Question / Help 24/7 Live Streaming Cam - Data usage / settings - Comcast Caps

[BigFatHonu]

Hello - I realize most people here are using OBS for video game streaming but I have a different purpose and am hoping some experts will still be able to answer my questions.

I'm setting up a 24/7 Live Stream of a Eagles Nest. So far my system looks like this -

Panasonic HDC-SD60 Camcorder (35x zoom to see the nest) > mini hdmi to hdmi cable > Elgato HD60 Pro > Lenovo M91P

Lenovo M91P -

i5 - 2400 3.1GHz
8GB Ram
GeForce GTX 620
Windows 7 Pro

This is a dedicated system that will not be used for anything else other than running the stream.

My questions relate to bandwidth and my home Comcast data usage. I know Comcast has capped data usage at 1TB per month so I want to make sure I don't come near to using that much with a 24 hour stream (or daily 8am-5pm stream).

I was testing with YouTube as their stream could easily be embedded to wordpress websites.

# 1 - If I stream at 640 x 480 (480p) with a bitrate of 1275 to 1500 for 24 hours a day / 30 days a month what would be the total GB usage per month?

And what would be the usage with the same settings at 720p?

# 2 - Is there a way to have my OBS stream automatically turn on each day at 8am and shut off at 6pm and then repeat each day? Would Youtube support this stopping and starting?

If my stream is off - is there any way for YouTube to display a message "Camera Hours 8am-6pm?

# 3 - Is there a better service than YouTube for a 24/7 type broadcast that may have off/on options?

Thank you for your help - I know these questions are a little out of the norm but I'm trying to figure out the best way to set this up so I don't get the cable company freaking out on me. I work from home so can't risk having the internet shut off.

 

[evaldusia]

At @1500kbps you're using 187.5kb/s so that would total up to 15.4 GB per day or 463.4 GB per month with constant bitrate.
Higher resolution has effect on image quality only, if you're not changing bitrate, it will stay same.
Don't know about Youtube but Twitch has off stream picture people put on screens, so they are actually use it like that, or to promote their stream.
If you need that bandwidth for some other stuff too, I'd suggest you to use variable bitrate as I don't believe there's much action happening on stream most of the time and you'll be able to save up alot of bandwidth.

 

[RytoEX]

At @1500kbps you're using 187.5kb/s so that would total up to 15.4 GB per day or 463.4 GB per month with constant bitrate.
Higher resolution has effect on image quality only, if you're not changing bitrate, it will stay same.
Don't know about Youtube but Twitch has off stream picture people put on screens, so they are actually use it like that, or to promote their stream.
If you need that bandwidth for some other stuff too, I'd suggest you to use variable bitrate as I don't believe there's much action happening on stream most of the time and you'll be able to save up alot of bandwidth.

At 1500kbps you'd be using 1500kb/s... The "kbps" literally stands for "kilobits per second". However 1500kbps would be 187.5KBps, or 187.5 kilobytes per second. Also, YouTube and Twitch both require CBR, so using VBR is not a valid recommendation when using either of those services.


To address @BigFatHonu's questions...
Regarding #1, have you checked to see if the new 1TB cap has been rolled out in your area (see the XFINITY Data Plan FAQ and their lookup tool)? If not, then you may still have a lower cap if your specific plan does not provide for higher usage. If you are on the 1TB data plan, then the first two months you go over are "courtesy months", and you will not be charged for overages those months. This will allow you one free month to monitor your bandwidth usage.

You didn't specify if your bitrate was just video bitrate or your combined video+audio bitrate. Also, if you're only streaming from 8 AM to 6 PM, that's not actually 24/7, so the math would be a bit different. If 1500kbps is your combined video+audio, and you're using CBR (as you should, unless the streaming service says not to), then...

Spoiler: Boring Math

1500 kilobits/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 10 hours/day * 30 days/month = 1,620,000,000 kilobits/month
1,620,000,000 kilobits/month / 8 kilobits/kilobyte / 1024 kilobytes/megabyte / 1024 megabytes/gigabyte = 193.12 gigabytes/month

... carry the one... you'd use about 193 gigabytes/month. Hopefully I did the math right. It's late, and I'm tired, so some peer review would be welcome.

If you're actually streaming 24/7, then @evaldusia's math is correct, and you would use about 463GB/month.


Regarding #2...

You can use a system scheduled task (on Windows, it's called a "Scheduled Task") to launch OBS at a specific time every day. You can also provide a command-line parameter to OBS to have it automatically start streaming when it opens ("C:\Program Files (x86)\obs-studio\bin\32bit\obs32.exe" --startstreaming).

You can currently manually set output timers to have OBS stop streaming after a set period of time (Tools > Output Timer). In the next release of OBS Studio, you should be able to automatically start the output timer every time you start streaming or recording, instead of having to have the Output Timer window open. Since you want to stream daily from 8 AM to 6 PM, you would just set the Output Timer for Streaming to 10 hours.

As far as I know, YouTube will support this stopping and starting just fine.


For #3, YouTube is just fine for this sort of thing.


When you've got it set up, I'd love to see the stream. I've got a few friends who love watching birds.

 

[BigFatHonu]

Awesome - thank you both for the replies.

The plan would be to stream only during the day 9-6 (if YouTube will use the same link each time I re-connect the next day). The reasoning is that I want people to be able to embed the stream into their wordpress pages / blogs.

I think that if I use the main "stream now" option on YouTube rather than scheduling an event it will always have the same url, is that correct?

If the YouTube URL will change every time I start and stop the stream then I might be forced to just leave it running 24/7 (although nighttime without nightvision won't be very exciting).

The TB cap has been rolled out in my area so hopefully I'll be okay for data then.

I think in the future it would be awesome for people who have a regular podcast or daily broadcast for there to be a scheduler within the program to allow for people to say - stream Mon-Fri 8am-10am etc. and you'd just leave the computer and program hooked up and then it would automatically begin streaming each day and shut off at the end.

i did some looking and I believe Wowza has a calendar scheduler like that. Would be great to see that is OBS as well, I wouldn't think it would be hugely difficult as most of the architecture is already there.

Very impressed with OBS so far - I've already started experimenting with overlays and aside from the lack of auto scheduling within the program it's done everything else I've asked of it!