_     _             
                        _ __ | |__ | | ___   __ _ 
                       | '_ \| '_ \| |/ _ \ / _` |
                       | |_) | | | | | (_) | (_| |
                       | .__/|_| |_|_|\___/ \__, |
                       |_|    ...2017-05-16 |___/ 

Open letter to Elgato

I bought your "Game Capture HD" today, it's not the newest, or or most expensive of your devices, but it has the following features that I need: --> It can be made to work on Linux <--

Now, a guy over on github has already done the hard work of figuring out how to

talk with one of your devices, the "Elgato Game Capture HD", his driver has some rough edges, but it works well enough that I put my money on it, literally, and bought your device. Now, understand, that all the time and money you spent on that nice GUI application, it did nothing to push the sale to me, if it was not for that guy, his hard work and his software, I'd not have bought your device at all. I'd have bought one of the higher end ones, but they're not supported yet... My point is, this sale, at least this sale, is on him.

I'd like to make an argument for you supporting this project.

Grant him permission to distribute your binary firmware, or make links to just those files, so we don't need to download hundreds of megabytes just to extract them from the .msi files..

At least a mention on your driver download page, so Linux users can see that it

is in fact possible to use some of your devices.. We're not just going to switch to windows to use them, either we will buy something else, or just live without the possibility to use a capture device like the one you make..

Not doing that's almost as silly as Razer lying that their microphones doesn't

work on Linux (which they do, since they're just standard USB audio devices). Now, your capture card is not a standard USB video device, because then V4L2 would have worked (hint hint), but at least acknowledge that your hardware does actually work with Linux, and invest the tiny bit of time that it may take to help the open-source driver development, they need some assistance with making support for some of the newer devices, so go go go! :) Help this project: https://github.com/tolga9009/elgato-gchd

I shouldn't have to mention why it makes sense to invest the time to get it

working in Linux.. We're not as picky a crowd as the Windows and OSX guys when it comes to features, we don't need some fancy GUI application, we just need something fairly standard that we can then make to fit into our own setups..

It's totally okay if all we have is a FIFO file or a socket from which video can

be read, we'll make do! Just throw us (the Linux crowd) a bone, we'll catch it. I mean, think about it, the driver is almost done, support for some things could be better, give one of your engineers a google-day and let him help out, for one or two days of pay, you're essentially opening your product to a whole new market, one where your customers are generally very skilled people who won't require a fraction of the support that you're used to having to give. Do yourself a favor, and support your own devices on Linux, you won't have to even do that much, we're used to making our own stuff work, we're used to putting in the hours it take, to debug, to get stuff working.. Little effort and big profit, almost too good to be true, but that's how it is with niche markets. Just spend a bit of time to look around, people are spending their time making your stuff work, we're buying your hardware, we're paying customers who does not even expect you to support our operating systems, so hey.. Why not surprise us and involve yourselves a bit, you'll be warmly greeted. - OUT