Question / Help Capturing Fullscreen HD Ustream for 9 hours

[Serendipity]

Hi there,

I am debating between using OBS and buying a video card: either a EVGA GeForce 8400GS or EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti.

My current PC setup is:

• Asus P8H67-M EVO
• Intel i5 2500k 3.30GHz
• G.Skill DDR3 1333 6gb 667 MHz
• Two HDMI monitors
• LOTS of hard drive space

I don't mind shelling out some cash to by a video card to ensure that the captures are high quality for my own viewing. I am not a gamer but I am trying to capture some HD video based e-learning courses that are not offered during my time zone.

What is your recommendation on OBS vs video card? If a card is the way to go, which one would work best with the mobo? There's three versions of EVGA GeForce 750 Ti and it's quite confusing for a lay-person.

Thanks a ton! I really appreciate it.

 

[FerretBomb]

It'd probably be better to use VLC with the Livestreamer plugin, or another option to directly grab and record the stream itself, rather than capturing and re-compressing the video from a browser window or whatnot. Acting as a DVR isn't what OBS is meant to do. :)

 

[Boildown]

The 750 Ti, by a light year. The 8400GS probably won't even run OBS at all, that card is ancient. Just get whichever GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti, or GTX 950 is cheapest, for your purposes. Last time I looked the 750 Ti was actually cheaper than the 750, and the 950 was still more expensive.

 

[sam686]

Integrated graphics on second generation intel i series CPU or better may work with OBS? OBS works for me on i7-2600.

Check for archived video streams and see if you can watch what you missed, only works if the streamer enabled archive.

If wanting to record someone's stream into your computer, maybe using a command line program called "livestreamer" might work, with: -o something.flv ... This method uses no GPU and less then 1% CPU usage. Maybe also use these option if the stream will start later: --retry-streams 180 --retry-open 999

 

[Boildown]

P67 motherboards can't use the integrated graphics, so that's not an option.

Edit: That's actually an H67, so it might be able to. Confusing product name.

 

[Serendipity]

Thanks for all the responses. Great!

There are no archived streams for the channel; just scheduled streams at times that I am not awake.

Since I am not a gamer, would VLC with the Livestreamer plugin for the Ustream channel work better or equivalent to getting GTX 750 Ti SC (the cheapest card in the 750 series)?

 

[FerretBomb]

Better, because it will be recording the video directly.

It'd be the difference between recording something on your DVR, as compared to setting up a video camera and using that to record the picture/audio on the TV.

 

[Serendipity]

Two questions:

(1) Is there a way to capture a private Youtube livestream? Additionally, can it be captured into multiple files even if the stream goes online and offline constantly? I came across this Python script: https://slicktechies.com/how-to-watchrecord-twitch-streams-using-livestreamer/ Is there something for Youtube?

(2) If livestreamer is not able to capture directly from the source, would a video card such as the GTX 750 Ti SC be better equipped to capture (much like your video camera analogy) better than my CPU's capability would? Essentially, would the ability of my PC to capture screen recordings be significantly enhanced with a video card?

Thanks a ton!

 

[FerretBomb]

YouTube uses the same video delivery format as Twitch (HLS). So you can likely use the same tool and method, with a different URL.
Private streams may be protected separately however, and recording someone else's content at all may be a breach of copyright law depending on permission and use.

OBS requires a fully DX10 compliant GPU for scaling and compositing. A better GPU will not significantly improve performance so long as minimums are met (full DX10 compliance, and not an nVidia GTX 200-series as they have severe memory handling speed issues).