Cheap win computers for good OBS performance?

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free don

New Member
Cheap win computers for good OBS performance?

Dear OBS Gurus,

I need to get a couple of cheap (probably used) windows laptops to double-record regular legal depositions using Zoom - normally with 4-8 participants. (The second laptop is just-in-case of a technical failure of one laptop.) The recording per day can be more than 8 hours running a max of 3 hours without a break.

With OBS, I will add a running time/date stamp graphic at bottom of screen. Zoom and OBS (and possibly 1 web browser tab) will usually be the only apps running for these recordings. What I need to know as a penny-pinching shopper is:
CPU (versions of Celeron or i5), Ram, Graphics capability and the version of windows best in this case. I am a mac guy and have not touched windows much for 10 years.

THAAANKS!!!
 
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free don

New Member
My setting asked for by employer are:

Video Bitrate: 5000 Kbps
Recording Quality: Same as stream
Recording Format: mp4
Under the Video tab adjust settings to match
the following:
Base Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Output Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Common FPS Values: 60

In the discord chat, the bot said:
“Record to FLV or MKV. If you record to MP4 and the recording is interrupted, the file will be corrupted and unrecoverable. If you require MP4 files for some other purpose like editing, remux them afterwards by selecting File > Remux Recordings in the main OBS Studio window.”
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
60 fps seems odd, and overkill, and definitely ups the compute/encoding requirements
I'm assuming slo-mo video isn't all that important, but rather quality of audio capture, right?
And how long do you want/expect these computes to last? I personally avoid consumer system for the most part. I'm suspecting a decent 5yr old 4core/8thread CPU, with NVENC GPU support would work just fine, and have excess capacity to ensure. The general rule-of-thumb recommendation for best offload and best value is the GTX 1650 Super GPU (with Turing chip (So NOT base 1650 or 1650 Ti) Higher end GPUs won't help much when it comes to NVENC offload. Lower-end may/probably could work, but the above should have sufficient spare capacity to be stable & reliable, without having to be an expert on OBS and OS optimization. You could probably get away with even lower end, but as I don't run Zoom and OBS at same time, and don't know what else you might have running (corporate security s/w, etc) hard to say without trying / testing your specific setup.
For reference, I tried to stream with a USB webcam and going back & forth with pre-recorded videos (some phone recorded at 4K) and failed miserably. That was a 8GB RAM, SATA SSD Win 10 Home edition, Intel Core i5-6300HQ @ 2.3GHz (4c/4t) Fall 2015 release, with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card. Could I have gotten it to work... probably, how much is your time worth?

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than I will help you with specifics on Zoom.
 
qhobbes

qhobbes

Active Member
You can probably get away with i5 laptops as long as the processor and mobo support Quick Sync Video if you go with 30 FPS (you'll get better quality out of that 5000 Kbps too). Record to MKV and enable Auto remux in the advanced settings. You don't want corrupted and unrecoverable legal depositions.
 
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Videodepo

New Member
free don said:
Cheap win computers for good OBS performance?

Dear OBS Gurus,

I need to get a couple of cheap (probably used) windows laptops to double-record regular legal depositions using Zoom - normally with 4-8 participants. (The second laptop is just-in-case of a technical failure of one laptop.) The recording per day can be more than 8 hours running a max of 3 hours without a break.

With OBS, I will add a running time/date stamp graphic at bottom of screen. Zoom and OBS (and possibly 1 web browser tab) will usually be the only apps running for these recordings. What I need to know as a penny-pinching shopper is:
CPU (versions of Celeron or i5), Ram, Graphics capability and the version of windows best in this case. I am a mac guy and have not touched windows much for 10 years.

THAAANKS!!!
Click to expand...
Hi free Don.
It’s been a long time since this post. I’d appreciate hearing what you ended up using. An old client I did in person depositions for years ago said she still has requests for remote depos and would I like to do them. I’d be using Zoom and OBS, same requirements as yours. BTW did you add an external recorder for extra extra backup?
The extra income would sure come in handy!!!
THANKS!!!
 
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