Question / Help Can't get HD quality

Grid21

Member
Hello all! I am having an issue with OBS Classic, Yes I know it's not support but I haven't made the switch yet. People have said on my streams that my video looks like 480p quality. See link http://www.twitch.tv/grid21/v/54342105 I can't think what I need to change to get it to look closer to at least 720p. I've posted a log file that my settings listed.

System specs
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel Core i7 4790 Quad
Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB 1600Mhz Ram
EVGA GTX 960 ssc

Any help would me greatly appreciated!
 

Attachments

  • 2016-03-12-1448-09.log
    25.9 KB · Views: 181

sam686

Member
It looks somewhat ok for 720p for anything that isn't text.

The problem is extremely tiny text. The stream may look better when in-game resolution set to 1280x720 which for some games makes text go bigger, and obs base resolution set to the same as the game (720p) with preferably no downscaling.
 

Grid21

Member
It looks somewhat ok for 720p for anything that isn't text.

The problem is extremely tiny text. The stream may look better when in-game resolution set to 1280x720 which for some games makes text go bigger, and obs base resolution set to the same as the game (720p) with preferably no downscaling.

The issue I experience when using no downscaling is that some games performance ends up being laggy. I wonder if Studio would handle games better then the old version. Is my encoder and filter and all that set the way it's suppose to be?
 

alpinlol

Active Member
Due to all the little Details etc. your stream looks grainy every now and then but thats what you get for streaming 720p60 at that bitrate, you can lower your fps to 48 that will increase your picture quality while still look smooth.

Other than that you can either change to "a" slower and not "the" slower preset e.g. faster or fast depending on how well your cpu handles it, you have to test it and judge if theres any performance decrease.

Or you can increase the Bitrate and since you are already running 3300 which is quite high (i assume you are not partnered)
 

Nixxen

New Member
In some cases (depending on the game), going lower in resolution actually helps give the stream a "higher resolution look".

One thing to keep in mind if you are NOT partnered, is that your viewers will not be able to lower the resolution on your streams to match their download.
I've personally noticed a lot more viewers from going down to 2000kb/s as opposed to 3000kb/s, mostly because the stream keeps buffering on the viewers end.

By lowering your KB/s you also have to keep in mind that the image quality per frame will be lower.
I've mitigated this by dropping my FPS to 25, to give each frame more data.
It's barely noticeable on the stream, and if I didn't tell you it was lowered, you probably wouldn't pay it any mind.
 

Grid21

Member
Due to all the little Details etc. your stream looks grainy every now and then but thats what you get for streaming 720p60 at that bitrate, you can lower your fps to 48 that will increase your picture quality while still look smooth.

Other than that you can either change to "a" slower and not "the" slower preset e.g. faster or fast depending on how well your cpu handles it, you have to test it and judge if theres any performance decrease.

Or you can increase the Bitrate and since you are already running 3300 which is quite high (i assume you are not partnered)

Do the filters in OBS classic help with quality? What are they for?

In some cases (depending on the game), going lower in resolution actually helps give the stream a "higher resolution look".

One thing to keep in mind if you are NOT partnered, is that your viewers will not be able to lower the resolution on your streams to match their download.
I've personally noticed a lot more viewers from going down to 2000kb/s as opposed to 3000kb/s, mostly because the stream keeps buffering on the viewers end.

By lowering your KB/s you also have to keep in mind that the image quality per frame will be lower.
I've mitigated this by dropping my FPS to 25, to give each frame more data.
It's barely noticeable on the stream, and if I didn't tell you it was lowered, you probably wouldn't pay it any mind.

1. no I am not partnered and 2. doesn't 2500 look worse then going higher?
 

Nixxen

New Member
2000kbps spread out over 25 fps is still higher quality per frame than 3300kbps spread over 60fps. To match 2000kbps @25 fps in 60 fps you'd have to push the upload to 4800kbps, which twitch doesn't support (and most likely not your viewers either, unless they live right ontop of the twitch server)
 

Grid21

Member
2000kbps spread out over 25 fps is still higher quality per frame than 3300kbps spread over 60fps. To match 2000kbps @25 fps in 60 fps you'd have to push the upload to 4800kbps, which twitch doesn't support (and most likely not your viewers either, unless they live right ontop of the twitch server)
Here I tried 48fps at 2500 x264 set to faster and no downscaling. http://www.twitch.tv/grid21/v/54548997 Does this look any better? Or is this as good as it's gonna get?
 

Nixxen

New Member
Running full resolution will lower your quality significantly.

The main goal for a crisp stream is to keep the bits per pixel high.
Since you're not partnered, going very much higher than 2000kbps would not be good for keeping viewers, so your options are to lower your resolution and/or your FPS.

To calculate your bits per pixel, take your upload rate by your pixel rate.
Let's take your two test streams as an example.

First instance 3300kbps upload, 720p60:
3300000/(1280*720*60) = roughly 0.059

Now for 2500kbps upload, 1080p48:
2500000/(1920*1080*48) = roughly 0.025

In the later example you have almost halved the quality of the stream.

There are more factors that come into play though. In the second video, most of the terrain is while, with very few details.
The more different detail (such as many shades of green in the first video) the lower / more blocky the video will look.

For my 2000kbps 720p25 recomendation:
2000000/(1280*720*25) = roughly 0.086

This is around 80% "better" in terms of crispness than the first example. The downside of course being the low FPS.
You could drop down to 480p and still keep a reasonably high FPS though.

I personally wouldn't go much lower than 0.07 bits per pixel. Preferably higher.
 

sam686

Member
What I meant was to set in-game resolution to 1280x720 and set OBS base resolution to 1280x720 so this can avoid scaling down, making tiny text a little bigger and easier to read.

... but not sure if this game support 1280x720. Maybe instead, figure out a way to make in-game text bigger, in-game text are too small.

Output of 1920x1080 should be 30 fps or less. For 60 fps, go with 1280x720 output resolution. 1920x1080 does make tiny text easier to read for viewers that use fullscreen with 1920x1080 display.
 

sam686

Member
Make your stream compatible with at most level 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels
This means 1920x1080 at 30fps, or 1280x720 60fps, or lower. Going higher locks out most mobile devices from viewing it.
Some older mobile device only support main profile with at most level 3.1 (1280x720 30fps, or 854x480 60fps)

Downscale works best if output is exactly half width, half height from base resolution. Maybe also use bilinear filtering.

But, any downscaling will make an already tiny text, unreadable as no matter how good the scaling is, tiny text is unreadable then downscaled.

Find a way to make this game's text bigger, bigger text is a lot more readable with or without downscale.
 

Grid21

Member
Make your stream compatible with at most level 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels
This means 1920x1080 at 30fps, or 1280x720 60fps, or lower. Going higher locks out most mobile devices from viewing it.
Some older mobile device only support main profile with at most level 3.1 (1280x720 30fps, or 854x480 60fps)

Downscale works best if output is exactly half width, half height from base resolution. Maybe also use bilinear filtering.

But, any downscaling will make an already tiny text, unreadable as no matter how good the scaling is, tiny text is unreadable then downscaled.

Find a way to make this game's text bigger, bigger text is a lot more readable with or without downscale.
My issue isn't really the text, but more so the pixelation I see in my streams. That's what I am trying to get rid of.
 

sam686

Member
The problem is 1920x1080 at only 2500 Kbps, using both high resolution and low bitrate will cause more blocky/blurry compression artifacts.

1280x720, 30fps, 2200 Kbps should be ok.
1280x720, 60fps, 3000 Kbps maybe?
960x540, 60fps, 2500 Kbps, might be better?

Large areas of grass in motion are hard to compress showing most compression artifacts.

Maybe using Bilinear downscaling can sometimes look better.
 

Nixxen

New Member
That stream looks good for me at least.
There's not much pixelation going on.
There's some of course, but this is livestreaming, so you won't be getting 100% artifact free video.

As mentioned earlier, going above 2000-2500 is not recommended until you are partnered since people won't be able to watch your streams.
Going above the 3500 limit on twitch is not recommended. There are words of bans and warnings going out to people who exceed the limit consistently - all though I have never seen it for myself, so I can't confirm it.

Lower kbps is always better for retaining viewers (well, down until the quality becomes unwatchable obviously :P)
In other words - A watchable stream (in terms of no buffering on the viewers end) is better than a good looking quality stream. People won't be sticking around for long if there's buffering every 15 seconds.
 

sam686

Member
1280x720 35fps 2500Kbps looks fine to me, i see you are on minecraft (pc version) now.

Quality can improve with more bitrate, but don't go over 3500 as a Twitch limit.
2500 Kbps looks fine so maybe keep it as it as. Using more bitrate forces all your viewers to download more bitrate, and may cause some viewers to go into buffering unwatchable as a some people's internet isn't so good.
 

Grid21

Member
Thank you all for your input, I will be bookmarking this page for reference later if I or a friend need it. Anything you guys can think of please post as this conversation has been helpful.
 
Top