Gary
About AVerMedia
Founded in 1990, AVerMedia is a Taiwanese company specializes in digital imaging products. The company provides innovative audio and and video peripherals for consumer and professional setting. These peripherals include webcams, capture cards, and microphones. AVerMedia is now one of the top webcam and capture card manufacturers.
With the increasing popularity of live streaming and video conferencing, webcam has now become a necessity for every system. With rising demand, manufacturers have to innovate faster and produce better quality and feature-rich webcams. The good news with increasing demand is that prices didn’t have to get higher as the quality improves. This resulted to cheaper and mid-range cameras more saturated. The AVerMedia Live Streamer CAM 313 is one of those cameras that on paper, provides quality and features that suffice the need of the majority in the market.
Specifications
| System Connection | USB 2.0 Type A |
| Image sensor | 1/2.7" CMOS sensor, 2 MP |
| Max Resolution | 1920x1080 |
| Max Frames per second | 30 fps |
| Focus Method | Fixed Focus |
| Focus Range | 40 cm - 100 cm (1.31 ft - 3.28 ft) |
| Zoom | None |
| Privacy Shutter | Yes |
| Field of view | 73 degrees |
| Microphone | Dual-mono |
| Attachment Method | Clip, 1/4”-20 tripod thread |
| Cable Length | 1.5 M (4.92 ft) |
| Dimensions | 90 x 53 x 47 mm (3.54 x 2.08 x 1.85 inch) |
| Weight | 130g ± 5 g (4.6 oz ± 0.17 oz) |
| Price | $60 |
The Webcam
The AVerMedia Live Streamer CAM 313 has a cylindrical shape with small circular design in which the holes for the 2 microphones and LED indicator light are cleverly blended with those design. The privacy shutter can only be move towards right and it will now block the other mic.
The base is clip type designed to be placed on top of the screen but it also has 0.25in tripod thread giving you the option to place it somewhere else other than on top your monitor.
The cable is a 1.5 meter USB 2.0 and it has a ferrite choke to lessen electromagnetic interference to ensure clean signal from the camera to your computer.
The camera can be rotated 360 degrees making it easier to change angle when needed.
The Software
You can use the web camera as it comes out of the box. Just plug it into the USB port and the Windows will automatically install its drivers and it will be usable in a few seconds.
The quality is a little dark even if you have two light sources (plus the monitor), so we strongly suggest installing the AVerMedia CamEngine software to tweak the quality.
Installing CamEngine
Follow the following steps to install the AVerMedia CamEngine software.
1. Go to AVerMedia Live Streamer CAM 313 product page and click the Download tab.
2. In the Download page, click the Utility (Windows) tab (or macOS if you’re on MAC), and click the arrow icon for the latest version of the software.
3.Open the file from the browser (or from the file folder) after downloading and click Yes on the User Account Control prompt.
4. The AVerMedia CamEngine will start its installation. Click the Next button from the welcome window, from the user agreement and from the Destination folder window. Click the Finish button after the installation.
5. On first use of AVerMedia CamEngine, you will be asked which scenario is best suited for you. You can select from Conference call, Live streamer, and Portrait video. We selected Live streamer as our scenario.
6. You can now use the AVerMedia CamEngine to make adjustments on the camera. Click the Video Source tab.
7.Set the Webcam Resolution to its highest value, which is 1920×1080.
8.Click on the Video tab right below the Source tab. Here you can make basic image adjustments like brightness and contrast.
9. Click the Advanced tab and you can see more adjustments like exposure and white balance.
10.Click the Beauty Filter tab and click Enable to use the filter.
11.Effects is optional, but if you want you can download the effects from the Effect tab, then enable it to use the effects.
Using the Live Streamer CAM with CamEngine
When you add the Live Streamer CAM in OBS, or in any messaging app like Messenger or Zoom, you will see five instances of Live Streamer CAM. The Live Streamer CAM 313 – the one without filters, and four AVerMedia CamEngine 4 Virtual Camera. These virtual cameras are like presets with the different adjustments you made. Select the virtual camera with the adjustments intended for its use, e.g. streaming, conferencing, or blogging.
Image Quality Tests
For our test setup, we have three lighting setups – 2 lights setup, single light setup, and the monitor only setup. The first light is placed on our left side parallel to the monitor, and the second light is the room light, place a little on our back and right side. We will compare photos and recordings to our much cheaper Hercules HD Sunset webcam. We will also compare the untouched quality of the Live Streamer CAM 313 to the one adjusted with the CamEngine software.
Two Light Sources
Click the ⓘ button to expand captions
With 2 light sources, the Live Streamer CAM is a bit dark, the colors are still great but white is not exactly white, but overall it looked fine and you can use the webcam right away.
With CamEngine, the image is brighter, but midtones are a little bit over exposed, but it can be adjusted in the CamEngine software.
With our cheap Hercules HD webcam which has a narrower field of view, the image is darker even with two light sources. Color hue is a little bit on the green.
Single Light Source
With a single light source, without the adjustments in the CamEngine software, Live Streamer CAM is darker but the colors are still good. With CamEngine, the image is brighter, but you need to be careful with adjustments as the colors and midtones get overexposed.
The Hercules HD webcam gets even darker and the colors lose its vibrancy.
Monitor Only
With monitor as our only light source, the Live Streamer CAM with CamEngine produces the most visible and color accurate image. Without CamEngine, the image is a little darker and reddish. The Hercules HD webcam produces the darkest image.
Video Test
The Live Streamer CAM, with and without CamEngine produced desirable video adequate for live streaming and video conferencing. Little movements like hands waving leaves a little blurring but not distractive enough to spoil the whole image. Meanwhile, the Hercules HD webcam, waving hands leave noticeable blurring where the blurring covers the face for a while.
With our desk gyroscope, the lack of manual focus hurts the Live Streamer CAM as it can’t keep up with the constant motion of the gyroscope producing a little blurry video, both with and without the CamEngine. The Hercules HD webcam produces visible blurriness as the result of its poor image sensor and low frames per second.
Here’s how the Live Streamer CAM 313 looks like in an actual gaming live stream.
AVerMedia CAM 313 Test Livestream
AVerMedia Lives Streamer CAM 313 Test Livestream
Posted by Gaming PC Builder on Tuesday, June 6, 2023
Mic Test
The AVerMedia mic at 100%, it picks up the noise from a desk fan but the voice is still very audible. Turning off the desk fan the audio quality improved a lot better. The AVerMedia mic is very loud that even turning off the desk fan it still captures the noise from the PC’s case fans.
Compared to a cheaper webcam, The AVerMedia is noticeably louder thanks to its dual microphones, but it is a little distorted as it clips while recording using OBS. Turning down the mic level will solve this.
Conclusion
There could be cheaper webcam but only if you are looking for a very basic webcam. With AVerMedia Live Streamer CAM 313, features like dual-mic, privacy shutter, having the ability to be mounted on a tripod and can be rotated 360 degrees, these features put the Live Streamer CAM on another level. Not to mention the additional features AVerMedia CamEngine can provide, adding flexibility to this webcam. This is definitely an upgrade from a cheap or laptop webcam. The absence of focus, either auto or manual, and noise canceling are the real downsides of this camera, but adding these features this webcam will be too good for its price.
