The Razer Ripsaw HD is the new and improved version of Razer’s 2016 capture card of the same name.The Ripsaw HD comes bundled with some much needed quality of life improvements, as well as, the ability to allow PS4 Pro and Xbox One X users to keep playing at 4K.
Design
One of my favorite things about the Razer Ripsaw HD capture card, right off the bat, is the design. The pocket-sized square with the rubber base fits cleanly on my desk. With the input/output slots on the back of the card, cables are no longer intruding on my keyboard space. There are two inputs on the front of the card for ‘headphone out’ and ‘mic in’ but those cables are always much more manageable than the thick HDMI cables. The slots on the back of the card are simply ‘HDMI in’, ‘HDMI out’ and a USB-C power plug, all of which are clearly labeled.
Visual Upgrade
As mentioned, with the improved Ripsaw, the capture card has built-in 4K passthrough. What this means, in layman terms, is that most capture cards on the market currently only allow 1080p footage to be passed through the card. Meaning, if you have a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, you’ll have to downgrade your display settings from 4K to 1080p. However, with the 4K passthrough on the Ripsaw HD, you don’t have to change a thing, you can still play your games at 4K. This does not mean you can stream/record in 4K though, you’ll still be recording/streaming at 1080p at 60fps.
Compatibility and Setup
It’s worth noting that the Ripsaw HD does not come with it’s own capture software. However anyone who is looking to buy a capture card is probably already well aware of Open Broadcast Software (“OBS”), StreamLabs OBS and XSplit. I will admit, I did have some initial trouble when I first tried connecting the capture card to my console and PC. I was able to capture video without issue. That worked straight away without having to change any major settings on OBS. Capturing the audio, however, seemed to be a problem. After a bit of Googling, I managed to find a helpful Reddit post with a response from a Razer staff member. I simply needed to add an audio source for the capture card in the sources section of OBS. Once I had done that, everything worked perfectly.
Overall
The Ripsaw HD is a welcome competitor into the very small capture card market. The simple yet sleek design fits perfectly onto any desk or limited space. Its ease of use (barring a bit of work with the audio) is a godsend and makes it a great piece of tech for anyone looking to get started in streaming, especially being compatibility with the more popular broadcasting software.
Not only that, but it works perfectly with Razer’s other streaming devices such as the Razer Kiyo webcam and the Seiren X microphone.