Elgato Game Capture HD RCA Input Mod

The Elgato Game Capture HD. A compact capture device with a slick, glossy case and ‘passport’ form factor. It accepts HDMI and analogue AV signals.

However, that AV input port has led to many a headache.

It may look like a simple mini-DIN connector, but it uses an off-standard 7-pin DIN-4 style socket; finding new cables for this is extremely difficult, and expensive, as the manufacturer no longer sells them, and it seems many owners either lost their cables, or hacked them up to create custom inputs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DIN_connector#Non-standard_connectors

So, since this is no use to us… let’s get rid of it and put in something we can actually use.

This pinout diagram originally from here, but it was mirrored as in a ‘male’ connector; here it is corrected.

This tells us everything we need to know. Do note that the ‘green’, ‘red’, and ‘blue’ do not refer to the Red, Green, and Blue channels of an RGB signal, but the red, green, and blue RCA sockets of component video.

What You’ll Need

• A drill for modifying the case
• Prying tools
• Snips
• Soldering equipment
• Wires; I used 5 in a ribbon cable, and a separate ground wire
• RCA jacks; I used this all-in-one piece, and it’s what I’d recommend

Using a 6-socket mount like this is great for keeping everything uniform

• 2 screws for securing the RCA unit

Let’s Get Started!

Disassembling the unit is easy; the two end caps can be levered out with a prying tool, and the shell body is simply clipped together with a few small posts.

Once open, take the top half of the shell, and notice the metal plates. These are held in place with an adhesive layer, and some sort of plastic rivet things.
You can slice those rivet caps off with a box cutter, or snips, or whatever else; they won’t give you much trouble. Prying up the plate from the adhesive is a little harder, but just use your pry tools and go slow and it will come out in the end. After this, snip or slice off the plastic posts those little rivet things were connected to, so you have a flat surface.
You only need to remove the plate on the ‘input’ side. The plates exist to weigh the unit down.

Conveniently, there’s a lip in the plastic shell for the end caps — using this lip as a guide gives us the perfect placement for mounting the RCA unit.
Simply position it so the edge of the housing is flat against the lip, with the pins facing away towards the output end; this gives us perfect clearance!
I used a piece of masking tape on the face of the RCA unit, marking out the layout of the jacks, then stuck it on the inside of that lip, and used that as the guide for my hole drilling, but you can use whatever method works for you.
I recommend making your holes a little bigger than the jacks — approximately 9mm diameter is good — so the cables have clearance to insert properly.

When drilling the holes, I recommend using a small bit to drill your pilot hole, then a step bit to gradually widen it to the target size.

You can clean the edges of the holes up with a file, or do it quickly with a dremel and gentle application of a grinding bit.

Once you’ve drilled all your holes, mounted, and affixed the RCA unit with some screws, it’s time to desolder the mini-DIN socket.
This can be done easiest by carefully cutting the part out from the top with your snips, being sure not to damage the board or traces. Be aware of the ground plane that will make desoldering the grounded parts tricky.
Once removed, clean up the area so that the 5 important pin holes can have wires inserted in through the top of the board, and out through the bottom.

Solder the 5 main wires into those holes left by the DIN socket, and then attach an extra wire to one of the available ground points. I soldered the ground wire to the top side of the board, using one of the larger points left by the socket.

Make sure your wires have enough slack to travel along back, then fold over and come back towards the input side — they essentially need to do a U turn so we can cleanly close up the case.

I recommend doing this with the board and sockets mounted in the case, but be careful not to melt anything.
First wire to connect to the RCA unit is the ground wire; the suggested RCA unit has the legs for the common ground on the bottom, from our perspective, so it’s better to do this first. Any point will do, but I opted for the middle leg. You can see it in the image below with a black wire.
Next, we have our 5 main wires.
From left to right, viewed from the top, with the input side facing us, we have:

• Audio Right (red wire)
• Component Blue (orange wire)
• Component Red/Composite (yellow wire)
• Audio Left (green wire)
• Component Green (blue wire)

I don’t know why they opted to make the Red component input double as the Composite line, since usually that’s the Green one’s job, but you do you, Elgato.
It makes our job easier, since the Component Red and Composite Yellow jacks are directly next to each other in our RCA unit. Using a small lead or offcut, bridge the two input connections; connecting the wire to either of the legs will work perfectly, as long as the two are bridged.

Disregard the wire colours; they aren’t directly colour coded. This is just the ribbon cable I had.

With all the wires connected to the appropriate legs, you should end up with something like the above.

I have insulated the back side of the RCA unit with kapton tape, just as a precaution to prevent any possible shorts. You could also use PVC/electrical tape.

Fold it closed, and the wires should loop around, not causing any clearance issues. Great use of the case’s empty space!

Perfect fit!

Now you can close it all up, and start using Component and Composite analogue inputs into your Elgato Game Capture HD — without the need for weird proprietary cables!

As it should be!