I have to accept a sad truth now: My trusty Elgato 4K60S+ is no longer trusty.

For the unfamiliar, Elgato made a standalone capture card back in 2020 or so capable of 4K60 HDR recordings. I bought one for work to record presentations and computer screens without having to load software on a bunch of different machines. This, of course, had the added benefit of letting me record gameplay at the highest possible quality (at the time).

The problem is the same as I detailed as far back as December 2024.

"Sometimes the capture would stop in the middle of a session and split videos up, losing a few seconds between stopping one clip and starting another. I have some guesses, but haven't figured out the best way to troubleshoot this yet. I don't lose any signal on the television, so I missed when the warning light flashed and don't know it happened until I am at my computer..."

I am getting multiple video files for one play session, resulting in dropped frames, moments, etc.1 Look at my recent sessions with Stray and The Last of Us Part II Remastered.

250909_Stray_Capture Split 250909_TLOUPII_Capture Split

Stray was a one-ish hour, uninterrupted play session. The Last of Us Part II Remastered was three uninterrupted sessions across three different days.

I never had a problem with my 4K60S+ capturing footage in a single file before December. Then, as some of you may remember, I was faced with a slew of capture issues. Since integrating the AVer Media card, my 4K60S+ has been fairly light on issues of recording, but this latest batch has caused me to admit defeat.

Admitting this bums me out beyond belief. I could always rely on the 4K60S+ to get the job done. It's a sad time when a tool stops being good at its job. It's even more of a bummer when there isn't an ideal replacement for the tool. Those Atmos Ninja recording monitors seem like the most logical piece of kit, but I wish it supported HDMI 2.1.

In the mean time, I'll probably dual record play sessions; 1440p on the MacBook Pro and 4K60 on the 4K60S+. If the 4K60S+ footage isn't fragmented, then I'll keep that. If it is all chopped up, then I will take the lower resolution in trade for uninterrupted footage. From a backup perspective, I probably should have been doing this ages ago. Remember, two is one and one is none.

This isn't Elgato's fault...I think. Time marches on. Products are left for dead or discontinued. The 4K60S+ was always an odd duck. I loved that duck. I feel like I am its biggest fan. I'll keep it on for as long as I can, but I can no longer say it is my main capture card. 🪦

Footnotes

  1. I am aware that there is a setting in the 4K60S+ text file that is set to chunk up the videos every 4 gigs or so, but that has never been enabled. The splitting here is seemingly random and is inconsistent. ↩