Church needing assistance if possible

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ABofL

New Member
Hi to all:

Our church has recently been given an Apple Computer. Not sure of details just yet. However, I have noticed that OBS has the ability to have up to 8 sources to mix/receive signals from.

Is it possible to have a maximum of 3 cameras, and then a feed from the Computer powepoint/or worship software for scripture reading (running on the same Computer OBS, is on)... as well as 2 different stereo USB Interface for audio signals flow?

We are trying to increase what we have in a way we don't break the bank if possible.

Any assistance would be highly appreciated!



God Bless
 
R

RevJB

New Member
I use it for church and have been able to connect multiple camera feeds. For powerpoint I've exported all the slides as images and set up a slideshow source within OBS using those images. It works well. You can set up a window capture source which can be from powerpoint.

Easy to connect multiple mics too.

It's very powerful and flexible. Download it and try it out.
 
T

twindux

Member
I run 3 cameras, 2 audio sources multiple image and media sources, and the output from one external computer into my Mac for OBS.

Powerpoint...you can run it in a window on your OBS Mac or bring it in from a separate computer (image capture device). Again, the horsepower of your Mac will provide the answer to that.

As REvJB mentioned, you can also export your PPT to image files (PNG) or build the images in any other software. You can also use OBS's "text" source to type right into OBS, but it's not exactly awesome.
 
S

ShadowBark

Member
We did 5 cameras and 8 audio channels (through a mixer) and it worked well. What we did with our church service was have a different computer run the powerpoint, and through NDI's (Newtek) networking tools, we connected the two computers via ethernet cable. This is a very complicated route, but gave a very professional look and I'm very happy with how it came out. This is also how we put lyrics up onto the screen for worship songs.
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
I'm a windows user, but mutli-camera and Sanctuary sound mixer input into single PC running OBS (dual screen for NDI PTZ camera control, PowerPoint windowed slide show, and monitoring live stream etc...) works great
But specifics on hardware will determine whether that will work or not
I tried our streaming with a 5yr old gaming laptop with proper GPU offload (NVENC support) and failed miserably as computer was completely overloaded.. and I wasn't even using any OBS filters/effects. Real-time video encoding is hard. Live processing of 5 cameras simultaneously (then picking one for stream) would possibly need a LOT of CPU horsepower (depends on setup, and implications of not processing all cameras input when it came to switching camera feeds)... sorry, no one wants to hear it depends.... but... it depends on more specifics and what you are prioritizing and/or willing to compromise on
 
S

ShadowBark

Member
We were blessed enough to have a camera mixer that was utilized to process the camera footage instead of the computer handling it all. Using a 2012 iMac, we ran all of our cameras directly into the mixer, and then ran the HDMI Out of the mixer through a capture card and into the computer. Then OBS only had to process that one feed. It worked really well, but not everyone has access to a multicam mixer.
 
J

JLW

New Member
ShadowBark said:
We did 5 cameras and 8 audio channels (through a mixer) and it worked well. What we did with our church service was have a different computer run the powerpoint, and through NDI's (Newtek) networking tools, we connected the two computers via ethernet cable. This is a very complicated route, but gave a very professional look and I'm very happy with how it came out. This is also how we put lyrics up onto the screen for worship songs.
Click to expand...
Hi ShadowBark, seems like your setup is a bit like mine (but you have a lot more bells & whistles).
I've not heard of NDI till today, hope you can save me some time and from re-inventing the wheel!
Everything I've read so far assumes both PowerPoint and OBS are on the same computer, but we have them separate.
The input to OBS part looks easy, but what piece of NDI do you use to capture PowerPoint and transmit it to the OBS PC?
 
M

mfrazzz

New Member
JLW said:
Hi ShadowBark, seems like your setup is a bit like mine (but you have a lot more bells & whistles).
I've not heard of NDI till today, hope you can save me some time and from re-inventing the wheel!
Everything I've read so far assumes both PowerPoint and OBS are on the same computer, but we have them separate.
The input to OBS part looks easy, but what piece of NDI do you use to capture PowerPoint and transmit it to the OBS PC?
Click to expand...
On the computer using Powerpoint, you would install NDI tools and use the screen capture one, which can grab the output on that computer (in out case, we are running ProPresenter 6 and it captures the ouput that is going to our projector). Then on the OBS computer you can do one of two ways. You can use the obs-ndi add on and then you will have under your sources a NDI Source you can choose. I'm having issues with this on our Mac Mini though (seems to cause us audio issues), so we run the NDI Virtual Input, and we grab the NDI from the media computer and then its used like a video source ( basically this makes it act like a webcam).

I hope that helps. I can give more specifics if you need them.
 
Tangential

Tangential

Member
A Mac should do what you want, but definitely try and avoid window capture sources. They have a lot of issues on a Mac. If you have to capture ppt on the same Mac, be sure and use a display capture. I always ran it on a second computer and brought it in via hdmi capture or exported it as PNG slides and displayed them using OBS.
 
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ShadowBark

Member
We have ProPresenter on an entirely different computer from the one we stream from. I.E. our PowerPoint is NOT on the same computer as OBS. We connected the 2 computers by using a Ethernet Cable (Cat 5 Cable). That is all the necessary physical setup.

Software wise, we used the NDI tools “Scan Converter” as well as the “Video Monitor” (both can be found in the “NDI Tools Bundle” for free at http://Newtek.com/ndi). The scan converter is what allows the Cat 5 cable to be seen as an input device on the streaming computer. The video monitor is just a handy device that allows you to see what exactly is being inputted (that way you can know how to size your window, coloring, etc.).

It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is. Here is the best video I could find on how to do it:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be youtu.be

The situation in the video is not exactly the same as the one you are trying to do, but nevertheless gets you very close. By following the video and staying in touch, I know we can get this working for you!

Please keep us updated and I hope for the best!
 
S

ShadowBark

Member
The easier way to do it would be to purchase a capture card for your streaming computer. We did that for the first couple of streams, but it ended up dying on us. I’ve found NDI gives the best results, however a capture card route is much simpler.
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
As I've pondered this, my thought was coming up with a single PC that could receive all 3 streams and record them (DVR style... you'll need disk I/O performance to accomplish this) and then also have those streams available for OBS.
Now, whether to capture card on streaming PC, or capture/convert externally, then multi-cast to DVR and OBS?? ... not my area..

This isn't something I've looked into, but capturing 3 video streams and writing to disk, and having those same streams available to OBS should be doable technically. You may (probably?) get a better response in those forum if you asked that question as its own post. I know there are broadcast type systems that would do this (but at a cost most church budgets wouldn't even consider). So hopefully there is a more DIY solution available. That would seem to have fewer issues to address than 4 separate PCs
 
bcoyle

bcoyle

Member
This is only my opinion. I think you are over thinking this. At our church (lifepoint - Minden Nevada) before we even started streaming, we had an audio guy that did all the mike mixing and a power point person for our video screen verbiage. A normal non stream service. We then took our two cameras and a split on the power point computer into a video switcher. The audio from the audio mixer came into the switcher and was used for the audio and we didn't use the audio from the cameras. I imagine that you could get free computer donations, ie budget being a consideration. BUT there are cheap switchers out there. The atem mini pro allows many cameras, audio feed etc. So to make it easy on yourself, use a hardware switcher, feed that into the obs computer. The hardware switcher will do a good job with a fade T bar and smooth transitions. The pro has a output showing all 4 cameras where obs you would see only 1 or 2. Just a thought. The pro is around $600. Get someone to donate the money. So anyway, please investigate hardware switchers.
 
J

JLW

New Member
Thanks for all the great ideas guys!
I think I've finally cracked this particular challenge.
Our OBS is on a laptop, so a capture card is not an option; the HDMI-USB3 converters do the same job.
We've tried several different and similar devices, and the problem has been intermittent.
Today (at last) I was able to get the two computers together and identify one particular PowerPoint slide that would reliably show the symptom!
That PowerPoint image appeared OK with all the converters except one; the breakup symptom re-appeared whenever that particular device was inline, but not with any of the others.
I am reasonably confident that's the cause, though my decades as a technician say "wait and see".
If it does re-appear, I will try the hardware switcher route; I looked briefly at the Atem mini pro a few days ago, it's affordable, though I don't see any T-bar fade there.
I think the NDI method would add too many layers of complexity for us; I'm trying to teach newbies how to set up and run this system so I can have a holiday.

My apologies for hijacking the topic.....
 
J

JLW

New Member
I later downloaded the manual and found that the T-bar is there in the software controller; I wrongly assumed you meant the hardware device.
You are correct that the Atem Mini would have fixed my problem.
 
bcoyle

bcoyle

Member
Yes. Sometimes the hardware solution combined with software, if cheap enough, is better than software alone.
 
S

ShadowBark

Member
ATEM is definitely the way to go if you have the budget. I've had nothing but good experiences with them. Just note that on certain ATEM models, you have to adjust your computers HDMI out settings in order for it to register. All of the information is available on the BlackMagic Forums.
 
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