AverMedia Live Recording

Are you looking to record video footage from the TV or maybe an online iPlayer? This can be a tricky process and getting footage is obviously the first step to analysis. Not surprisingly TV companies want/need to protect their content, however in this instance because most of you just want to use the video for some in-house analysis I don’t see the harm in bending the copyright rules.

There are loads of devices out their that will do this. Maybe you know of a better way but over the last few days I have been testing the AverMedia Live Gamer Portal. The device costs just £89 + delivery, which is not expensive for what you get.

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The Pro’s

  • It’s powered off USB. Infinitely easier than a device with it’s own power source.
  • Really easy to set-up. It only took me about 5 minutes to get the whole thing working with the settings I needed.
  • You can record straight into your laptop or you can record onto an SD card (not included) on the device. (I love this feature).
  • It comes with the cables you need. Nothing worse than buying something only to realise you then have to go back to the shop and spend another £20 on cables. This comes with a USB cable and (a very very short) HDMI cable, but certainly enough to get you up and running.
  • You can record in Full-HD in MP4 format.
  • My favourite feature with this device is that it will take the HDMI out from your computer and record whatever is on your computer screen. This means for games that you can only get online or through a player it makes downloading them possible.

The Con’s

  • The format of the videos straight to SD card is .ts – They do have a free utility you can download that will convert this post recording but it would be better if it recorded in MP4 format.
  • It can’t really be used for live tagging (except for NAC, that I know of). As in I couldn’t get either Dartfish or Gamebreaker software to pick up the live stream from the device. However that aside and presuming you are not using it in a live environment (for that I use the Blackmagic Pro Recorder) this is a brilliant bit of kit.
Record in PC mode or SC card mode.
Record in PC mode or SC card mode.

Overall

Overall I highly recommend the AverMedia device. It was cheap, easy to set-up, records from a variety of sources, comes with all the cables you need and can record your computer screen make this a 10/10 device for me. Even the two con’s I have picked are very minor downsides.

Remember if you are recording from an encrypted device i.e Sky Box you will need to remove the encryption first. I have found this HDMI splitter to be an essential bit of kit.

hd-view-sky

thevideoanalyst

thevideoanalyst

Rob Carroll. Founder of The Video Analyst.com Performance Analyst. Always learning.