Avermedia live gamer mini gc311 review in Spanish (full review)

As its name suggests, with the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311, the company has launched one of the smallest external video capture machines that can be found on the market. Avermedia continues to put all the meat on the grill for its segment of capture machines. This time around, the MINI model, which is designed to be taken and captured anywhere we go, is capable of recording up to 1080p and 60 FPS, and transmitting directly via streaming thanks to the UVC protocol. A quality more than enough for what is expected of it, and which we will test in this review.

Technical characteristics

Unboxing

As is characteristic of the brand, the front of the box shows an overview of the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311, while the back lists some of its main features in multiple languages. Specifications can be found on the right side of the package.

Inside the outer packaging, we find another one in black with the Avermedia logo. Inside we find a cardboard insert in which the capturer is well contained and protected, when removing this insert we find a USB to microUSB cable, a quick guide and a coupon to extend the warranty.

Design

Although in these types of products, the exterior is not the most important thing, the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 has a modern design in rigid plastic that bets on both the mixture of curved and straight lines and the conjunction of piano black colors, as a base and side color, and a matt gray tone for the bottom and top. This upper area is subdivided into an upper part in which the logo and model of the grabber are screen-printed, while the lower part shows a simple design based on perpendicular lines that gives the ensemble a little more chic. In the space between these two zones is where a bright LED is displayed , which is responsible for giving us different indications depending on the color and flashing shown: Solid blue if it is ready to work, blue flashing while preparing to start and if the flashing is slower, indicates that you are in streaming mode. The red color indicates in fixed mode that there is no disk space, if it blinks quickly there is little space left and if the blink is slower it means that it is in recording mode.

Of the four lateral edges, only the upper one has connection ports. In it we find a port for microUSB type B, a hole only intended for troubleshooting, an HDMI input port and another HDMI output port. Just enough.

The bottom of the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 stands out for its four non-slip rubber feet that will prevent it from moving excessively when placing it on the table, something that is appreciated since many of the cables, especially some rigid type HDMI, They pull quite a bit out of the smaller devices.

Finally, and as we mentioned in the introduction, the highlight of this Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 is its size content, just 98 x 57 x 18 mm and a light weight of 74.5 grams. A capturer that really fits in any pocket and is easily transportable in any backpack, where the cables necessary to connect it will certainly take up more space.

software

To get the most out of the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 and as we are used to, the application designed and recommended by the company is RECentral in its version 4, incorporating a multitude of functions and options for both the recording and transmission of our games. This version is only available for Windows, for Mac users it is necessary to download RECentral Express.

The program is subdivided into three distinct sections: Capture / Stream, Media Sharing and Settings. The main Capture and Transmit section, which is the one that interests us the most, is subdivided in turn into three capture modes: Offline recording, Transmission to an online video platform or Transmission to multiple online video platforms.

In any of the aforementioned capture modes, we will have the option of: capturing only the clean image of the video game or, adding PiP elements of image on image, such as webcams, images, etc. We will also have the option of saving different scenes to use them on another occasion without having to repeat the entire process.

In the lower area we can choose and save various profiles in which to modify the recording quality, the video category, the video platform we do transmit and whether or not we want to make a backup of the transmission since what quality; Finally, we have the option of adding a completion image at the end of each transmission. Again, being able to save different profiles saves us time in future captures.

RECentral 4 offers some additional options such as allowing you to choose the audio input and output device you want and modify the volume of each of them. It also has, together with the start recording or transmission button, a small lower button to capture frame shots, in the case of recording mode, there is also an additional button to edit the live recording and save time with a later edition.

At all times and depending on the chosen storage disk, we can view the recording time that is available to us depending on the remaining storage. It is also appreciated the inclusion of various buttons next to the basic ones in the upper right corner, such as the always on display mode or the basic mode that hides all the panels.

performance

After testing some previous models, we thought that perhaps this new Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 would suffer from some of the same problems with having USB 2.0 technology instead of the latest and fastest version 3.0. However, after our tests, all our doubts have been cleared and we can say without fear that the recording and transmission of content at 1080p and 60 fps has been carried out in a robust and stable way. In this way, this tiny capturer offers what is expected of it by demanding the highest quality supported, without a doubt. It is true that not everything is quality, and input lag is another important aspect to consider, in this case we find a minimum delay, which is almost not noticeable and does not prevent playing from the same monitor. Keep in mind that sometimes with high load and maximum recording quality, there may be some slowdown.

The tests of transmission of content to video pages while in turn saving the video with the highest quality on our PC were as smooth as possible, we did not have many problems except for a small occasional jerk.

Please note that the recommended requirements for the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 are not very high. Intel i5-3330 or higher and NVIDIA GTX 650 / AMD Radeon R7 250 x7 or higher required plus 4GB of RAM (8GB is optimal). On laptops, an Intel i7-4810MQ or higher and an NVIDIA 870M or higher are required.

These requirements are understandable because the hardware encoding of the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 reduces CPU consumption. In an i5 processor from a few years ago, consumption remains at around 33%, which is appreciated and shows that we do not need a state-of-the-art equipment, at least as far as CPU is concerned, since As specified, it is necessary to have a minimum GPU, it does not work with any dedicated graphics. And is that sometimes the grabber pulls GPU to do its job, hence that requirement.

Conclusion and final words of the Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311

The Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 with its small size is the perfect solution for those who want to take it anywhere or for those who want to start in the world and start with an affordable product. Like the little perfumes, this external capturer saves much more than it seems and in the end it ends up offering what is asked of it: to record and stream in FullHD at 60 fps, and it complies, in addition to having a low latency when transmitting the image. On the other hand, it does not require a powerful computer at all, but you have to be careful before buying it and make sure that the recommended requirements are met or there may be surprises, especially in the aspect of the GPU.

All this is supported in the RECentral 4 program with a multitude of additional functions and settings, to cover almost all the necessary aspects.

It can be attributed to the little one, which does not include a Type C connector, USB 3.0 or that does not allow 4K transmission but you cannot order everything for its low price, for this there is already the Avermedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus that complies with the 4K thing. Or if we want to go a step further with USB 3.0 and 4K we can get the interesting AVERMEDIA LIVE GAMER EXTREME 2.

The Avermedia Live Gamer MINI GC311 can be found now on sale for a recommended price of € 120.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ 1080p at 60 fps stable.	- Does not include Type C or 3.0 connector.
+ Low latency when transmitting the image.	- Does not transmit at 4K.
+ Competitive price.