Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Pedro Movie photo
1 Level
772 Review
55 Karma

Review on πŸŽ₯ Elgato Cam Link 4K: High-Quality Live Broadcasting & Recording with DSLR, Camcorder or Action Cam – 1080p60 or 4K at 30 FPS. USB 3.0 Compact HDMI Capture Device by Pedro Movie

Revainrating 3 out of 5

1) Misleading advertising 2) Laptop will NOT discharge

1) Their website claims that this device can use 'pure HDMI' when paired with a Canon T7i (Canon 800D) is coupled, but that's just not the case TRUE. Or at least articulate more clearly what is required. The ONLY WAY to avoid OSD items/focus boxes on the video output is to disable the camera's auto focus. :( But who's going to do that?!? Of course, the Elgato website lists the Canon T7i as "HDMI only" compatible, but they really need to put stars on it to let people know that this includes turning it off of auto focus To do this the device is unusable for me for one single reason .And I can't disable auto focus because I work alone and film YouTube videos at home 2) There is another way (without this cam Link device to use!), to stream video from a DSLR to a computer (laptop in my case) for live streaming. on Youtube. At least for Mac it's called "Camera Live" and it's free software. You need a USB cable to connect your camera to your laptop. I then use OBS to stream the video. That works fine. EXCEPT during the live stream my laptop fan was spinning like crazy because I think this whole process is very CPU intensive. I thought maybe buying this Elgato Cam Link 4k device would somehow offload the necessary calculations to the device itself. so that my laptop doesn't spin the fan so fast during the live stream (which is also recorded in the audio). BUT. THAT'S NOT THE CASE. Yes, the Cam Link 4k device itself got quite warm/hot. but my laptop fan STILL started spinning like crazy. (And I have a fast MacBook Pro.) Soooo. moral of this story. Just use the USB cable and Camera Live software as I mentioned. In fact, you can get perfectly clean video output WITHOUT any of the Heads Up Display OSD items. and your laptop's CPU fan is still going crazy no matter what you do. No need to buy this device! save your money Also, I contacted Elgato customer service to ask for a refund and they said NO. don't wanna help me Although the list of compatible cameras on their website was misleading (in my opinion) and almost false advertising. If you have another DSLR that can offer a clean HDMI output, problem number 1 above isn't a problem for you.

Pros
  • Internal TV tuner and capture cards
Cons
  • Legacy model