Audio stutter

[JKL]

Hi, I already read every similar thread but I cannot find any suitable solution.

Environment: church.

System: notebook i7, 16Gb, USB Focusrite 2i2 2nd Gen receiving audio from digital mixer. Line is loud, clear and definitely ok.

OBS side: 2 sources, the above mentioned sound card and a network camera (video-surveillance camera actually) picking up its rtsp stream.


The problem: audio stutters, randomly, every once and then, and cannot find a workaround of any kind. It behaves the same even in the OSB preview with audio monitoring on, I mean this is happening while recording or streaming but even when doing nothing. CPU usage at 7% more or less.
The same, and this is weird, is happening with the integrated realtek microphone as well. I tried the ASIO plugin route, but since it does the same with realtek this is not my way.

What I tried:
- various settings about process priority
- unticked "exclusive mode" on every audio device (as seen in a video linked here somehere)
- changed sample rate, bitdepth
- set power scheme to maximum performances, unticked "suspend USB" and so on, and the notebook is AC connected

My only clue is that videosurveillance camera is maybe forcing a weird framerate (thus OBS has hard time to syncronize...?) or another parameter I'm not aware of in its stream.

Can't sadly provide log file right now as I remote control this PC from home (pandemy lockdown here in Italy) and Windows decided it had to self-update to 20h2 now.

Asasp I'll update this thread with log file.

 

[JKL]

Btw: please be mercyful with my english

 

[JKL]

Was able to phone-guide the priest to restore internet connection... ;)

I uploaded the log of a test recording I just did (https://obsproject.com/logs/LUMLFB8SyEPWH-jK)

 

[JKL]

The above was with the USB card (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2), this one (https://obsproject.com/logs/wgO2NG0Qr1hkBpjL) is with integrated audio (still droputs occur).

 

[JKL]

Also tried to change output fps from 30 to 25 but looks like it didn't change anything.

 

[Deleted member 289527]

Hello !
I had the exact same problem with the same context : recording mass because of covid ;)
The problem wasn't video fps but audio.
Problem appears to be solved by :
1. adding a "capture audio" source manually (not the integrated one) and choosing the right device in "parameters"
2. muting all audio sources in the mixer but the newly added
Also in Windows sound parameters of the control panel I noticed that samplign rate for input audio was unusual ( 16kHz or 30kHz) and I switch from 16 to 30 but I don't know if this had any impact.

My guess is that adding "audio source" manualy force the resampling of audio which does'nt appear to append when the audio is directly associated with the "video source" as in the following parameter (unchecked here) :

Sorry for my english but I hope you get the idea. It fixed the audio stuttering problem for me.
Good luck !

 

[Deleted member 289527]

By trying to use another audio card (maudio fastrackpro) I faced again the same problem of stutering. So it might be a obs problem with asio drivers or the driver itself which work for me in others applications but is outdated and warned on maudio website to not support windows 10...
Another workaround was to connect the fasttrackpro physical output to the microphone entry of my internal soundcard..

 

[Wijnmalen]

Hetzelfde probleem hier, de audio gaat via de camera en het netwerk naar de computer met de laatste versie OBS. Als er geen streaming is, is het probleem veel erger dan als de streaming is ingeschakeld. Het lijkt of er een noise gate aan staat, maar waar dat is kan ik niet vinden , In OBS staat alles uit. Alle tips die we hebben kunnen vinden hebben we geprobeerd maar zonder succes.

 

[JKL]

Thank you to everyone who answered.
I tried everything suggested, but sadly nothing seems to solve my problem.

To be more precise, what I defined "stutter" are random, tiny "pops" here and there, just like those one that everyone knows as typical noise of vinyl records when dust particles hit the needle.

This leads me to think to something ADC related, like buffer over/underflow or something similar. Or a codec issue.

Since I'm a professional sound engineer (but definitely *not* a streamer!) this thing is making me mad.

 

[JKL]

The funniest thing is that if I keep my TeamViewer connection opened, they go away.
May it be that teamviewer is forcing the CPU at a higher speed (mean OBS usage 11,5%. OBS + Teamviewer >70%).

But again, I can't reproduce the problem in any way.

 

[Wijnmalen]

Some test i did

1 audio goes to the camera and the video/audio goes thru network direct to youtube. Audio is ok
2 audio goes to the camera and the video/audio goes thru netwerk to OBS . If no streaming a lot of audio stutter. When start streaming much less stutter but stil there. (CPU usage is <10%)
3 audio goes direct to obs. Audio is ok.

For me there is a problem when the audio is together with video then there is a problem

 

[JKL]

Hi all, I update this thread just to notify that a sound card swap completely solved the problem.
I still have to sort out why the audio - video sync is apparently variable (ie I set the audio delay for a week and the next one it seems to require a different value), but this is not worring me so much.
The dropouts I was having with the Scarlett are completely gone swapping it with a (less valued and older) M-Audio M-Track.

This swap did the trick.