The Avermedia Live Gamer HD2 is an internal video capture card to record HDMI Material (without HDCP) of a Console, Computer or Camera for example. Resolutions up to 1920×1080 with 60hz and recording at 60fps are supported. It requires a PCI Express x1 slot Gen2, but similar to other PCIe devices it can also be used on a 16x slot.
The card itself has a black PCB, a black cover with ventilation openings and a outlines gamers characteristic design. It is relatively small and there is a cover to exchange for installation in particularly small cases that have only half the height.
The card will offer two HDMI ports and two Audio ports;
- HDMI-OUT (pass-through)
- HDMI-IN
- Audio-OUT
- Audio-IN
Let’s move on to take a closer look at the components on the PCB.
The Live Gamer HD2 is a very nice looking card. PCB comes with embedded LED blue light shine through your casing.
Component:
| Host controller PCIE x 1 | EtronTech EJ168A |
| ARM Cortex -M0 Processor 50mhz | NuvoTon NUC100RE3DNARM |
| 64MB SPI Bios chip | Winbond 25064FVSIG |
| Single-port HDMI 1.4 receiver chip | ITE IT6801FN |
| HDMI transmitter chip | ITE IT66121FN |
B4 1703 and B5 1703 is an unknown chipset to us, as we know both chipsets are doing the recording encoding/decoding processes.
Avermedia has also made sure that the latency is extremely low, so there is no delay during recording. It comes with the RECentral Game Capture software that includes different options for both recording and streaming to twitch or a similar service. You can also tag your recordings or even give them a description to later find them more easily.
A screenshot and record function can upload your recordings to Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.
If you want to capture a console like the Xbox One or Playstation 4 the pass-through is interesting for you. It allows you to connect your TV to the output of the Live Gamer HD2 without the need of a further video splitter. The video signal is then of course also passed, without delay, to your TV and you can play as usual while you record it. Your recording PC has to be turned on for the Passthrough to work though.
Specifications
Interface: PCI Express x1 Gen 2
Input: HDMI*, 3.5 mm audio
Output: HDMI (pass-through), 3.5 mm audio
Maximum Capture Resolution: 1080p60
Bundled Software: RECentral 3
Compatible Software: UVC/UAC compliant software such as XSplit or OBS
Dimensions: 125 x 151 x 21.5 mm
Weight: 145 g
* LGHD2 does not support viewing/recording/streaming of HDCP protected signals