High End Video Capture?

A reader asks: "I work for a very well known company specializing in Game Engine Middleware. Recently we've been trying to gather together marketing material for some new products, and one step towards that end is capturing high resolution gameplay footage (1280x1024) into some kind of movie file for editing. According to the 'experts', the best solution is to scan convert the DVI out into HDTV 1080p, and then HD capture it back into another PC for editing. Surely all this conversion to 'broadcast' quality is pointless - has anyone come across a pure DVI capture solution?"

Software, but...

[TheSHAD0W]

You'd probably be better off listening to the experts, because the bandwidth off a high-res video connection is monstrous, but...

I'm thinking it might be possible to intercept the stream of data the game is sending to DirectX or whichever 3D library you're using, and record it. This data stream should be orders of magnitude lower than the actual video data, and you ought to be able to record it without much disruption to the game performance. Once you had the data, you could then re-render the game play frame-by-frame, and then convert it to video and compress it.

Hum. You might be able to hack this into your game code; but if you can do it externally, it might be a saleable product.

Re:the solution is readily available

[Trouvist]

I am of the opinion that ideas and thoughts should be shared. Patents have their uses for mechanical and not easily-copied materials, but while I am a programmer I feel that software should not be patentable. I am allowed to say that I did it, I just can't say how. I wish this boy some luck, though I think he should have searched Google a little more thoroughly.