Question / Help 8 active inputs... is this even possible?

[ibadukefan]

I've never seen this done so I'm not even sure it's possible. You can see from the screenshots what I'm attempting to accomplish. I want to run 8 inputs at the same time outputting 1 total stream. I have 4 game captures and 4 camera captures. I'm using 4 AVerMedia LiveGamer Portable Plus's for the game captures and 4 Razer Kiyo's for the camera captures. I'm using a year old MacBook Pro to run OBS and a powered USB adapter (see photo) to bring it all together into the Mac.

It's not working. Check the video and photos attached. You can see that not all the feeds are coming in and even the ones that are coming in they are not playing, they are frozen.

The gaming systems are 3 Xbox One's and 1 Nintendo Switch. The consoles are all on WiFi which I think might be a problem when we actually stream and will resolve when I cross that bridge. The MacBook Pro is also on WiFi which I will also hardwire, if necessary.

What is the cause for the lag right now? I'm not streaming. All the connections are wired connections. I need to be able to see all the feeds working properly right now, correct? What is happening? Is this possible? Suggestions and thoughts are welcome!

I'm a dad of three kids and they wanted to start a YouTube/twitch channel so I thought it would be cool to do a squad stream since we are all in the same room. I realize Twitch is coming out with Squad Streaming but that is currently limited only to Partners. If you know someone who works at Twitch who could open that up for a cool, new channel then Let me know! lol

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

(Link to USB adapter)

 

[Narcogen]

Wireless on the consoles is not relevant.

To stream, the laptop should absolutely be on wired ethernet and not wifi.

If you're trying to plug 4 capture cards into a USB hub, you will absolutely overload that hub. You should want each capture device to be on its own USB controller, and I'm not sure your laptop has enough to do four. That hub is not going to work. If you have a higher bandwidth port (thunderbolt?) on the laptop, try getting an adapter that connects to that port and gives you more full speed USB3 ports. Splitting one USB3 port into multiple USB3 ports is not going to work. That would do one capture device, maybe two, unlikely 3, and I'm pretty sure 4 is right out.

 

[ibadukefan]

Thanks so much for the reply!

So, to accomplish 8 active inputs... is it even possible? Assuming I split up the connections with faster adapters?

 

[Narcogen]

On a MacBook? I sort of doubt it. You'd need a desktop with two slots dedicated to 4x input cards, like a Decklink or something. If each of your sources could generate NDI instead of just an HDMI video output, then the laptop itself might manage the rendering and encoding, but to ingest the HDMI... I really doubt it.

I routinely work with 3-4 sources and the setup involves 2 consoles and 3 desktop PCs with late model GPUs. The MacBook has neither the specialized hardware nor the I/O to handle 8 HD inputs. Something to get you more USB3 ports from Thunderbolt would be the only way I can think of, but I've never tried it myself.

 

[ibadukefan]

Ok. I will try the Thunderbolt route first. I have a Windows desktop but it is definitely under-powered so I'll need to do some upgrading if it comes to that.

 

[ibadukefan]

Do you think this would be better or the same as what I have?

 

[Narcogen]

No. You don't want a USB hub. That's just taking one USB port and giving you more ports. It doesn't have its own controller, and it doesn't give your computer any more I/O capacity. It just gives you more plugs.

In this situation in a desktop, you'd add a PCI card that provides more USB ports, because that's adding a controller with its own dedicated connection to the motherboard, through a PCI slot. Just making a USB octopus connection doesn't achieve that.

On a laptop you don't have that, but the closest thing you have to it is a Thunderbolt adapter, because that connection to your computer is separate from the one the USB ports you already have are using.

 

[ibadukefan]

I rebuilt my desktop with extra USB ports and it works perfectly. Thanks again for your help!