Connecting to OBS from different networks.

[przewoz]

Hello!
Im planning to stream live my team matches on youtube.
As camera i want to use my phone with droid cam app.

My question is - is it possible to connect to OBS on my pc that is connected to home network, and using phone as camera that is connected to different network?
If yes thanks for help.

Thank you very much :)

 

[JohnPee]

If you are using a mobile phone you can try OBS Ninja which will allow you to connect to OBS over the Internet. I suspect connecting two networks together using a VPN is possible but complex and then you could probably use NDI to achieve what you want,

 

[MrGhost]

I have looked into this, and you would more likely want to buy a cheap webcam.
I have about 6 or 7 webcams I can use all at once. Some were 5 or 10 dollars. Others were 34 or 40 dollars.

To connect the phone camera to OBS you will have to use some sort of 'capture card' and they are considerably more expensive, but the bigger problem is overheating of your phone. SInce it's not possible to keep your phone in the freezer and also take a picture of yoruself with it, your best bet is a webcam. Webcams are 5 or 10 dollars.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I recommend clarifying your question (because what you stated as the background, and your question are different)

My question is - is it possible to connect to OBS on my pc that is connected to home network, and using phone as camera that is connected to different network?

The answer is of course.
- As long as you understand networking, and are using the right protocols, with the right settings, and the sending application supports sending to a non-local network connection
- Why? OBS Studio can be configured to 'listen' for various protocols/traffic streams on various ports. Rarely does a network listener care if sender is local or not

in your case, I suspect what you are actually intending to ask, is can 'droid cam app' send a video stream to a non-local destination (which in reality has nothing to do with OBS Studio). And that best asked of 'droid cam app' [which I have no experience with, so can't comment directly... but have decades of networking experience, hence replying]

There are different apps that use different protocols to send a video stream. So if 'droid cam app' doesn't work, that doesn't mean other apps using other video stream approaches won't work
- and using WiFi is NEVER a good idea for this type of streaming video. period. a last resort, ok with interruptions approach, but not something to ever rely on. [watching video streaming on proprietary clients that use caching to overcome WiFi throughput issues doesn't mean such will work with OBS Studio or any consumer-grade multi-input system]. For reliability, consistency, etc, I'd use a USB Ethernet dongle and stream the video over that

 

[MrGhost]

I recommend clarifying your question (because what you stated as the background, and your question are different)

The answer is of course.
- As long as you understand networking, and are using the right protocols, with the right settings, and the sending application supports sending to a non-local network connection
- Why? OBS Studio can be configured to 'listen' for various protocols/traffic streams on various ports. Rarely does a network listener care if sender is local or not

in your case, I suspect what you are actually intending to ask, is can 'droid cam app' send a video stream to a non-local destination (which in reality has nothing to do with OBS Studio). And that best asked of 'droid cam app' [which I have no experience with, so can't comment directly... but have decades of networking experience, hence replying]

There are different apps that use different protocols to send a video stream. So if 'droid cam app' doesn't work, that doesn't mean other apps using other video stream approaches won't work
- and using WiFi is NEVER a good idea for this type of streaming video. period. a last resort, ok with interruptions approach, but not something to ever rely on. [watching video streaming on proprietary clients that use caching to overcome WiFi throughput issues doesn't mean such will work with OBS Studio or any consumer-grade multi-input system]. For reliability, consistency, etc, I'd use a USB Ethernet dongle and stream the video over that

That is true of course, the network thing, and the wifi being the worst when it comes to networking.

However I still say it's a terrible idea to try to use a phone camera for anything more than a phone video. They all get really hot and make multi GB size mp4 files that are way to big to deal with.

One interesting experience I had was with my Sony Xperia 1 II. I was using it to record some videos with the high fps shutter speed (most videos we use are 30fps). When I brought my videos to the computer they were unwatchable there. I probably needed some codec to watch them but in 4k with 120fps, anywhere I wanted to look at them they played back only in slow motion, (in VLC it wouldn't play back at all just black frames and blinking, and I ended up having to run them thru Handbrake to reencode them to a normal format, which took them out of the high frame rate anyways) and a 5 minute video was 15 GB. OK extreme case scenario, but even on a simple video camera recording ordinary phone cam videos you will make the phone super hot, and the video will be too large to network reasonably.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

That is true of course, the network thing, and the wifi being the worst when it comes to networking.

However I still say it's a terrible idea to try to use a phone camera for anything more than a phone video. They all get really hot and make multi GB size mp4 files that are way to big to deal with.

The large files size would be when Recording on the mobile device itself (and later incorporating that into a composited video) vs using mobile device (phone/tablet, etc) as a more 'portable' webcam (and often with better optics than cheap webcams).
I prefer to use a interchangeable lens camera when practical, or NDI PTZ camera... but that isn't always practical. So I get the idea of using a phone camera.
- And then I'd prefer USB connecting to OBS computer (ie using phone as webcam). Apple's walled garden approach make that a problem (impossible?) on Windows.... but for Android?
- when greater distance required, then I'd go Ethernet, whenever practical

then there is the separate issue of incorporating video feeds from remote locations (separate LAN, ie different locations), where my default would be to use NDI and NDI Bridge, recognizing those don't necessarily play well with OBS Studio (especially not for technically unsophisticated users as NDI not natively supported in OBS Studio, but can be added in with NDI Tools and other).

People often chose the 'easy' button of something like obs.ninja not respecting/recognizing/appreciating the significant caveats that such a solution entails (and then complaining when it doesn't work)​

 

[MrGhost]

- when greater distance required, then I'd go Ethernet, whenever practical

then there is the separate issue of incorporating video feeds from remote locations (separate LAN, ie different locations), where my default would be to use NDI and NDI Bridge, recognizing those don't necessarily play well with OBS Studio (especially not for technically unsophisticated users as NDI not natively supported in OBS Studio, but can be added in with NDI Tools and other).

People often chose the 'easy' button of something like obs.ninja not respecting/recognizing/appreciating the significant caveats that such a solution entails (and then complaining when it doesn't work)​

I'm not familiar with obs.ninja but I use NDI and OBS plugin I believe it's called OBS-NDI, across ethernet every time I use OBS. I have the 3 computer live streaming setup lately. The 3rd computer taking on the streaming and final video scaling (1920 down to 1280) really seems to pep up my 2nd computer's extensive burden of Advanced Scene Switcher Macros it constantly has to run. It moves faster today than before, between its 10 or so scenes and 5 or 6 Video sources. I actually repaired a livestream today that went off nearly flawlessly but with the irritating split second pause in audio and freeze in video every 30 to 60 seconds. I am trying a new streaming site and the livestream was 2500kbps (Video) and 320kbps audio according to the settings of OBS.

The result of the 3 computer array during yesterday's long livestream was a nearly perfect example of video 'machine' control and harmonizing music with perfect detail of the Prophet Synthesizer controls being switched (sometime after 1:40:00 in the video). You can witness the prophet synth controls written to the chatlog file every 1s in the video while I am zooming around and turning knobs in the scenes which are set exactly so they show my actions by the machine learning video operating in Advanced Scene Switcher.

I had to stretch the audio by 2s over the 1:56:19 audio file that I had recorded in the 1st of the array of computers (result was a 1:56:21 audio file) then overlay it onto the original video. Don't know what caused those minor flaws in the video (amounting to the 2s longer video than the audio file I recorded) but you can still witness them before 55:52 and after 2:53:13 which were the start and stop points of the recorded audio in the DAW.

Odysee replay (audio stretched) uploaded today

A prime example of how good webcams can work depending on the quality of the cameras. I am using several generic 5 and 10 dollar webcams and also a goetze-jensen s-line (obscure knockoff of the go pro from quite a few years back now) which was a bit more money (used) probably about 20 or 25, and a Microsoft 3000 which was probably 40 (used). I use the Optia Cam from Creativ ($5 pretty old bad camera). I use 2 generic cams (on that computer) one is on the left view of the synth and looks pretty good for a cheap 5 dollar camera. 5 cams maybe 6, and the webcam of the computer, all on 4 USB ports (but no audio interfaces on this computer at least).