Question / Help Camera Resolutions Setting/Settings/Output Scaled Resolution
- Thread starter Banyarola
- Start date
Banyarola
Active Member
Thanks Narc...I must be an idiot because I still don't understand any of this.
I thought the video output resolution was the resolution you wanted to record at and the camera resolution was the resolution you wanted to stream at....Am I right or am I missing something here?
I thought the video output resolution was the resolution you wanted to record at and the camera resolution was the resolution you wanted to stream at....Am I right or am I missing something here?
Narcogen
Active Member
No.
There's literally no connection between the resolution you set for OBS (canvas size, set in Settings > Video) and the resolution and frame rate of any particular source, like a camera, that you add to OBS.
When you add a video capture device you need to specify its parameters. These should be exposed by whatever driver you are using to connect the camera to your PC. You should be able to see them in OBS when you right click on the video capture device in your Source pane.
For a simple webcam, the only choice may be resolution. For others, there may be more settings.
What you set your output resolution depends on what resolution you want your streams/recordings to be.
What you set your camera to depends on what resolutions it supports, and how big you need your camera image to be. (You can, for instance make a 1080p stream that includes a game and a 1080p camera, with the camera scaled down to a much smaller resolution, or you could use 720p for that if it supported.
There's literally no connection between the resolution you set for OBS (canvas size, set in Settings > Video) and the resolution and frame rate of any particular source, like a camera, that you add to OBS.
When you add a video capture device you need to specify its parameters. These should be exposed by whatever driver you are using to connect the camera to your PC. You should be able to see them in OBS when you right click on the video capture device in your Source pane.
For a simple webcam, the only choice may be resolution. For others, there may be more settings.
What you set your output resolution depends on what resolution you want your streams/recordings to be.
What you set your camera to depends on what resolutions it supports, and how big you need your camera image to be. (You can, for instance make a 1080p stream that includes a game and a 1080p camera, with the camera scaled down to a much smaller resolution, or you could use 720p for that if it supported.
Banyarola
Active Member
Then what does the Output Scaled Resolution do in the Video settings ? When I change that my video recordings come out a different size and my stream webcam is not as clear and sharp...If they are independent of one another then why does that happen?
I am using C920 camera which is a good cam.
I am using C920 camera which is a good cam.
Narcogen
Active Member
Output Scaled Resolution in Video settings reduces the resolution of your output from the Canvas resolution.
So if your display is a 1080p display, and you set your canvas resolution to 1080p, you will be recording your screen 1:1, with no scaling.
If you choose a scaled resolution instead, you can output a larger or smaller resolution than the one you built your scene for, but this will reduce quality.
This is usually for streaming in a situation where one wishes to capture the native resolution of a display or application, but the maximum bitrate one can stream does not support good quality at the selected framerate, so scaling is a compromise.
So if your display is a 1080p display, and you set your canvas resolution to 1080p, you will be recording your screen 1:1, with no scaling.
If you choose a scaled resolution instead, you can output a larger or smaller resolution than the one you built your scene for, but this will reduce quality.
This is usually for streaming in a situation where one wishes to capture the native resolution of a display or application, but the maximum bitrate one can stream does not support good quality at the selected framerate, so scaling is a compromise.
Narcogen
Active Member
Your question was whether you had to scale resolution because of your webcam, and koala said no, because those settings are unrelated, and they are unrelated.
You will always get best quality output by not scaling at all.
So you would set your camera to 1080p, and OBS canvas to 1080p, and OBS output to 1080p.
Then you need to be able to sustain a bitrate that provides good quality at 1080p at your chosen framerate.
Scaling is for situations where, for whatever reason, you either can't or don't want to output the same resolution as your canvas is set to, regardless of what your input devices are set to.
You will always get best quality output by not scaling at all.
So you would set your camera to 1080p, and OBS canvas to 1080p, and OBS output to 1080p.
Then you need to be able to sustain a bitrate that provides good quality at 1080p at your chosen framerate.
Scaling is for situations where, for whatever reason, you either can't or don't want to output the same resolution as your canvas is set to, regardless of what your input devices are set to.
koala
Active Member
Keep in mind that OBS is a universal streaming and recording application that is able to do much more than just capture one source (for example your webcam) and stream exactly that webcam. OBS is able to include more than one such source into an output video. For example, you can include some tiny source in some corner that displays added information. Or a tiny window of a second webcam. This overlaying of multiple sources is called compositing. Game streamers use this feature to create all their fancy overlays and widgets.
For all this flexibility it is possible and important to be able to rescale stuff at various stages. If you don't need all that and just want to capture a webcam and just want to stream exactly that webcam with exactly this one webcam source without any added source or overlay, you don't need all this rescaling. So you set all resolutions the same. Set all to 1920x1080: canvas size, output size, webcam size. This way, your webcam is never rescaled but output verbatim as it is captured by your webcam device.
If your machine isn't powerful enough to encode this 1080p video, it may be necessary to reduce the output resolution, for example 720p, because reduced resolution means less CPU requirement in the video encoder. In this case, it might be wise to also reduce canvas size and webcam resolution to 720p, because without compositing of multiple sources you can reduce the resolution of the canvas and the webcam to the output resolution with no visual impact. But it will use even less system resources.
About the canvas: think of OBS as a painter who paints his paintings upon a canvas. First, the canvas is gray and empty. The painter starts by putting some background color on it. Then he paints a forest. Then he paints a house into the forst. Then he paints some animals in front of the house. OBS does the same: The background is a source. The forest is a source. The house is a source. The animals are a source. Just like the painter is overlaying the images on the canvas to compose the whole picture, OBS is overlaying multiple video or still sources to create a complete video.
So the canvas resolution is the resolution OBS paints its sources on. You want to tell OBS to draw only one source to cover the complete canvas.
The output resolution is important if you want to finally distribute your picture. Imagine the painter does not want to sell the original painting but intends to digitally scan the image, give the scan to a printing service and sell many prints of the painting. This scan resolution is called output resolution in OBS. Usually, you paint with a high resolution for quality but distribute with a smaller resolution, because it isn't practical to distribute highest resolutions. Here my analogy fails, because with stream production canvas resolution is often not higher than the intended output resolution but simply the same. You play your game with 1080p and want to stream with 1080p - that's often exactly what you want. But if your viewers demand 720p instead of 1080p, because you use a streaming service without transcoding and many viewers aren't able to receive 1080p video, you might be forced to downscale to 720p. For this, you simply change the output resolution and keep everything else the same. If in a year more viewers are able to receive 1080p video, you can just set the output resolution back to 1080p.
For all this flexibility it is possible and important to be able to rescale stuff at various stages. If you don't need all that and just want to capture a webcam and just want to stream exactly that webcam with exactly this one webcam source without any added source or overlay, you don't need all this rescaling. So you set all resolutions the same. Set all to 1920x1080: canvas size, output size, webcam size. This way, your webcam is never rescaled but output verbatim as it is captured by your webcam device.
If your machine isn't powerful enough to encode this 1080p video, it may be necessary to reduce the output resolution, for example 720p, because reduced resolution means less CPU requirement in the video encoder. In this case, it might be wise to also reduce canvas size and webcam resolution to 720p, because without compositing of multiple sources you can reduce the resolution of the canvas and the webcam to the output resolution with no visual impact. But it will use even less system resources.
About the canvas: think of OBS as a painter who paints his paintings upon a canvas. First, the canvas is gray and empty. The painter starts by putting some background color on it. Then he paints a forest. Then he paints a house into the forst. Then he paints some animals in front of the house. OBS does the same: The background is a source. The forest is a source. The house is a source. The animals are a source. Just like the painter is overlaying the images on the canvas to compose the whole picture, OBS is overlaying multiple video or still sources to create a complete video.
So the canvas resolution is the resolution OBS paints its sources on. You want to tell OBS to draw only one source to cover the complete canvas.
The output resolution is important if you want to finally distribute your picture. Imagine the painter does not want to sell the original painting but intends to digitally scan the image, give the scan to a printing service and sell many prints of the painting. This scan resolution is called output resolution in OBS. Usually, you paint with a high resolution for quality but distribute with a smaller resolution, because it isn't practical to distribute highest resolutions. Here my analogy fails, because with stream production canvas resolution is often not higher than the intended output resolution but simply the same. You play your game with 1080p and want to stream with 1080p - that's often exactly what you want. But if your viewers demand 720p instead of 1080p, because you use a streaming service without transcoding and many viewers aren't able to receive 1080p video, you might be forced to downscale to 720p. For this, you simply change the output resolution and keep everything else the same. If in a year more viewers are able to receive 1080p video, you can just set the output resolution back to 1080p.
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Banyarola
Active Member
Thanks Kaola and you also Narc for your patience..I understand it much better now...
I have been using OBS for a long time but like I had said earlier, I don't game and only stream a couple webcams and my weather station via a browser source... Here's a link to my stream and you'll understand better what I use OBS for...https://www.twitch.tv/banyarola?twitch5=0
Anyway, thank you both, you have been a great help...
I have been using OBS for a long time but like I had said earlier, I don't game and only stream a couple webcams and my weather station via a browser source... Here's a link to my stream and you'll understand better what I use OBS for...https://www.twitch.tv/banyarola?twitch5=0
Anyway, thank you both, you have been a great help...