AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable Capture Device Review

Using the Live Gamer Portable

The physical installation of the Live Gamer Portable in PC mode is simple. Just connect the device to your computer using the provided USB cable, and connect the video input from your console using either the HDMI cable, video component cable, or the PS3 cable.

After connecting the AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable to a computer and installing the driver and the capture software (you have to download it, since the device does not come with a CD), you can run the RECentral, which is very simple to use. There are four options at the main menu on the left: bulletin (for news about the product), capture (to capture video), stream (for streaming live video over the web), and video folder (simply opens an explorer window for your video folder).

Figure 9: capture software main view

In the capture menu, you can choose between 1-click capture, use a wizard for simple settings, or an advanced settings menu, shown in Figure 10. Even at this menu, there are few options, which makes all the video capturing process very simple. First, choose which device you want to capture: a game console, a second PC, or the current PC you are using (you have to use an HDMI cable in this case).

You can choose the video format (TS or MP4, the video codec is always H.264), resolution, frame rate, video bitrate, and audio bitrate. You can also choose the video and audio sources. One of the great features of the product is that you can mix the audio of the source you are capturing with a local microphone.

Figure 10: advanced settings

There is also a live stream mode, which is similar to the capture mode, but it needs you to configure your account at some online streaming service such as YouTube Live, Justin.TV, UStream, niconico, or a custom one.

But what makes the Gamer Portable Live different from other products is the PC-Free mode. Inserting an SD card into the device, you can capture the audio and video from a game console (or PC) directly to the memory card, with absolutely no hassle. This is what turns the product really “portable.” In this mode, the device is powered up by the USB cable, which can be connected to the console you are recording from, or by a regular USB power adapter (not included).

Our only disappointment with the PC-Free mode is that it does not support mixing a local microphone audio with the captured video and audio. If you want to live comment your video, you will have to use the device connected to a PC.

The Gamer Portable Live comes with a very simple program that allows you to configure the PC-Free capture parameters (actually, only resolution and bitrate), shown in Figure 11. The file format in PC-Free mode is always .ts.

Figure 11: PC-free settings