It has been a busy few months for Elgato, the streaming hardware specialists. It was announced in June that they were being acquired by Corsair, the Stream Deck Mini was launched in July (review), and September saw the Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock's release. It would be understandable if some things got lost in the shuffle, but it appears that they're still keeping their eyes on the ball.
This week it was announced via social media that the 4K60 Pro, Elgato's flagship PCI-Express videogame streaming and capture card, has been updated to support HDR passthrough while recording or streaming in SDR. Support comes via the version 1.2 update of the 4K60 Pro's 4K Capture Utility. A growing number of HDR titles are now being released for consoles, and HDR TVs continue to roll out in all markets, so it's unsurprising that support would be a priority. Sadly there is something of a snag: only recent revisions of the 4K60 Pro are compatible with the feature.
Elgato's 4K60 Pro range was refreshed silently with a new revision in July 2018 to lay the groundwork for HDR10, but older versions of the card weren't able to support the standard. For many other companies that would be the end of the story, but Elgato are taking an extremely rare and customer-friendly step by offering a retroactive exchange program for the older models. Users worldwide who bought the older design can exchange it with the newer model, for free, until January 31th 2019.
The 4K Capture Utility 1.2 will help to identify if your card supports HDR10 passthrough, and the Update's broader changelog is reproduced below.
Whats new in 4K Capture Utility 1.2?
4K60 Pro HDR Pass-through
With the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X came a next generation display and image format, called HDR. HDR, or High Dynamic Range, allows for a game to render with more colors and a capable TV to display those colors with much higher brightness and contrast ratio, providing a more realistic, accurate and vivid image.
With this update, we’re adding HDR10 pass-through support to 4K60 Pro. Provided you have an Xbox One S, Xbox One X, PS4 or PS4 Pro and a HDR10 capable TV, you can now play in and experience HDR while capturing or streaming in SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) thanks to our built-in tonemapping.
To enable HDR pass-through, open the settings of 4K Capture Utility, go to the device tab, activate the checkbox labeled “Enable HDR pass-through” and follow the prompts. If after installing 4K Capture 1.2 you do not see the option to enable HDR pass-through, your 4K60 Pro does not feature the new HDR capable hardware. We will, free of charge, replace your existing 4K60 Pro to one that is capable of HDR pass-through.
Library
We've made some quality of life updates to make the library even better:
- Added a search field that makes it easier to find specific recordings
- Editing the game and title of a recording is now easier, directly in the library's list view
- Added a quick filter to easily find recordings made with Flashback
Hotkeys
The first step in adding more control to 4K Capture Utility, this update introduces new hotkeys.
- Ctrl + Shift + S: Capture screenshot to desktop
Flashback Recording:
- Ctrl + Shift + F: Capture last 30 seconds
- Page up/down: Move the Flashback slider plus or minus 10 seconds
- Pos1: Move slider to beginning of Flashback
- End: Move slider to Live Position
General improvements
- The installation process is much faster and won't hang while removing backup files
- Fixed a problem that rarely occurred with recordings for longer than 1 hour
- The Flashback slider will now dissappear when the preview is in fullscreen mode
- Added info screen to indicate an invalid EDID
- Fixed a crash that occurred when 4K Capture is launched and it tries to access CPU/GPU performance information
- Fixed a bug in Stream Link which caused audio to be transmitted in mono
- Stream Link will work even if the recording is not using the main GPU
- Added a tool-tip to preferences to show thew full file path for custom EDIDs
- Picture settings now properly reset to the default value if the setting was previously at minimum or maximum
Device Support
4K60 Pro
- Updated EDID for 2560x1440 to fix audio issues. This was made possible by community feedback!
- New EDID to support 3440x1440p100
- Improved device support on Intel Xeon based systems
HD60 Pro
- Driver property page is no longer empty in 3rd party software
4K60 Pro HDR Pass-through
With the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X came a next generation display and image format, called HDR. HDR, or High Dynamic Range, allows for a game to render with more colors and a capable TV to display those colors with much higher brightness and contrast ratio, providing a more realistic, accurate and vivid image.
With this update, we’re adding HDR10 pass-through support to 4K60 Pro. Provided you have an Xbox One S, Xbox One X, PS4 or PS4 Pro and a HDR10 capable TV, you can now play in and experience HDR while capturing or streaming in SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) thanks to our built-in tonemapping.
To enable HDR pass-through, open the settings of 4K Capture Utility, go to the device tab, activate the checkbox labeled “Enable HDR pass-through” and follow the prompts. If after installing 4K Capture 1.2 you do not see the option to enable HDR pass-through, your 4K60 Pro does not feature the new HDR capable hardware. We will, free of charge, replace your existing 4K60 Pro to one that is capable of HDR pass-through.
Library
We've made some quality of life updates to make the library even better:
- Added a search field that makes it easier to find specific recordings
- Editing the game and title of a recording is now easier, directly in the library's list view
- Added a quick filter to easily find recordings made with Flashback
Hotkeys
The first step in adding more control to 4K Capture Utility, this update introduces new hotkeys.
- Ctrl + Shift + S: Capture screenshot to desktop
Flashback Recording:
- Ctrl + Shift + F: Capture last 30 seconds
- Page up/down: Move the Flashback slider plus or minus 10 seconds
- Pos1: Move slider to beginning of Flashback
- End: Move slider to Live Position
General improvements
- The installation process is much faster and won't hang while removing backup files
- Fixed a problem that rarely occurred with recordings for longer than 1 hour
- The Flashback slider will now dissappear when the preview is in fullscreen mode
- Added info screen to indicate an invalid EDID
- Fixed a crash that occurred when 4K Capture is launched and it tries to access CPU/GPU performance information
- Fixed a bug in Stream Link which caused audio to be transmitted in mono
- Stream Link will work even if the recording is not using the main GPU
- Added a tool-tip to preferences to show thew full file path for custom EDIDs
- Picture settings now properly reset to the default value if the setting was previously at minimum or maximum
Device Support
4K60 Pro
- Updated EDID for 2560x1440 to fix audio issues. This was made possible by community feedback!
- New EDID to support 3440x1440p100
- Improved device support on Intel Xeon based systems
HD60 Pro
- Driver property page is no longer empty in 3rd party software
SOURCE: 1, 2
