The Epiphan VGA2USB is the only compact external VGA signal grabber capable of capturing output from virtually any VGA source—such as a Windows PC, a Macintosh OSX, a Unix machine, an embedded system, a medical device, scientific or lab equipment, and more. It is invaluable in the preparation of documentation, analyzing monitor-less systems and performing quality control on tested systems. It supports any application that requires the acquisition of VGA images, and enhances collaboration sessions. As a compact external device, VGA2USB is easy to use. About the size of a box of paperclips, it is easily plugged in and requires no additional power. It is a fully-featured VGA/RGB capture product complete with hardware, USB cable and software that makes it possible to view captured data in real time, save captured images to disk, copy captured images to a clipboard, or setup a periodical "save" command to capture images to disk. Software development kits are also available for specialized applications. VGA2USB software makes it possible to save and print captured images, to setup a periodical "save" command to capture images to disk or record an AVI file (Windows platform only). In addition to that, VGA2USB software is compatible with DirectShow on Windows and QuickTime on Mac OS X, which allows third-party applications to use VGA2USB as a video input. When combined with other Epiphan Systems products VGA2USB can: - Deliver one-touch printing solutions (with our VGA Printer)
- Record demos, training videos, quality tests and more (with our VGA Recorder)
- Enhance remote meetings, web-based training, technical support and demos (with our VGA2WEB solution or any collaboration software).
VGA2USB Connection Diagram
Technical Specifications | Interface | USB 2.0 | | Dimensions | 3.54" x 2.36" x 0.91"
90 x 60 x 23 mm | | Connectors | One VGA D type connector, one USB mini B type connector | | Maximum Sample Rate | 230 Mpixels per second | | Color Resolution | 16 bits per pixel / 5:6:5 format | | Supported Video Modes | 640x350 at 60, 85Hz
640x400 at 60, 85Hz
720x400 at 70, 85Hz
640x480 at 60, 70, 72, 75, 85Hz
800x600 at 56, 60, 70, 72, 75, 85Hz
1024x768 at 60, 70, 72, 75, 85Hz
1152x864 at 60, 70, 75, 85Hz
1152x900 at 66, 76Hz
1280x960 at 60, 85Hz
1280x1024 at 60, 70, 75, 85Hz
1600x1200 at 60, 65, 70, 75, 85Hz
1920x1200 at 60, 70, 72, 75, 85Hz
2048x1536 at 60, 70, 72, 75, 85Hz | | Update Rate | While results are typically around 10 updates per second, here are actual results under varying conditions: | | Resolution | Win XP FPS 1 | | 640 x 480 | 28.0 | | 800 x 600 | 20.6 | | 1024 x 768 | 10.0 | | 1280 x 1024 | 5.6 | | 1600 x 1200 | 4.3 | | 1920 x 1200 | 3.1 | | 2048 x 1536 | 2.0 | | Video Format Options | RGB plus HSync and VSync (5 wire) | | LEDs | Three LEDs to indicate the status of the VGA2USB (power, readiness, and operation in progress) | | OS Support | Linux (x86, amd64), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista (x86, amd64), Mac OS X 10.3 and up | 1 - Intel P4 3.0GHz FSB 800 
Package Content The VGA2USB product ships with the five (5) items shown above: 1. VGA2USB box 2. USB "A" Plug to USB Mini "B" Plug 5 pins cable 3. Male to male VGA adapter (gender changer) 4. VGA splitter 5. VGA cable
Frequently Asked Questions 1. Will VGA2USB work with USB 1.0 or USB 1.1? 2. How can I verify whether my system has USB 2.0? 3. How many frames per second can VGA2USB capture? 4. Does VGA2USB reduce the resolution of the images it captures in order to transfer it over the USB bus? 5. Can VGA2USB work on Windows NT, Windows 3.x/95/98/SE/ME? 6. The video mode that I am using is not listed in the list of supported modes for VGA2USB. Can VGA2USB capture it? 7. What Linux kernel does VGA2USB support? Is the driver's code open source? 8. Can VGA2USB save captured signals as a movie? 9. Which AVI codec works best with VGA2USB? 10. Images grabbed from some sources appear to be slightly shifted right or left. How this can be fixed? 11. Can I connect two or more VGA2USB to one computer and capture signals simultaneously? What is the resulting rate of capture for each VGA2USB? 12. With what software can I interpret the digital signal coming out of the USB port of the VGA2USB device? 1. Will VGA2USB work with USB 1.0 or USB 1.1? No. VGA2USB transfers substantial amounts of data for each captured frame. As USB 1.x buses are very slow (12Mb/s), they do not provide sufficient bandwidth for VGA2USB. USB 2.0 buses have a much higher transfer rate (480Mb/s), allowing VGA2USB to acquire and transfer several frames per second. 2. How can I verify whether my system has USB 2.0? Please use this procedure to verify that your system has USB 2.0. 3. How many frames per second can VGA2USB capture? It depends on the resolution of your screen, the screen refresh rate, your operating system and the speed of the computer that is acquiring the images. Typical results are between 28 and 2 frames per second. 4. Does VGA2USB reduce the resolution of the images it captures in order to transfer it over the USB bus? No. VGA2USB captures and transfers every pixel of the original VGA frame in 16-bit per-pixel RGB format. In this respect, VGA2USB provides better quality than a VGA-to-video converter paired with a Composite or S-Video grabber. You can see comparisons of screen shots taken with VGA2USB here. 5. Can VGA2USB work on Windows NT, Windows 3.x/95/98/SE/ME? No. Unfortunately, some of those systems have very poor support or no support at all for the USB 2.0 bus. 6. The video mode that I am using is not listed in the list of supported modes for VGA2USB. Can VGA2USB capture it? Please contact us. We are always looking for ways to improve our system and may be willing to add support for this mode. 7. What Linux kernel does VGA2USB support? Is the driver's code open source? Although we provide a Linux SDK (API for driver and examples), we do not provide source code for the driver itself. Please contact us if you need a driver compiled for a specific kernel version or kernel setting. 8. Can VGA2USB save captured signals as a movie? Yes, the VGA2USB application has the ability to save captured signals as an AVI file. 9. Which AVI codec works best with VGA2USB? The choice of codec and codec settings depend on the requirements for the quality of the AVI. You may need to try several codecs with different settings to see which codec best fits your task. We suggest using the Indeo 5.10 codec with 50% quality settings for a good compromise between compression rate, image quality and required CPU power. 10. Images grabbed from some sources appear to be slightly shifted right or left. How this can be fixed? VGA2USB has an automatic algorithm that crops visible images from the VGA frame. The algorithm may make a mistake, however, and be off by a few pixels. Please use the procedure described in this image to correct cropping. 11. Can I connect two or more VGA2USB devices to one computer and capture signals simultaneously? What is the resulting rate of capture for each VGA2USB? Yes you can connect two or more VGA2USB devices and capture multiple signals simultaneously. You will need to run the VGA2USB application for each VGA2USB device attached. You will, however, notice a significant difference in frame rate for each additional active VGA2USB. The higher the performance of your computer, the better the possible frame rate. Our internal testing on a Dell Dimension 2400 (Celeron 2.4GHz processor, 512mb RAM) at 1024x768 with two VGA2USB devices yielded average frame rates of 7.1 fps and 4 fps. In contrast, a Pentium 4, 3.0Ghz desktop with 512MB of RAM at 1024 x 768 yielded average frame rates of 9.52 fps and 5.85 fps. Please note that you must start the VGA2USB application after connecting each VGA2USB. 12. With what software can I interpret the digital signal coming out of the USB port of the VGA2USB device? The VGA2USB frame grabber works by emulating a high resolution video camera for Windows. VGA2USB is a DirectShow compatible device, which means that virtually any video capture software designed for Windows is compatible with VGA2USB. For example, VirtualDUB can be used to record .avi files, Microsoft Media Encoder to record .wmv files, and RealProducer to record .rm files
SDK/API/Samples Download VGA2USB SDK (Version 3.18.8)
for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista (x86) Download VGA2USB example for Visual Basic 6
for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista (x86) Download VGA2USB example for VB.NET
for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista (x86) Download VGA2USB example for C#
for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista (x86) Download VGA2USB example for Delphi
for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista (x86) Linux Example (Version 3.19.2) Miscellaneous EDID
Extended Display Identification Data files for DVI2USB series of frame grabbers. | 
Multimedia
