AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable Capture Card Review

Following on in the footsteps of the Live Gamer HD, AVerMedia’s Live Gamer Portable – simply put – is one fantastic bit of kit. For any gamer out there, having the facility to easily and quickly capture in-game footage is a great way to replay the action from a competition to analyse their performance or even to purely show of a skill or trick that they have found in game. Aside gamers, there is still a number of user bases that can be covered by a product like this – what is to say that you’re limited just to recording in-game footage? On the likes of YouTube, there are countless tutorial videos, but many of these are captured using software solutions, resulting in a poorer video quality. Yet again this is where a device like the Live Gamer Portable comes into play and its external solution also means that it can be connected to a laptop for on-the-go recording solutions and live broadcasting.

Using the RECentral and XSplit software is dead simple and there are countless tutorials about the guide users through the different aspects of the unit, both on the software front and for connecting different types of console and media device. As I highlighted when I looked at the Live Gamer HD, high quality videos don’t require expert knowledge in video production these days and its thanks to products like this that make the process that much easier in quicker.

If I was to put down one thing that I would like to see in the box, then that would be a USB mains adaptor, they’re dead cheap these days and if using the unit in standalone mode, it cannot always be guaranteed that the source device will also have a USB port to supply power. Additional to what I’ve seen here, an idea for a v2 release could be to include a USB port on the side of the unit to connect in a portable hard drive or high capacity flash drive for extended recording time and / or include 1080p recording support when in standalone mode.

As you can probably guess, I think this is one fantastic bit of kit and within the unit itself I can’t really fault it, whilst it would be nice to have full 1080p recording in standalone mode, for around €179 / £150 you are getting a whole lot for your money. Whilst it may seem expensive, you have to consider that there is whole heap of tech in that pocket sized box and it saves the need for trawling about a whole separate rig just to be able to record some footage. There’s not concrete date set for release in the UK and EU however AVerMedia have hinted that it is to be very soon.

Bottom line, the Live Gamer Portable is one innovative kit and a must buy for any avid gamer that wants to capture and rekindle that game winning kill or overtake – its the right choice for any gamer.