Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: AverMedia, Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus
Doing It In 4K With Our Review Of The AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus
Getting quality streaming equipment can be a pain, especially if you're looking to do it in 4K and have some of the best looking visuals and audio on Twitch or YouTube. AVerMedia recognized the importance of this and made a great effort to make sure what you were working with could help you out and be easy to work with. A couple weeks ago they shipped us the Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus, which is essentially a plug-and-play streaming capture box designed for 4K playability. This unit itself is pretty simple as the box is self-contained with three cords: one for power, one HDMI gold plated, and one 4Pole 35 mm audio cord. When you plug it into your computer, you can download free software from the company for broadcasting and capturing purposes.
Speaking to the unit's versatility, you have the ability to stream pretty well with no flaws or downtime. There are a few issues you may have setting it up if you're using their software, but it works well with OBS and doesn't have any of the lingering issues of connectivity or incompatibility without updates that you may come across with other capture systems. The real magic comes when you give it time to get used to what you're doing. The best suggestion I can give is to put up a slate at the start of your stream to give the appearance of a video running so that it gets used to working with the software right out the gate, then go straight into video and you should have no issues.
The best part, in my opinion, is the ability to add a capture card to the back, or if you have the right cord, a capture wise that you can plug directly into a massive hard drive to store the footage automatically. This will save you a ton of time on transfers, but will also capture the audio and video right the first time. (But, of course, always do tests!) That's all there really is to this particular product, but I could see myself rigging it up to a camera and shooting footage with it to see how that turns out. I didn't have the chance this time around, but I look forward to trying. I highly recommend it if you're looking for 4K quality and are also looking to simplify your desktop options for streaming.