Prior to April Fools 2019, AVerMedia was teasing a new announcement. I figured it could have been regarding a new recording device, or a clever ruse to get people excited for whatever cruel joke they had planned for April 1st. Instead, it actually looks like the new announcement is actually legit and AVerMedia has announced the Live Gamer MINI (GC311).
Nope, totally wasn’t a joke. Good one, AVerMedia.
Yet another capture device in AVerMedia’s arsenal, however, this time around this device is bite-sized. It’s really small and can fit in the palm of your hand. Not to mention that unlike some other newer capture devices, this one will include an onboard encoder (H.264) which will take the strain away from your CPU/processor. Which is great for higher bit-rate recordings or streams. In order to use the onboard encoding, you’ll need to use AVerMedia’s RECentral software. That doesn’t mean you can’t use your favorites such as OBS or XSPlit, but you will miss out on the hardware encoding.
Unlike the recent AVerMedia 4K recording and passthrough devices, the Live Mini Gamer is being positioned to those who stick to a 1080p resolution. The device only supports 1080p 60fps (and below) and does not include 4K passthrough. Surprising, this is still a USB 2.0 device, so those who don’t have USB 3.0+ on their machines are still able to use this.
Full specs below:
- Interface: USB 2.0 (USB Micro)
- Video Input: HDMI
- Video Output (Pass-Through): HDMI
- Audio Input: HDMI
- Audio Output (Pass-Through): HDMI
- Max Pass-Through Resolution: 1080p60
- Max Record Resolutions: 1080p60
- Supported Resolutions (Video input): 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576p, 480p, 480i
- Recording Format: MPEG 4 (H.264+AAC) / Supports hardware encoding
- Dimension (W x D x H): 100 x 57 x 18.8 mm (3.93 x 2.24 x 0.74in)
- Weight: 74.5 g (2.63oz)
System Requirements (for a dedicated streaming PC)
- Operating Sytem: Windows 10 (to support UVC Protocol for driverless usage)
- Processor: Desktop – Intel i5-3330; Laptop – Intel Core i7-4810MQ
- Video: Desktop – NVIDIA GTX 650/AMD Radeon R7 250X; Laptop – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M
- RAM: 4GB (8GB recommended)
The Live Mini Gamer is currently available for sale now, priced at $129.99 and can be picked up at Best Buy. We’ll be picking up one and putting it through its paces as soon as it gets here.
So I suppose, happy not April Fools to us all!
