The PS4 Will Support HDMI Video Capture

Seasoned Youtube gaming community members; rejoice! At yesterday’s Tokyo Game Show, Sony executives announced that full HDMI video capture will now be permitted on the PS4. Several English-speaking executives confirmed the news, including VP of Publisher & Developer Relations Adam Boyes on Twitter.

This is great news for people who both make their living playing video games or those who do it in their spare time and wanted to play those recorded games on the PS4. Devices like Elgato and AVerMedia’s capture cards were blocked on the PS3 from their full 1080p potential due to High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). To attain optimum output you needed to circumvent it by stripping away the protection. Now it seems that the PlayStation 4 will allow full game content to be captured, just not films or music.

In the past, Sony has made it clear that the PS4 automatically records the last 15 minutes of gameplay and allows you to upload that to Twitch, UStream and Youtube (in comparison to 5 minutes on the Xbox One). However, Youtubers specifically will now be able to easily record gaming footage, polish them up and edit them in order to stagnate the release of their content over time. Twitch/UStreamers are still able to stream their content live through the PS4, so not much has changed in that regard.

The PlayStation 4 will launch in North America on November 15th, in European/South American countries on November 29th, in Asian markets this December and in Japan on February 22, 2014.