AVerTV CaptureHD H727 late review

[wwenze]

Yup, it's a card from the previous decade. But in 2017 HDMI capture devices are still expensive - The China boxes start from SGD$80 plus after shipping, and I have serious doubts about their capabilities with USB 2.0 and using memory cards / thumbdrives to record. (Well you'll see the amount of hardware / storage you'll need properly capture *good* quality footage later.) If you buy the more serious products, be it from China or real brands available internationally, you'll be well into 3-digit price points. Another option is Chinese PCI-E capture cards, which start from SGD$60+ after shipping, but driver and software supported is always a risk. (Not that the AVer is any better...)

China capture cards

AVerTV CaptureHD H727

"Look ma, no more graphics card"

This is why I would have preferred a USB solution, but beggars can't be choosers.

Quick look around found 2 review webpages and a slew of user experiences, overall impression is mixed - It is a cheap card, but hard to use out of the box and capabilities are limited. Ironically, it takes today's hardware to actually allow the card to be used properly.

I will be focusing mainly on HDMI input. Because it is 2017, who actually watches broadcasted TV?

Out-of-the-box installation and setup
So you install the drivers and software downloaded from the website. One review says that the software looks like it is from the year 1999. However Leadtek WinFast TV2000 already exists in 1999 and it looks nicer, I think Hauppauge and even generic BT848 cards also look better.

If anything, it looks more like the trash interfaces that you get from China media players and "gaming consoles"

Luckily you don't need to see these buttons when you're watching the stream. But even then the software has many nuances that make it feel unwieldy.

By default the software encodes in MPEG-2, which is quite dated by today's standards, but it provides usable quality on slower computers if you max the bitrate to 40000kbps; even then it still results in noticeable edge noise although less macroblocking than some H.264 settings. Though you might as well use H.264 @ 40000kbps as you would via ShadowPlay or similar.

H.264 maximum bitrate is 18000kbps and you can only choose up to Main profile; High is not available. The hardware encoder works only up to VCD resolution, so you'll be relying on the CPU for HD, and it is not fast:

Now you know why this thing wouldn't have worked with an "Intel Core2 Duo 2.4GHz or equivalent"

You can also record in AVI format, which by right should allow other (VFW?) codecs to be used. But AVer MediaCenter does not recognize the x264vfw or Huffyuv installed on my system, only Xvid shows up as selectable. Which is a bad choice since today's H.264 encoders are faster than Xvid. You can also choose to record uncompressed, but you run into disk bandwidth issues. (100MB/s @ 720p)

 

[wwenze]

OBS or any other capture/broadcast software can be used instead, opening up more encoding choices.
The HDMI input appears as "AverMedia BDA Analog Capture Secondary", as SVideo in the Crossbar settings.

Now, since OBS is used, what is mentioned from this point onward pretty much applies to most hardware and software / encoders. Is pretty much me trying to find the optimal setting, which varies between people.

720p vs 1080i
Since this card, as well as other cards at this technology level, do not support 1080p, 720p is the better choice here - various articles/videos on the internet explaining why. But for me, I want to capture at 60p, and the drop from 1080 -> 720 is a small concern for the much smoother pictures, and is also much easier to encode due to no combing effect.

Encoding settings comparison

Huffyuv - 259 Mbps- http://i.imgur.com/GS1v2KR.png
OBS x264 "Type: Standard" CRF 30 - 12.5 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/xaYEZw3.png
OBS x264 "Type: Standard" CRF 28 - 16.8 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/SaUQ0EC.png
Huffyuv to Handbrake RF 18 - 10.0 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/yWq3Xwl.png
OBS Quick Sync CBR 20000kbps - 20.0 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/zanpkCT.png
OBS Quick Sync CBR 50000kbps - 50.0 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/E2o0Va7.png
AVer MediaCenter H.264 18000kbps - 17.7 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/Q7oEfk3.png
AVer MediaCenter MPEG-2 40000kbps - 41.0 Mbps - http://i.imgur.com/rZqHP33.png

I didn't go for apple-to-apple comparison, instead I threw some typical settings.
Quick Sync still loses to x264. But if you don't have a quad core or if you want reliable processing power, and/or you just need a temp file for reencoding, just use Quick Sync with a high bitrate.
I feel that NVENC might do better than Quick Sync, but "Look ma, no more graphics card".
AVer MediaCenter H.264 is clearly inferior to the other H.264 implementations here. I also included MPEG-2 if you need to use it for some reason. But really, please don't use AVer MediaCenter if you care about encoding quality.

Verdict
Pros:
- Cheap, I guess.
- Works well once you know how to get it to work. I didn't encounter any performance issues or things I feel inadequate that can't be fixed. Occasionally I lose sound in OBS but I think that is more a software glitch.

Cons:
- AVer MediaCenter is useless: Ugly interface, poor encoder performance, lack of support for external codecs

 

[wwenze]

EasyCAP USB capture dongle review

Look what decided to arrive after it was made redundant.

Let's investigate whether it is a cheaper-faster-better or pay-peanuts-get-monkeys.

More info on the EasyCAP here:
https://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/Easycap

The one I received is a USBTV007

For comparison, I'll also be testing the composite in of AVerTV CaptureHD H727.

AVerTV CaptureHD H727
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3czY9nM_Zqg

The result with AVerTv CaptureHD H727 composite in is actually fairly watchable. Yadif 2x deinterlacing gives it 60fps smoothness, and the picture is clean enough for 360p.
http://i.imgur.com/3SlKFOu.png

EasyCAP USBTV007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngvAYPb45pY

Now this is reminding me of the TVs of my childhood. Wrong color, color bleeding, haloing. And most importantly, the hardware/driver only provides 29.97fps output instead of 59.94Hz - meaning it is forcefully doing deinterlacing (or none at all), meaning I cannot do any further deinterlacing. Meaning the output is going to suck. Not-as-smooth motion and combing.

http://i.imgur.com/IsuJT5z.png
I couldn't even get the same frame for comparison due to the interlacing.

Oh and the sound seems to be distorted.

Verdict
A common outcome of reviews of this kind of devices (dirt cheap and no alternatives at this price point) is that it works and hence it is value for money. But to me, this image quality cannot be considered as "working" and hence it is horrid for money, unless your requirement is just to display something. The AVerTV CaptureHD H727 shows what can be achieved with composite, so there is no need to settle for the VCD quality of EasyCAP that makes me not want to look at it even for casual usage.

 

[wwenze]

Input lag is around 50ms at its lowest

How bad is 50ms? Well you have to add that to the monitor's which for my Philips 239C is 20ms. You can't play rhythm games at all. Forget DJ Max, your ass gets cleaned even in Hatsune Miku. I pity the fools who buy 4k TVs with >70ms kind of lag, but I guess you don't need much responsiveness to play console games anyway.