For those who haven’t noticed, streaming is a big deal in the year 2020. You can get going with just a PC, a mic and an internet connection. However, to take it up a notch a lot of streamers use a capture card to grab gameplay footage from a console or dedicated PC. Some also use a high-end digital camera, with HDMI output, to put themselves onstream in high quality. That requires a second capture card. Now, the AVerMedia Live Gamer DUO combines the two with a single card capable of handling two inputs. On top of this, the DUO offers what we think is a first – zero latency passthrough in a card with multiple inputs.
Meet the AVerMedia Live Gamer DUO
Online retail is crawling with USB-based HDMI grabbers that are very cheap. Why, you may wonder, get a fancy capture card? Well, firstly if you’re streaming a game you want to be able to play it. Waiting for software to process the input is not going to be a good experience. With capture cards like those offered by AVerMedia you benefit from zero latency HDMI passthrough, and can still play like a pro – or at least as well as you do normally. Secondly, the really cheap USB grabbers only support up to 1080p 30fps with simple but inefficient MJPEG compression. These days, that just doesn’t cut it.
So, let’s say you’re getting a proper capture card. What about your camera? Camcorders and DSLRs are popular for streaming, because they produce much higher quality video than a simple webcam. However, that high quality generally requires an HDMI video output rather than a simple USB connection. AVerMedia’s solution is a second input on the same card. Multi-input capture cards aren’t new, but this may be the first to combine multi-input with zero latency passthrough in a single unit.
As a cherry on top, AVerMedia have included some neatly diffused RGB. This is a gaming product, after all.
Full specifications are available from the AVerMedia website.
Pricing and Availability
The AVerMedia Live Gamer DUO capture card will be available soon on Amazon UK.
