How do you capture video for video game play?

Stupid encryption hampers my attempts to get video game footage, how do I fix this?

• How can I capture video game footage from my Sony Playstation 3? Hello! I create videos that often have a lot of video game content, including footage from video games themselves, such as walkthroughs and skits (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Qv0t1xCvw as an example). I use a variety of tools to record this footage, such as FRAPS on the PC. For capturing via hardware, I own a Hauppauge HD PVR and I have a BlackMagic Intensity Pro capture card that I am playing with on a second PC. Unfortunately I have run into an issue with the output of the PS3. As far as I know, unlike the Xbox 360, all output from the PS3 is encrypted via HDCP, even if I am not using the Blu-Ray player or downloaded video content. So my question is this - is there a way for me to capture the footage from video games via the HDMI output? Is there a way anyone knows of to separate the video game output from the BD output? I don't really care about recording Blu-Ray stuff, that isn't my intention. I just want to be able to make game walkthroughs and skits using games I play on the PS3. Barring any of the above, is there a way to break the HDCP encryption (I realize this may mean buying another device) on said video game footage? Thank you very much!

• Answer:

  You can get HDMI strippers like the http://www.curtpalme.com/MUX-HD.shtm which are ostensibly sold for the purpose of being able to use older pre-2005 HD displays that lacked HDCP, or for being able to easily switch between inputs. The problem is that acting as a repeater that removes the copy protection violates the HDCP licensing terms and so these sort of devices are always getting their keys revoked. Whether key revocation means that the device stops working sort of depends on how it's used -- for example Blu-ray disks contain lists of revoked keys so it might be something along the lines of one day you play a new Blu-ray and from then on the PS3 won't talk to the repeater anymore. If you don't regularly play Blu-rays or let the PS3 connect to the net then maybe key revocation wouldn't ever matter. But wouldn't it be a lot easier just to capture component output instead? I realize that it introduces an unnecessary D->A->D degradation, but maybe it wouldn't be that noticeable once the video has been downsized and transcoded to h.264 for youtube.