By Chad Shreeves
Shall I Stream It is viewer-supported and provides honest reviews. To support this work, some links feature partners where commission is earned for purchases. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. ClonerAlliance provided us with the video recorder, free of charge, for this review.
With modern content creation, everyone is looking for the fastest, most efficient, and highest quality captures for their video and gaming content. ClonerAlliance’s 4K UHD playback clone device is designed to do just that: capture video from your TV for importing to your favorite editing or streaming software. While it’s a decent kit to begin with, I did notice a few major drawbacks during my time with the device.
For the purposes of review, I tested the device on the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch video game consoles.
On the positive side, once the device is fully hooked up to the TV, it’s very user friendly. With just a couple button taps, I was saving screenshots, video, and even able to go back and preview what I had just saved. The ability to preview recorded video directly on my TV was a great plus. It helped me alleviate any potential issues I would have when transferring over to the computer.
Video quality was also a standout (for the most part, more on that in a second). I was easily able to switch recording settings including targeted frame rate and resolution. Keeping it on 1080p and 4K for my Switch and PS5 respectively, I was able to get high quality video and audio through it.
The included remote was also a plus. The buttons are big enough to prevent any accidental presses and are very responsive. This definitely helped for the purposes I wanted to use it for. For those that prefer it, there are a few buttons on the device to start and stop recording. There’s also an LED light that is bright enough to see from my couch so I can monitor recording status easily.
While I didn’t test these features out, there are also audio jacks for live recording audio commentary as well. With a good headset or microphone that could be great for content.
But there were a few drawbacks I found. The first off was the setup. With no less than three different cords required, I ran into having to reconfigure HDMI cables a few different times before I got the device to be fully operable. There is also the added option of also connecting to a secondary device such as a computer for streaming purposes, but given the standard complexity of hooking up I opted to just record. For more tech-savvy people out there this may be easier, but I found the setup and the included instructions harder than necessary.
My second biggest drawback was relatively minor, but I still wish there had been some internal storage. The device does require a separate flash drive or USB-powered hard drive to store data. I know most of us had drawers filled with flash drives by now, but still, it came off a little off to me to require additional hardware just to be usable.
And third, there was a small hiccup I found when I began to edit recorded video. Every few minutes I noticed there would be a small frame skip or some static jumps in the footage. I did not notice this in the on-screen preview on my TV, however, so I wonder if it’s a problem with the video encoding and editing software.
Overall, this device is very good for starter content creators. It may not have all the bells and whistles that professional cloners designed for live streaming are, but for those wishing to record content for their own Let’s Plays, commentaries, and other videos, this device should do the trick.
