constantly, yet because of the way it was set up to record, it still looks fairly smooth.

Hope that was of some help.