Posted: 23/02/2024
Recording Video From A Nintendo Switch
My son has decided he would like to have a YouTube channel showing him playing games on his Nintendo Switch.
He sees lots of YouTubers playing games on YouTube, so assumes it is something easily done.
So this is my exploration ( as an awesome parent 😃 ) into how to make that happen.
I have some experience with OBS, FFMPEG and recording Microsoft Teams, so in the words of Jeremy Clarkson "How hard can it be?"
My first stop is Google, which comes up with a recording feature in some Switch games, but that wont work for what we want.
We want to be able to record the whole session of gameplay, and then turn that into a YouTube video, this is for short replays really.
My first thought was a Video Capture device that would link to my PC, which as it turns out is the 2nd option touted in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmdeOuUW5_8
They also suggest using a camera to directly record the consoles screen, which is not good enough for us.
Everything I looked at always suggested a Video Capture device, and based on several YouTube videos, suggest that for the most part even the cheapest ones are ok.
So with that in mind, I decided to go a step above the cheapest and get a brand I had heard of before. I went with the Mirabox USB 3.0 4K Pass-Through Capture Card for £30 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B091YCHYP3?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
It is just a small box with a USB cable and 2 HDMI Ports. You plug the Nintendo Switch base station into the
Input, you connect a HDMI cable from the
Output
back to the TV, and you plug the USB into a PC to record the video on.
Simples! ?????
It works like a charm, my son can play on his Switch on the TV as normal, and we can record his gameplay on a computer in the corner.
This Box will work for anything with a HDMI cable output that you would normally plug into the TV, so opens a world of possibilities!
Thanks for reading this post.
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