Audio issues using Iphone over NDI as a camera

[jackw]

Recently I began using two Iphones as remote cameras for our church stream. We also have a hardwired Panasonic video camera connected. The iphones are not being used for audio and are muted in OBS. Our audio input is from a sound board with multiple mic's.
The phone cameras are using NDI HX camera app and connect to OBS without a major issue. HOWEVER if I fail to turn off the mikes on the phone (in the app) the audio on recording/stream is completely unusable it is crackle pop. The sound board audio is simple overlaid.
I uploaded the log and analyzed it under OBS and it flagged one of the phones and gave me a AUDIO BUFFER MAX problem.
I turned off the microphone on the offending phone and the problem just switched to the second phone. If turned the mic off on both phones I got a clean recording.
The question is how do I solve the buffer issue so that the phones can be used for audio input or won't ruin another streaming service if I forget to turn the mics off in the app.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

For our House of Worship, I only use the house audio. For special circumstances (Bell Choir), we run mics to that area
Realize your house sound system, and the audio via the smartphones with have likely very different latency.
And then would you want audio from smartphone, but want to use video from the Panasonic... would get ugly with changing audio latency... hence something I'd simply avoid for simple, usually volunteer run, church service.

For me, I initially ran into audio issues with OBS, so I brute force solved issue by simply disabled all default/desktop audio devices, and specifically added in OBS per scene each source (alternating until recently between pre-recorded and live video... much simpler OBS setup now with recently resumed all live/in-person services). I'm fortunate that church funded a good NDI PTZ camera. I do have the NDI iOS app installed and available in case needed for outdoor or other non-sanctuary service activity (ex. Palm Sunday procession outdoors around property), but in that case, only using the smartphone and not using Sanctuary mic/camera(s)).

So, if you have Sanctuary mics, use those. And without more info, and not sure I'd know anyway, of automating controlling source audio.. as the whole point of OBS is to give the OBS operator that control. How I dealt with such in part (forgetting to mute priest's mic during pre-recorded video) was to use a separate scene, for example,
Scene A = Panasonic camera and sanctuary sound system
Scene B = iPhone #1 and its mic for audio. Sanctuary sound system input not a source in this scene
Scene C = iPhone #2 and its mic for audio. Sanctuary sound system input (and other iPhone) not a source in this scene
or something like that
This assumes you ONLY want to use video and mic of iPhone at same time
Again, beware latency differences if switching to other video/audio sources

 

[jackw]

Thanks for the reply
We have been using the sanctuary sound board for most of the lockdown with the Panasonic camera and Iphone both hardwired to the computer. However with us being able to re-open we needed to switch the Iphones to NDI wireless connections. This is where the problem showed up. Since I use multiple cameras in a scene if the camera mic is not disabled on the PHONE I have the buffering problem. I have disabled the phone as an audio source in OBS but if the phone mic is enabled I get the bad audio.
For the audio latency between the Panasonic and sound board I have a 140 ms delay in the advanced audio setup.

 

[zenhighzer]

Hi,

i also noticed some bad audio cracking when using iphone + "ndi hx camera"-app as ndi-source in obs... the only way to get proper sound is to mute the iphone-mic.

BUT:
while googling around i found the iphone-app called "OBS Camera" ... It´s setup is like the ndi-app (ndi-source -> iphone)... and i have no problems anymore! Even the iphone-mic is working like charm! No Problems anymore! I dont know why this app is working better than ndi´s own app.. i am thinking about purchasing the OBS Camera-App... For testing you can download it free, but you have a watermark in your video.. but for checking the audio it is ok ;-)

btw: i wrote a support-ticket to newtek, because i would like to know why there own app as ndi-source is audio-cracking while the other (paid) app as ndi-source is working better...

best regards
zen


just fyi:

There is an update to ticket number (xxxxxxx). To add additional comments, reply to this email. NewTek sends some of all of the following parties updates to this ticket:
- Isaac Lashley

Isaac Lashley (NewTek Customer Support) Mar 21, 2022, 15:25 CDT Hello Zen, Thank you for the information. We will be sending your case to the NDI Support Team. The average response time on these cases is 24 business hours. Please let me know if you have any questions. Regards, Isaac NewTek Customer Support

 

[zenhighzer]

to be precise:
the other app is called "Camera for OBS Studio" by Loft Labs