AVerMedia has released a new capture card in the “Cam Link” market and it… beats out just about every competing device, and is cheaper! $99 gets you a low-latency cam link alternative that also supports high refresh rates and HDR!
PRODUCT LINK (Amazon Paid Link): https://geni.us/kZrjKLc
Physical Overview
This new capture card is in the typical “Cam Link” style form factor – which means no passthrough, just a HDMI input and USB output. USB 3.2 Gen 1 at 5gbps is used here. The shell is plastic but doesn’t get too hot. A status LED indicator sits in the middle.
Specs
Live Streamer CAP 4K supports up to 4K 60hz, up to 1440p 144hz and 1080p 60hz inputs. You can only capture in 4K 30FPS or 1080p 60FPS, however. HDR input is supported and it’s automatically tonemapped to SDR.
This makes the CAP 4K not only great for using with your camcorder, mirrorless or DSLR camera for video conferencing or a facecam for streaming – but also great for gameplay if you have an appropriate HDMI splitter to pair with it.
Latency
This capture card features an absurdly low preview latency in OBS Studio. It comes in at 40ms – the second-fastest capture card I’ve reviewed. This means it will be super easy to sync up your audio and video without many issues.
| Capture Card | Preview Latency (OBS) |
|---|---|
| Black 4K USB 3.0 HDMI Video Capture Card (Lattice) | 128 |
| EasyCrap "USB 3" Dongle #1 | 126 |
| Genki Shadowcast | 115 |
| Narvitech U2 HD60 Pro | 100 |
| Bird Dog NDI Flex 4K IN | 85 |
| AVerMedia Live Gamer Mini (GC311) | 82 |
| KAPCHR (TC-UB570) | 82 |
| ATEN CamLive+ | 80 |
| EVGA XR1 Lite | 78 |
| AGPTek VG0061 EZCap U3 | 77 |
| Black USB 3 4K HDMI Capture LT | 76 |
| ClonerAlliance Flint 4KP Plus | 75 |
| Silver "USB 3.0 HD Capture" w/ Power LT | 75 |
| Magewell USB Capture HDMI 4K Plus | 73 |
| ClonerAlliance Flint 4KP | 71 |
| Elgato 4K60 Pro | 71 |
| Riiai YK752 | 69 |
| EVGA XR1 | 68 |
| Razer Ripsaw HD | 67 |
| Razer Ripsaw | 65 |
| Mokose U70S | 64 |
| ASUS TUF CU4K30 | 64 |
| AVerMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 (GC551) | 63 |
| Elgato Cam Link 4K | 63 |
| AVerMedia ExtremeCap UVC | 61 |
| Magewell XI100DUSB-HDMI | 61 |
| Elgato HD60 S+ | 61 |
| Bird Dog Studio NDI | 60 |
| Elgato 4K60 Pro MkII | 58 |
| BlackMagic Decklink Mini Recorder 4k | 57 |
| Elgato HD60 S | 57 |
| AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra (GC553) | 55 |
| Elgato HD60 Pro | 51 |
| Elgato Cam Link (Gen 1) | 51 |
| EZCap GameLite RAW (ezcap321) | 50 |
| Digitnow U601 | 50 |
| Pengo 4K HDMI Grabber | 49 |
| Magewell 4K Pro Capture HDMI Plus LT | 48 |
| BlueAVS/GOODAN/Generic HDMI to USB 2.0 | 48 |
| AVerMedia Live Gamer Duo (1) | 43 |
| AVerMedia Live Gamer Duo (2) | 42 |
| AVerMedia Live Streamer CAP 4K | 40 |
| AVerMedia Live Gamer 4k (GC573) | 36 |
UVC
Mac and Linux are both supported as this is a UVC capture card. I was able to get Linux capture working flawlessly, but I did run into some struggles in Mac OS with my M1 Mac Mini.
This also means it’s plug and play on Windows and works with video calling apps such as Skype, Discord, Zoom, etc. by showing up as a webcam.
Retro Captures
This capture card excels at retro gaming captures, but it’s not perfect. RetroTINK 5X works up to 1200p, but 1440p 6X does not work. 480p from the 5X and the RetroTINK 2X work fine. OSSC 2X through 5X work fine, as well!
CamEngine
This capture card gets access to AVerMedia’s CamEngine software and its AI face tracking, ePTZ and face mask overlay features. This is a neat gimmick, but I don’t find it very usable – at 4K30, the face tracking for masks is super laggy and does not keep up with my face and the ePTZ zooming pulses really obnoxiously. All this while using up a significant usage on my RTX Titan. Nvidia Broadcast is definitely the better choice here.
PRODUCT LINK (Amazon Paid Link): https://geni.us/kZrjKLc
