AVerMedia HD DVR C027 (H727) Capture Card Review

Please note that the C027 is exactly the same as the European model (H727) but that has an aerial attachment for TV. If you are interested in the H727E model then read the update at the end.

AVerMedia C027 - Image courtesy of Amazon.com

This offering from AVerMedia can be considered good and why shouldn't it be? It offers a connection input for just about anything you could ask for; Composite, S-Video, Component and HDMI. Couple that with DirectShow drivers (fully AmaRecTV, XSplit and OBS compatible) and support for the YUV 4:2:2 (YUY2) color space and you have everything you need... right?

Well to put it simply, no. Although on the surface it seems good, once you actually compare it to other devices you begin to notice the weaknesses this capture card has. I am personally very picky on video capture quality so I will explain what you should consider before purchasing this.

Composite: Don't get me wrong, nearly all composite capture cards will look bad but this one is strange. When I previewed the intro to Zelda: A Link to the Past on SNES, I couldn't help but notice the water was not properly being displayed. I compared it to other composite capture cards such as the Dazzle DVC 100 and EzCAP. Both of these capture cards were able to show the water properly so I can only blame the Aver card. The inclusion of a 3D comb filter would have helped massively for composite sources but this is nearly always neglected on capture cards of this price.

S-Video: Moving up the quality standard does help but it brings me onto the next point. The Aver is able to record from retro consoles (240p) such as the NES, SNES and Genesis. One issue of retro consoles is that they do not output a proper frame rate. This leads the Aver to briefly jump up and down about two pixels every so often. It's not a big issue but again other devices such as the Dazzle and EzCAP do not show this. This is one thing to consider if you are primarily looking at retro game capturing.

Component: On the surface the component capture seems good. However, when I compared it to other component devices I know to be accurate (such as the Blackmagic or Micomsoft products) you can tell the capture is just too dark. You can fix this in post processing (or even by tweaking the driver) but I do not believe in that sort of stuff. The capture card should be able to handle everything on default settings.

HDMI: The original H727 model (with capacitors) only accepts 16-235 (Limited range) input. The H727E model was changed to accept 0-255 (Full range) input. It looks great, just like any other HDMI capture card.

The last disadvantage to discuss is the lack of a video pass through to play lag less on a monitor (as the preview window has noticeable lag). This means you will have to invest in splitters or distribution amplifiers. There are very few capture cards that actually offer a pass through feature so it can't really be a big reason for not buying this capture card. What is a good reason for buying this capture card is that it supports 480p over Component which more expensive cards like the Blackmagic Intensity Pro do not. This is very useful if you are capturing video from a Nintendo Wii.

I know I just spent pretty much all of the review criticizing this device but I do have really high standards for video capture quality. If you are just looking for a relatively inexpensive capture card and don't mind not having reference quality video, this card will do just fine and you should buy it.

Update: While doing more research I actually discovered that in early 2013, AVerMedia changed the PCB of the H727 to a "Version. E" (which is called H727E). This new model is easily identified as it has no capacitors on the PCB and the grey FM tuner chip size has been reduced significantly.

I discovered that the Component capture is very dark but also has some severe colour bleeding that is not present in the older model. I contacted AVerMedia about this and in May 2014 they recognized the problem and will release a new driver to fix Component capture. I keep a look out for new drivers every few days and I'll update this if a driver comes out to fix it.

Update 2: AVerMedia allowed me to preview some beta drivers to see if the problem was fixed. I am sad to say that the attempt was very bad. As of November 2014, no new drivers have surfaced. There exists so much better alternatives that I would only buy this capture card if you only needed HDMI capture ability.