A 100% free, no-frills, incredibly performant video capture viewer for Windows with no analytics or snooping.
Consolation is available on the Microsoft Store. We do not provide releases on GitHub due to the cost-prohibitive nature of code signing certs. If you do not use the Microsoft Store, clone the project and build with Visual Studio.
Consolation is a free app that enables your Windows computer to be used as a display for devices like gaming consoles, Raspberry Pis, and even a Mac mini or other PC, via a standard USB Video Class (UVC) video capture card.
The app is intentionally simple: watch the live video on your computer. No recording or saving, no streaming to the internet. Just plug and play, privately with no ads or tracking. Consolation will never make an outbound network request or listen for inbound network connections.
Consolation does not collect, send, or share your data. Audio and video stay local and transient while you are watching a connected capture device. The app is open source, contains no trackers or analytics, makes no network calls, and does not record, stream, save, or analyze audio or video. Consolation has no idea what content is coming through your capture card's feed, and nothing leaves your device, ever.
Read the full privacy policy at PRIVACY.md or https://centennialoss.org/privacy/.
Any capture device that appears to Windows as a USB Video Class (UVC) capture device should work with Consolation.
Consolation has been tested by the developers on a Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra (SM-X900) with these capture devices:
- Elgato HD60 X - 👌 🚀
- Acer USB 3.0 Video Capture Card (model OCB5B0) - 👌 🚀
- WANKEDA 4K Capture Card 1080p 60FPS for Streaming (1da603d4) - 👌 🚀
- blueAVS 4K Capture Card (A3-B) - 👌 🚀
- Guermok Video Capture Card (GM-29A) - 👌 🚀
- PERESAL USB 3.0 Video Capture Card with PD 100W - 👌 🚀
- UGREEN Full HD 1080p Capture Card (model 40189) -
⚠️ max 30p @ 1920x1080
- Windows 10 or 11 machine (Intel or ARM) with a USB port
- A UVC-compliant video capture card
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2026 (18.x) or higher
- Open the
Consolationdirectory in Visual Studio - Build and run.
You can make a debug build with make build and a release build with make build-release.
Humans write this software with AI assistance. All contributions are well-tested and merged only after being reviewed and approved by humans who fully understand and take responsibility for the contribution.
While we welcome pull requests and other contributions from other humans, including AI-generated code, we do not accept contributions from AI bots. A human must review, understand, and sign off on all commits. All contributors must be able to defend their contributions under reasonable technical scrutiny. Please file an issue to discuss any proposed feature before working on it.
Consolation and its logo are trademarks of Centennial OSS Inc. Use of the name and branding is not permitted for modified versions or forks without permission. See TRADEMARKS.md for details.