Magewell Capture Cards Improve Lecture Recording Quality and Reliability for Cattura Video

Based in San Antonio, Texas, eight-year-old Cattura Video strives to develop and deliver the best multi-source lecture capture, video recording and live streaming systems possible. Cattura’s CaptureCast platform combines powerful software with reliable hardware in an open, universal recording solution that integrates with many popular video management and learning management systems.

CaptureCast’s template-driven workflow, powerful scheduling tools and centralized management capabilities allow full automation of video recording, publishing and live streaming, allowing educators to focus on their students and video professionals to focus on their content. CaptureCast systems are used in classrooms, auditoriums, medical training facilities and courtrooms around the world, and Cattura’s customers include Georgia Tech, Atlanta Supreme Court, NYIT, Liberty University, GW Law, Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology and many more.

Looking to overcome stability issues with the different brand of capture cards they had previously used, Cattura switched to Magewell’s Pro Capture PCIe cards to enable reliable, high-quality video ingest in Cattura’s CaptureCast appliances.

The Challenge

Early CaptureCast models had incorporated a different manufacturer’s capture cards, but technical issues caused disruptions for Cattura’s users, developers and support teams.

“The capture cards we use are critical components of our systems, as they provide the interface between customers’ video sources and our software,” said Justin McCutcheon, Cattura Video’s founder and CEO. “With our previous vendor’s cards, we had a variety of stability issues and incompatibilities with customers’ equipment that impacted our products’ ability to consistently and reliably capture high-quality video. We needed a better solution, and Magewell has proven to be ideal.”

The Solution

After evaluating multiple vendors’ offerings, Cattura selected Magewell’s Pro Capture cards for their proven reliability, robust Linux drivers (Windows and Mac drivers are also available), automatic input detection, superior video quality, and comprehensive range of single and multi-channel models with versatile input options. Just as important to Cattura was Magewell’s established reputation for exceptional technical support.

The technical transition of Cattura’s products to Magewell capture cards proved simple. “The Pro Capture cards are easy to deploy, and their drivers worked flawlessly with our Linux-based systems,” McCutcheon explained. “Magewell software engineers worked very closely with us to resolve any integration challenges within just days. That process has strengthened our relationship and our appreciation of our partnership.”

Cattura has now transitioned exclusively to Magewell products, with the Pro Capture cards providing CaptureCast’s input interface from customer sources ranging from multiple video cameras and PowerPoint slides to microscopes, ultrasound machines and more.

Cattura’s flagship CaptureCast Pro lecture capture appliances can record up to six HD video sources simultaneously. Up to three Magewell cards are used in each CaptureCast Pro system to provide the customer’s desired input connectivity, with flexible combinations of HDMI, SDI and DVI interfaces. A single Magewell card is used in each unit of Cattura’s smaller form factor CaptureCast Slim family, again with a choice of input type.

Cattura also specifies Magewell cards for CaptureCast DIY configurations, which let customers deploy CaptureCast software on their own existing computer hardware for less-critical recording applications. The Pro Capture cards’ configuration-free installation and universal drivers have proven valuable here, making it easy for Cattura’s customers to build CaptureCast DIY systems with minimal effort.

Broad Benefits                                                                                                          

In addition to benefiting Cattura’s customers, the switch to Magewell has also delivered advantages for Cattura themselves. “By eliminating the issues that we experienced with our previous vendor, it allows our engineering team to focus on our actual product development and on expanding our features, instead of taking time away to investigate and fix back-end problems with the old capture cards,” praised McCutcheon. “Overall product development is also now simpler, as there are fewer obstacles to overcome. This allows us to deliver a more robust and complete product.”

McCutcheon also lauds the business benefits of working with Magewell distributor Mobile Video Devices. “MVD has been excellent, providing timely delivery, smooth processes, and most importantly very strong, fast support that aligns well with our own philosophy of providing unparalleled service to our customers,” he said.

Ultimately, the most important benefits Cattura has gained from their switch to Magewell capture cards have been the improvements to their end-users’ experience with CaptureCast. “Our use of Magewell Pro Capture cards has enabled us to be totally confident that our products will reliably and consistently meet the needs of our customers, providing users with a stable, high-quality recording platform.”