M.2 HDMI capture card provides dual 2K video input — works in any PCIe 2.0 or later slot

The Magewell Eco Capture Dual HDMI M.2 capture card
(Image credit: Magewell)

With many motherboard manufacturers sacrificing smaller PCIe x8, x4, and x1 slots on modern boards, the humble M.2 slot is finding new life beyond solid state drives (SSDs). Magewell, a company known for its video capture solutions, has created the Eco Capture Dual HDMI M.2 card, a compact M.2-based device that can be used for video capture. It supports dual 2K video inputs, as indicated by the name.

Superficially, the device resembles a typical M.2 2280 SSD, with a green PCB and a black heatsink on top. It also includes two SHD connectors and comes bundled with two SHD-to-HDMI Type-A cables. According to early testing by Interfacing Linux, the device does not come with any mounting hardware for the HDMI cable ends, but you can find cheap ones from Amazon or MODDYI.

Interface on the Magewell Eco Capture Dual HDMI M.2 capture card

Interface on the Magewell Eco Capture Dual HDMI M.2 capture card (Image credit: Magewell)
Kunal Khullar
News Contributor

Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware.  He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.

  • edzieba
    A nice alternative to the Blackmagic Decklink Micro, which requires HDMI to HD-SDI adapters (though it'll still likely work out cheaper even with the adapters unless you populate all 3 inputs). If you only need a single input, the Desklink Micro Recorder has a single HDMI input for around half the price (and half the m.2 card length).
    Reply
  • ThisIsMe
    The product is okay, but please don’t perpetuate the use of meaningless buzz terms like “2k” when describing capabilities, performance, or any other metric. It’s not an actual standard and often used when a product doesn’t fully support higher standard resolutions/refresh rates so they make up some crazy abomination and call it 2k.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    ThisIsMe said:
    The product is okay, but please don’t perpetuate the use of meaningless buzz terms like “2k” when describing capabilities, performance, or any other metric. It’s not an actual standard and often used when a product doesn’t fully support higher standard resolutions/refresh rates so they make up some crazy abomination and call it 2k.
    Technically, "2K" is a standard (as is "4K"): both are DCI standards. The problem is that DCI 2K is 2048 x 1080, which is not what 2K is being used to refer to here - likewise, DCI 4k is 4096 x 2160, not the 3840 x 2160 it is commonly used to refer to (which is actually a different standard: UHD).
    Which makes discussing DCI files endlessly annoying, as you need to keep specifying "no, I don't mean 2K , I mean actual 2K!".
    Reply