The FIRST HDMI 2.1 USB Capture Card is Bizarre and Wonderful - MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 Review

### Article: A Comprehensive Review of the MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 Capture Card

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#### **Introduction**

The wait is over! The first HDMI 2.1 capture card has arrived, and it’s here for you to review. In an unexpected twist, the reviewer received this device early, thanks to a special order placed just for them. Priced at $260, this capture card claims to offer features that other brands haven’t even released yet. It boasts HDMI 2.1 pass-through capabilities, making it a potential game-changer for content creators and streamers. However, as the reviewer quickly discovers, this device comes with both promising features and some peculiar issues.

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#### **Design and Features**

The MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 capture card is quite unique compared to other devices on the market. Its standout feature is the inclusion of audio extraction, which supports both S/PDIF optical output and a 3.5mm jack for microphone input. This is particularly impressive because most capture cards rely solely on software-based volume controls or lack physical knobs entirely. The presence of these knobs adds a tangible feel to the device, making it easier to manage audio levels without diving into complex software settings.

Another notable aspect is its compatibility with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports. The card includes an indicator light that changes color to let users know which type of USB port they’re using, preventing potential issues with incorrect connections. Despite being a high-powered device, it requires a DC power plug for operation, even though the USB-C port could theoretically provide the necessary 5 volts.

The design itself is sleek and professional, resembling other mainstream capture cards on the market. However, the brand behind this product, MaxSquare, is relatively unknown in the industry. The company specializes in generic audiovisual gear, such as matrixes, Dante audio converters, and network video devices. This HDMI 2.1 capture card appears to be their first foray into the world of professional-grade capture technology.

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#### **Performance Review**

The MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 capture card boasts impressive specifications, including support for 4K 120Hz pass-through, 1440p 144Hz and 120Hz pass-through, and 1080p 240Hz pass-through. It also supports 4K 60Hz capture over USB in the uncompressed NV12 format, which is a significant advantage for content creators who value raw video quality without compression artifacts.

The latency during pass-through was impressively low, estimated at around half a millisecond—a figure that’s on par with other high-end capture cards. When testing with OBS Studio, the preview latency averaged between 53 to 55 milliseconds, which is competitive for devices of this type. However, this number varied significantly depending on the specific use case and configuration.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this card is its ability to handle custom resolutions. The reviewer successfully configured it to support formats like 1440p 240Hz and 1080p 360Hz, even though these weren’t officially listed as supported by the device. This level of flexibility suggests that MaxSquare designed this card with future-proofing in mind, allowing users to experiment with cutting-edge resolutions and frame rates.

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#### **Issues and Limitations**

Despite its promising features, the MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 capture card isn’t without its flaws. One major limitation is the lack of support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technologies like G-Sync or Adaptive Sync. This omission affects compatibility with modern gaming consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X, which rely on VRR for seamless visual performance.

Another issue arises when attempting to capture 4K content. The device refuses to recognize 4K 120Hz input, forcing users to drop down to 1440p 120Hz or 60Hz. While this isn’t a deal-breaker for most streamers and creators, it highlights a significant oversight in the design. The reviewer noted that enabling 4K output on their console resulted in no support for capture at all, leaving them unable to test higher resolutions effectively.

Frame rate support is another area where the card falters. While capturing at 60 FPS yielded smooth results, anything above that (such as 120 or 240 FPS) led to inconsistent performance. The 240 FPS mode, in particular, was plagued by severe frame drops, rendering the footage nearly unwatchable.

HDR support is another mixed bag. While the device can pass through HDR signals without issues, capturing and tone-mapping HDR content proved problematic. Without built-in HDR-to-SDR conversion, users are left to rely on OBS Studio’s tone-mapping features, which the reviewer found inadequate for delivering a visually appealing output.

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#### **Conclusion**

The MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 capture card represents an intriguing first attempt from a relatively unknown brand in the audiovisual space. Its support for cutting-edge resolutions and frame rates, coupled with its affordable price point ($260), makes it an attractive option for early adopters willing to overlook its quirks.

However, the device’s lack of VRR support, inconsistent frame rate handling, and subpar HDR performance raise significant red flags. For content creators looking to stream or record high-quality video without the hassle of troubleshooting, waiting for established brands like Elgato or ASUS to release their HDMI 2.1 capture cards might be a more prudent decision.

In summary, while the MaxSquare HDMI 2.1 capture card offers a glimpse into the future of capture technology, its current state suggests that it’s best suited for those willing to endure the growing pains of an early-release product.

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#### **Additional Information**

For further insights into the upcoming HDMI 2.1 capture cards from other manufacturers like Elgato and ASUS, be sure to check out the reviewer’s video breakdown. Additionally, if you’re interested in optimizing your streaming setup with OBS Studio, consider exploring their [OBS Course](https://example.com/obs-course) and other resources available on their website.

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*Note: The transcription provided was used as a reference for this article, ensuring that all details were included without summarization. The final article maintains the original content’s integrity while organizing it into a coherent structure.*

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit's here it's finally here what what what's here you've been waiting you've been asking you've been pleading the first HDMI 2.1 capture card has just arrived for you to review a media sent their new capture card already it wasn't supposed to ship for a couple more weeks at don't thing oh no not that one this one is a little different I ordered it just for you now review it who Review Who's it from yeah this capture card is a weird one $260 for an HDMI 2.1 pass through capture card before anyone else has actually released theirs seems like a good deal it's got an audio extractor both the spit if toss link Optical out as well as 3.5 mm it's got a mic input it's got knobs for your volume levels which most capture cards with audio pass through either have software only control or no control at all so that's kind of cool you've got HDMI 2.1 input and output USBC an indicator to indicate based on color whether you're on USB 2 or USB 3 ports so you don't mess that up but it requires DC power despite only needing 5 volts of power that the USBC Port could totally provide it does nothing without the DC power plug plugged in little status light on the top it's a weird capture card but it looks like everything else it's just from a brand I've never heard of is from Max Square Max square is not a company that I have ever covered before or have ever even looked into prior to this video they seem to make all sorts of just kind of generic versions of audio video gear they've got matrixes they've got Dante audio converters Network video devices little things like that and this seems to be their first foray into building out some sort of capture card we'll open it up at some point I guess and see what chips set is inside but doesn't look like anything else that has been on the market yet specs wise it is kind of in line with what we've heard so far from the other companies making HDMI 2.1 capture cards which none of them have come out yet in that you have 4K 120 HZ pass through 1440p 120 144 HZ pass through we'll talk more about that in a moment 1080p 240 HZ pass through and then you get 4k 60 capture over USB in nv12 which is the uncompressed not mjpeg or h264 format which is great awesome I would not expect to see this especially on like a a noname card so to speak which is cool uh but the specs start to get weirder and weirder the further down the rabbit hole I go with this thing first and foremost there's no vrr support so no adaptive sync variable refresh rate that kind of support doesn't show up as g-sync in my graphics card panel the consoles don't report any vrr support when I try it none of that and my PS5 seems to think that it doesn't support 1440p input the evid the display information that it act when it acts as a monitor to whatever you connect it to it's very Inc consistent in what it actually reports that it's capable of and that causes a lot of the issues that I've run into so for example in the OBS options for capture you have things like 1080p 240 HZ you've got 1440p 144 HZ listed but when you connect it to a display it doesn't support any of that ACC to your computer it only supports 1440p at 120 HZ which is fine and I think everyone should use that if you're capturing 60 FPS footage anyway but it supports capturing more frames than it supposedly supports p through and 1080p 240 has like it's super weird so you have to enable or like manually add a lot of these other formats that you might expect to pass through with custom resolutions in the Nvidia or AMD control panels I was able to get 1080p 240 working 1440p 144 Herz working I was also able to get 2560 x 1080 Ultra wide and 3440 X 1440 Ultra wide past through with custom resolutions but only at 60 HZ I was also theoretically I don't actually have the panels to test this on hand but just connecting the input to the capture card I was able to force a custom resolution of 1440p 240 HZ and 1080p 360 HZ and these seem to have taken on the card and worked but again I don't have a compatible monitor on the other in to verify that it was passing that signal properly through but it very clearly displays when it doesn't support something with this cute little Rainbow no video signal and it wasn't giving me that after I got the custom reses configured correctly so I think you can pass through those newer formats which thus far all of the listed USB capture cards from a media Asus and so on that have announced their HDMI 2.1 capture cards 1440p 240 has not been on that list 1080p 360 has not been so theoretically works with this but I can't fully verify but along with some of that weirdness you also have if you enable 4K 120 HZ output on your device on your computer or console you cannot capture 4K with a capture card even at 60 FPS it just says no support you have to drop it down to 1440p now you can capture 1440p 120 htz or 120 frames per second from the 4K 120 frames per second or you can capture 60 FPS so clearly it can do both resolution and frame rate scaling but it just can't do the frame rate scaling for 4K for some reason which is super weird I think for most people streaming and doing content creation that's not going to be a problem at all but it is weird especially if you want to leave it on like used default format and OBS if you pop in a 4K 120 game console like PS5 Xbox series X it's going to say it doesn't work because the default format for it is 4K 60 and it's just not going to show anything which is really weird we'll talk about more issues in a sec latency wise I was pretty impressed pass through is real time as best as I can tell maybe half a millisecond which is about average so nothing to worry about there and playing on it I never felt anything the preview latency that I test on all these capture cards running through OBS is preview When you subtract the monitors built-in you know latency added onto it we're looking at 53 to 55 fiveish milliseconds but it would vary a lot like a lot more than the usual capture cards it was like kind of all over the place but when it was consistent it was around 55 is milliseconds which is pretty competitive but when I tried it out like playing from the preview especially when I was trying to do 1080p 360 and things like that it was a very bad time I could not yeah my my pass through footage you saw of the higher frame rate stuff I look drunk as hell trying to play it because I could not play with that added input latency it was so bad and that's not always the case these days with the newer faster cards like the HD 60x the live gamer 4K and so on so when it comes to capturing those higher frame rates as I just mentioned you are given the options inside of OBS to capture 240 FPS from the 1080p 240 mode or higher with the 360 mode and 120 144 FPS from 1440p and so on the results vary though any 60 FPS capture I did be it from higher frame rate or not came out smooth looking fine no problems any 120 FPS captures I did mostly came out smooth every once in a while I'd see like a duplicated frame or something but no no major issues that would bother anyone but the 240 FPS modes which this device reports as a supported format for the device it drops frames like crazy like we are talking ridiculous frame drops where it just looks like it's barely even 60 FPS like it looks horrible I'm playing it back in slow-mo here but like you cannot actually capture 240 FPS over USB here with that and I did want to mention anything higher than 60 FPS on this card does drop to mjpeg which is fine probably expected especially given the bandwidth constraints but anything higher than 120 FPS and it just it looks really bad so I would stick to regardless of what you're passing through 120 FPS or lower for your capture frame rates which if you're just streaming to Twitch or YouTube all you need is 60 anyway I did want to mention HDR it does support HDR pass through as you would expect for a modern device so I was trying to play on my PS5 and my computer and stuff like that through to my LG OLED and pass through seemed fine no issues there but the capture of it was awful it looked horrible if you set it to just Rex 709 most capture cards like this these days that support HDR pass through have HDR to SDR tone mapping on board and will just make it look fine in OBS this one does not it gets overly bright contrasty Punchy saturated like it looks ridiculous but if you set it to the rec 2100 PQ or hlg modes it still doesn't look right and cuz I was going to do that and then just rely on obs's built-in tone mapping that they had a couple versions ago and Rec 2100 PQ still looks a little too Punchy and just like Reds are way too bright and stuff like that but then hlg still looks a little too flat so HDR just doesn't entirely work super right here super weird anyway as I mentioned it a standout feature here are these knobs for the microphone and stuff like that I do think between that the status lights on the front and things like that this is kind of set up to be more like a TV set top box kind of capture solution that you run out to a computer Compu or something which makes sense given that most of what they make is these more you know Enterprise AV gear but given the amount of finickiness with the formats it supports and things like that I'm not sure it really serves that purpose super well it is plug-and playay over USB you don't got to download any drivers or anything and it works on Windows Mac and Linux which is really nice to see so the very first HDMI 2.1 capture card does support Mac and Linux out of the box as well as Windows which is nice I just it's about what you'd expect to pay for a media and whatever elgato's option will eventually be and asus's option or whatever a media is the only one that had one go up for pre-sale like the $260 price tag isn't out there but given you can just wait a little bit and presumably everyone else's options from like bigname companies will be a lot more stable and a lot better I just hold off like I don't think it's worth it the early adopter tax is just like it's just it it's wild to get this before everyone else just kind of surprised it's on Amazon they already had one listing that like sold out but and there was another listing of this that popped up it's cool to play with I'm just I'm not sure that anyone doing content day-to-day should really go with it well this will just serve as a little lesson to you early adopters out there sometimes being first isn't best yeah I mean it it was a good effort but but these alt cards always just have like some weird issues if you want to know about the upcoming HDMI 2.1 capture cards from a media and Asus I do have a video breaking them down and some concerns you might have right here that you should watch and remember to Be Kind Rewind yeah yeah we'll see next time don't forget to check out my OBS course and my other resources over on my new shop site glitch. mov linked belowit's here it's finally here what what what's here you've been waiting you've been asking you've been pleading the first HDMI 2.1 capture card has just arrived for you to review a media sent their new capture card already it wasn't supposed to ship for a couple more weeks at don't thing oh no not that one this one is a little different I ordered it just for you now review it who Review Who's it from yeah this capture card is a weird one $260 for an HDMI 2.1 pass through capture card before anyone else has actually released theirs seems like a good deal it's got an audio extractor both the spit if toss link Optical out as well as 3.5 mm it's got a mic input it's got knobs for your volume levels which most capture cards with audio pass through either have software only control or no control at all so that's kind of cool you've got HDMI 2.1 input and output USBC an indicator to indicate based on color whether you're on USB 2 or USB 3 ports so you don't mess that up but it requires DC power despite only needing 5 volts of power that the USBC Port could totally provide it does nothing without the DC power plug plugged in little status light on the top it's a weird capture card but it looks like everything else it's just from a brand I've never heard of is from Max Square Max square is not a company that I have ever covered before or have ever even looked into prior to this video they seem to make all sorts of just kind of generic versions of audio video gear they've got matrixes they've got Dante audio converters Network video devices little things like that and this seems to be their first foray into building out some sort of capture card we'll open it up at some point I guess and see what chips set is inside but doesn't look like anything else that has been on the market yet specs wise it is kind of in line with what we've heard so far from the other companies making HDMI 2.1 capture cards which none of them have come out yet in that you have 4K 120 HZ pass through 1440p 120 144 HZ pass through we'll talk more about that in a moment 1080p 240 HZ pass through and then you get 4k 60 capture over USB in nv12 which is the uncompressed not mjpeg or h264 format which is great awesome I would not expect to see this especially on like a a noname card so to speak which is cool uh but the specs start to get weirder and weirder the further down the rabbit hole I go with this thing first and foremost there's no vrr support so no adaptive sync variable refresh rate that kind of support doesn't show up as g-sync in my graphics card panel the consoles don't report any vrr support when I try it none of that and my PS5 seems to think that it doesn't support 1440p input the evid the display information that it act when it acts as a monitor to whatever you connect it to it's very Inc consistent in what it actually reports that it's capable of and that causes a lot of the issues that I've run into so for example in the OBS options for capture you have things like 1080p 240 HZ you've got 1440p 144 HZ listed but when you connect it to a display it doesn't support any of that ACC to your computer it only supports 1440p at 120 HZ which is fine and I think everyone should use that if you're capturing 60 FPS footage anyway but it supports capturing more frames than it supposedly supports p through and 1080p 240 has like it's super weird so you have to enable or like manually add a lot of these other formats that you might expect to pass through with custom resolutions in the Nvidia or AMD control panels I was able to get 1080p 240 working 1440p 144 Herz working I was also able to get 2560 x 1080 Ultra wide and 3440 X 1440 Ultra wide past through with custom resolutions but only at 60 HZ I was also theoretically I don't actually have the panels to test this on hand but just connecting the input to the capture card I was able to force a custom resolution of 1440p 240 HZ and 1080p 360 HZ and these seem to have taken on the card and worked but again I don't have a compatible monitor on the other in to verify that it was passing that signal properly through but it very clearly displays when it doesn't support something with this cute little Rainbow no video signal and it wasn't giving me that after I got the custom reses configured correctly so I think you can pass through those newer formats which thus far all of the listed USB capture cards from a media Asus and so on that have announced their HDMI 2.1 capture cards 1440p 240 has not been on that list 1080p 360 has not been so theoretically works with this but I can't fully verify but along with some of that weirdness you also have if you enable 4K 120 HZ output on your device on your computer or console you cannot capture 4K with a capture card even at 60 FPS it just says no support you have to drop it down to 1440p now you can capture 1440p 120 htz or 120 frames per second from the 4K 120 frames per second or you can capture 60 FPS so clearly it can do both resolution and frame rate scaling but it just can't do the frame rate scaling for 4K for some reason which is super weird I think for most people streaming and doing content creation that's not going to be a problem at all but it is weird especially if you want to leave it on like used default format and OBS if you pop in a 4K 120 game console like PS5 Xbox series X it's going to say it doesn't work because the default format for it is 4K 60 and it's just not going to show anything which is really weird we'll talk about more issues in a sec latency wise I was pretty impressed pass through is real time as best as I can tell maybe half a millisecond which is about average so nothing to worry about there and playing on it I never felt anything the preview latency that I test on all these capture cards running through OBS is preview When you subtract the monitors built-in you know latency added onto it we're looking at 53 to 55 fiveish milliseconds but it would vary a lot like a lot more than the usual capture cards it was like kind of all over the place but when it was consistent it was around 55 is milliseconds which is pretty competitive but when I tried it out like playing from the preview especially when I was trying to do 1080p 360 and things like that it was a very bad time I could not yeah my my pass through footage you saw of the higher frame rate stuff I look drunk as hell trying to play it because I could not play with that added input latency it was so bad and that's not always the case these days with the newer faster cards like the HD 60x the live gamer 4K and so on so when it comes to capturing those higher frame rates as I just mentioned you are given the options inside of OBS to capture 240 FPS from the 1080p 240 mode or higher with the 360 mode and 120 144 FPS from 1440p and so on the results vary though any 60 FPS capture I did be it from higher frame rate or not came out smooth looking fine no problems any 120 FPS captures I did mostly came out smooth every once in a while I'd see like a duplicated frame or something but no no major issues that would bother anyone but the 240 FPS modes which this device reports as a supported format for the device it drops frames like crazy like we are talking ridiculous frame drops where it just looks like it's barely even 60 FPS like it looks horrible I'm playing it back in slow-mo here but like you cannot actually capture 240 FPS over USB here with that and I did want to mention anything higher than 60 FPS on this card does drop to mjpeg which is fine probably expected especially given the bandwidth constraints but anything higher than 120 FPS and it just it looks really bad so I would stick to regardless of what you're passing through 120 FPS or lower for your capture frame rates which if you're just streaming to Twitch or YouTube all you need is 60 anyway I did want to mention HDR it does support HDR pass through as you would expect for a modern device so I was trying to play on my PS5 and my computer and stuff like that through to my LG OLED and pass through seemed fine no issues there but the capture of it was awful it looked horrible if you set it to just Rex 709 most capture cards like this these days that support HDR pass through have HDR to SDR tone mapping on board and will just make it look fine in OBS this one does not it gets overly bright contrasty Punchy saturated like it looks ridiculous but if you set it to the rec 2100 PQ or hlg modes it still doesn't look right and cuz I was going to do that and then just rely on obs's built-in tone mapping that they had a couple versions ago and Rec 2100 PQ still looks a little too Punchy and just like Reds are way too bright and stuff like that but then hlg still looks a little too flat so HDR just doesn't entirely work super right here super weird anyway as I mentioned it a standout feature here are these knobs for the microphone and stuff like that I do think between that the status lights on the front and things like that this is kind of set up to be more like a TV set top box kind of capture solution that you run out to a computer Compu or something which makes sense given that most of what they make is these more you know Enterprise AV gear but given the amount of finickiness with the formats it supports and things like that I'm not sure it really serves that purpose super well it is plug-and playay over USB you don't got to download any drivers or anything and it works on Windows Mac and Linux which is really nice to see so the very first HDMI 2.1 capture card does support Mac and Linux out of the box as well as Windows which is nice I just it's about what you'd expect to pay for a media and whatever elgato's option will eventually be and asus's option or whatever a media is the only one that had one go up for pre-sale like the $260 price tag isn't out there but given you can just wait a little bit and presumably everyone else's options from like bigname companies will be a lot more stable and a lot better I just hold off like I don't think it's worth it the early adopter tax is just like it's just it it's wild to get this before everyone else just kind of surprised it's on Amazon they already had one listing that like sold out but and there was another listing of this that popped up it's cool to play with I'm just I'm not sure that anyone doing content day-to-day should really go with it well this will just serve as a little lesson to you early adopters out there sometimes being first isn't best yeah I mean it it was a good effort but but these alt cards always just have like some weird issues if you want to know about the upcoming HDMI 2.1 capture cards from a media and Asus I do have a video breaking them down and some concerns you might have right here that you should watch and remember to Be Kind Rewind yeah yeah we'll see next time don't forget to check out my OBS course and my other resources over on my new shop site glitch. mov linked below\n"