I chose the HD60 for a few reasons.  It got really good reviews, and I also asked streamers that had good quality streams what they used. What I didn’t realize is that support for the HD60 on Mac computers is limited. They don’t write the drivers for Mac so you can’t capture the stream directly for use with OBS*. In most cases you will be relegated to using the Game Capture HD software with this device. This software works well but, it’s limited. Currently the stable version does not support overlays. The beta software does though, but it’s still limited. With the beta software you can set up a webcam and a few overlays on your stream. You cannot setup Twitch notifications, or any of the other cool integrations you can have with OBS.

*You can use OBS with this card, but you can’t capture directly from the device itself,  you have to use Window capture or Screen capture and both have issues. If you use window capture I found that it works but, the video in my Twitch stream was rickety. For example, if a character turns his head the movement wouldn’t be smooth. It’s hard to explain.. If you try to use display capture you’ll have to have a high resolution or a big screen so you can separate the OBS screen from the Game Capture Screen. This is because display capture captures everything in a certain area, if you have any overlap with OBS you get an infinity effect. This was too big of a problem for me to overcome. So, I’m left with only using the Elgato software.

After the Mac updated to version 10.11.5 of El Capitan I’ve had issues with Game Capture HD. The stable version of the software has major video quality issues. I’ve tried the beta versions but they have issues too, which I’ll describe:

gchdm_203_970 [stable version]  — Worked great before the 10.11.5 Mac update. Now it has video streaming issues, stream quality completely brakes down if there is any movement. If you played a game without much movement like a card game it might be okay. I play Splatoon and it’s completely unusable for that.  (Since the 10.11.5 update the video has been broken for streaming and recording, this version is no longer usable)

gchdm_204_981  [stable version] — This is the updated stable version I downloaded on August 11, 2016. It has the same issues as the previous stable version. It is unusable for streaming.

gchdm_21b66_1036_PB  [beta version] — This fixed the video issue, but there is a recording issue, if I grab 2 mins of a 2hr stream, the 2min segment file size will be as big as the entire 2 hour stream. (This is the version I use now, it’s the only one that streams video and audio correctly)

gchdm_21b84_1084_PB  [beta version] — This may have fixed the recording size issue, the file size was 85mb for a 2 minute segment of a stream, so I’m not sure, but this introduces a microphone issue during streaming. The audio is robotic and broken up. (Unusable for streaming)

gchdm_21b85_1101_PB  [beta version] — The microphone audio is still an issue for streaming. (Unusable for streaming)

October 2017 update: 2.8(1315) Same voice audio issues. Voice audio breaks up. This article was published in August of 2016. It’s now October 12, 2017. Game capture HD still has the same exact issues it did a full  year and 3 months ago.

I have been working with Elgato support from June 18th until today, July 20th) We haven’t really gotten anywhere, but they are trying to help. Based on my testing, the issue is with their software, but Elgato support personnel continue to pin the issue to my computer.

Update: August 11, 2016. After I updated El Capitan to version 10.11.6 the video with all versions of the Game Capture HD breaks up and is unusable for streaming.

I really wish Elgato would write a driver for Mac so that video could be captured directly. I could use OBS with all of it’s features. So, based on all of this I would say if you have a Mac you may want to look for another streaming card, at least to stream on a service like Twitch. You may want to look into the AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2. They have Mac drivers and you can use it with OBS. Update: Apparently, they do not have Mac drivers. Update October 2017: Avermedia does have drivers for Mac now and OBS can be used. I’ve been using it with OBS for months now.

I really liked the Elgato HD60. I call it a river rock because it looks and feels like one. My wife got it for me for my birthday. I think the hardware is sound, and it’s well made. So far I’ve had a lot of fun streaming too. However the technical issues and limitations are taking the fun out of it.

Note: I am a independent computer consultant. I support Windows, Mac and Linux. My experience range from hardware to software and networking.

Recently I purchased a new Mac laptop. I moved my iTunes data from the old laptop to the new one. The first time I tried to sync my iPhone 6 it said I had to have encrypted backups. I have no idea why. I didn’t have that setting checked. However, that isn’t the main problem. When I first synced it asked me to authenticate with iTunes. When I declined it popped up a few more times and I declined repeatedly. Finally it started to sync. I was watching my phone and I noticed that my app icons started to disappear. At first I thought maybe this was normal, but after a few moments I realized this was a disaster. I pulled the cable out of my phone, but by this time the damage was done. I was left with 23 apps out of a previous 99.

I thought about the options, and decided rather then to sync with my old computer. This would not have brought back the data anyway. I decide to sync again with the new laptop. This time I authenticated. I noticed right away that it put all of my apps back onto my phone, even creating the correct folder structure. Problem was, all the the data in the apps that were deleted was GONE. I spend over 3 hours re-configuring my apps. I lost a lot of data. Including two games I had been playing for over 6 months. Along with all of my progress. I had backed up my phone not too long before with dropbox and other online services. So, extremely critical data was recovered, but not all.

I’m really pissed this happened. My wife kept asking why this would happen. I speculated that because I didn’t authenticate iTunes Apple thought me a pirate and therefore assumed I didn’t have ownership to my own apps. This is my best guess. My wife said she feels she is no longer in control of what happens with her iPhone when syncing.

iTunes didn’t even provide a warning before wiping out my apps. I don’t remember seeing a message that said, if you don’t authenticate, all of the apps from your phone will be deleted. That would have given me a chance and I would have clicked an enthusiastic NO.

I really like my Apple products, but I don’t know how this could happen.

As an aside, I’ve noticed when setting up iPhones and Apple computers more and more is dictating how your data is stored without giving the user a choice. It’s forces iCloud on the user, and it’s not easy to find the settings to turn all of it off. I know Apple wants to integrate services, but it’s doing it with a heavy hand. Unless the user is savvy they will not even know what’s going on. I’m an expert and I still wonder sometimes. I turned off a lot of iCloud services after they were defaulted to on, on my new Macbook.

As far as insisting to encrypt my backups, I’m lost. I have no idea why now it’s doing this. iTunes provides no reason, and no other option to move forward. I like encryption, but on my terms, not Apples.

Maybe it forces encryption because of health data. The option to uncheck is greyed out.

I would like to see Apple explain what it’s doing and why, and give users the chance to decide for themselves.

How to setup a Cisco router with multiple WAN IP address and forward ports to multiple VLANS.

The router I used was the Cisco RV220W. I believe other Cisco routers have this functionality, but I have not tested them. I suspect if it’s a Cisco router that has One to One NAT it can do this. The problem is in one to one nat you can only add one rule per WAN IP. It gives you three choices; forward all ports, forward a single port or sequential port range. For example you could not forward port 80 and 443. You would have to forward either 80 through 443, or forward all ports from a single WAN to Lan or Vlan. Here is how to forward multiple ports for each wan to a Lan or Vlan.

First I setup One to One Nat. Click on any image for a larger view.

This is where I added the rules. For this configuration to work I needed one to one nat. Simply adding port forwarding or firewall rules would not forward multiple WAN IP’s to multiple VLAN’s. For each WAN IP you can only add one rule, and once a single rule for one to one NAT is established a firewall rule with port forwarding starts working.

Note: you can forward all internet traffic to any internal VLAN or IP, but for security reasons I didn’t want all ports forwarding to a single internal LAN.

This is the detailed view of the rule. The range length specifies that a single WAN IP is used. For example if I had selected 2 for Range Length. This rule would have applied for two IP address: xxx.xxx.122.147 and xxx.xxx.122.148.

I added a firewall / port forwarding rule, the router was smart enough to add the rule to the list of port that were forwarded.

The OpenVPN is defined as a single port or a port range. I can’t remember, but either way it should work. The part at the bottom is important. Sent to local server (DNAT IP) destination nat. I added my VLAN IP here. I checked Use other WAN Destination IP and added the WAN IP that I wanted to forward the OpenVPN port.

Once I added the firewall rule it showed up in the port forwarding section.

Here is the details of the port forwarding rule. I guess it’s important to add the rule in the firewall section because it give you the ability to specify the VLAN and WAN IP address.

Remember: If you want to forward multiple ports on different external WAN’s to the internal network, VLAN or otherwise, you only need to add a single 1 to 1 nat rule. Do this in the one to one rule, (NATing a single port) then add your firewall / port forwarding rules to add additional forwarded ports under the Firewall setting.