Digital8 and Hi8 to 2013 Mac via OBS (using Firewire and Thunderbolt2 adapter) ... very choppy video

[armyofda12mnkeys]

Hello all,
I been following alot of videos and tutorials on Digitial8/Hi8 conversion.
Alot of people were using these RCA->USB special video-capture devices, and alot of other people were using Firewire as they said it would be better quality especially if using Digital8 film format. I have both Digital8 and Hi8... but let me try to get your advice on pulling Digital8 via Firewire nicely 1st be4 attempting the Hi8 films.

Using our original Sony DCR-TVR340 thats in pretty nice condition to output the capture to the laptop.
So I added the Firewire cable recommended to my camera, and the "Apple Firewire->ThunderBolt 1/2" adapter.
This adapter fits in my Apple early 2013 Macbook Pro (has 2 slots on the left near power cable).
I add the Video Capture Device to OBS and set the Preset to 640x480 (this dropdown is the only option in this area).
In the settings, I set the Base and Output Resolution to 640x480 as well.
I set the Frame Rate to 29.97 (as i don't have an 'E' european 'PAL' model).
I set the output format as MPEG4 and the encoding as H.264 with default CBR rate control @ 2500Kbps (or x264 with ABR @2500Kbps, doesn't seem to matter)...
When I play my video camera and then click 'Start Recording'. the video comes over very choppy, like 1 or 2 frames per second . The audio seems fine and not choppy.
Anything else I can try to fix this Video choppyness?

If I can't figure it out... My next attempt will be to buy a Firewire PC expresscard for my Lenovo W540 Windows machine (as I already attempted trying to connect via what I believe is "Thunderbolt 1/2"/DisplayPort connection on the left side but that didn't seem to recognize the camera when I plugged it in.. i assume its Thunderbolt capable as it has a lightning icon but alas doesn't seem to recognize in OBS there).
or might try buying the "Apple ThunderBolt 1/2"->"AppleThunderBolt 3/4" adapter and try it on my Sister's 2023 mac laptop. But I'd rather see if i can get it working on my old Mac 1st be4 buying $50 more part(s).

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Check System Monitor... I suspect that ancient CPU(2013) for real-time video encoding is overwhelmed (maxed out).
And, assuming GPU support has had similar updates as teh Windows OS release, you may want to go back to latest OBS v27... BUT let someone more knowledgeable on MacOS confirm or suggest otherwise

Don't ignore the big, bold application warning about recording to MP4... auto remux to MP4 if need be. I don't assist people who ignore that warning

I'm not familiar, so I'll let you look up what exactly which GPU that your specific Macbook has, and whether the video encoding can be offloaded to that GPU (Intel HD Graphics 4000??) using maybe Quicksync?
Trying to do CPU encoding on a dual-core CPU that old (and battery/laptop not performance optimized) is likely to be a real challenge, with real expertise in Operating System Optimization, and a lot more... and even then, I wouldn't count on it (but I'm only guessing)
You have a SATA HDD, not a SSD, right? Make sure all unnecessary background processes turned off so as reduce CPU and Disk I/O potential bottlenecks

 

[armyofda12mnkeys]

>> GPU (Intel HD Graphics 4000??) using maybe Quicksync?

Yes its an "Intel HD Graphics 4000", but also have a "Nvidia GeForece GT 650M 1GB" on it as well according the settings.
But it may be too old to utilize. I googled Quicksync on older Macs and didn't find great info about it (other than maybe it should automatically offload it if available which doesn't seem to help). I do see alot of people say Sony HandyCam work well into OBS on older laptops that have firewire which got my hopes up.
But I also upgraded the OS to Sonomo via "Opencore Legacy Patcher" (since Mac from 2013 doesn't get updates anymore), and ever since I have noticed extreme problematic CPU usage that sucks bigtime (even opening the Finder sometimes randomly lags where takes 30seconds+ to get the Finder window to animate to the screen, but its random). Let me see if I can go back to the old Mac OS on that laptop or use Windows with the Firewire expresscard I just ordered as that Lenovo W540 Windows laptop is more beefy and runs much faster (and I did see a review on Amazon saying a W540 worked with Startech card "Works for HDV transfer but not for miniDV").

 

[armyofda12mnkeys]

Woo hoo, figured it out. I reinstalled 'OpenCore Legacy Patcher' on my mac (basically new install of Mac OS [Sonomo 14.6]) and now the computer is running much smoother.
I was able to pull the video via OBS very easily now :). Even used the default settings minus the resolution/framerate (might tinker with those settings tomorrow).
Thanks @Lawrence_SoCal , sounds like you were right about the CPU (don't think i had latest drivers installed for Intel or the Nvidia as OpenCore be4 the reinstall was complaining about them on the 'Apply Root Patches' screen).

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

A few minutes check would seem to indicate H.264 NVENC GPU encoding with that GT 650M is not an option, so no nVidia GPU encode offload.

So... feel free to play on that old Macbook but it may be a frustrating experience that isn't OBS Studio's fault.
As for the Lenovo W540... is that a typo, or mobile workstation from 2014 (also subject to thermal throttling)?
Just for reference, I tried to stream 4 yrs ago with an Intel i5-6300HQ laptop with (2.3GHz 4c/4t circa Fall 2015), 8GB RAM, SATA SSD Win 10 Home edition (fresh, optimized install), and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M. I failed as the PC wasn't up to the task (no gaming, just alternating between USB webcam and simple pre-recorded videos, alongside a PPTx slide show window capture, streaming at 720p 30fps with no OBS effects/filters). I’ve learned a lot more about OBS since then, and I might be able to just squeak it out, but wasn’t worth it (to me). Some extra RAM would have helped, along with not using some 4K pre-recorded videos... but even then, when you are starting you are focused on getting it to work... hard to know when doign something wrong vs needing to optimize to get it to work, and then balancing hardware resource contention
A 2 generations older CPU, and lower end GPU (doesn't it even support NVENC??) than what I had ... uh, be careful with expectations.

Personally, I'd expect you need to make sure your OS (Win10) is HIGHLY optimized for an under-powered system [and not following snake oil advice from fools who have no idea what they are talking about (and/or don't provide important caveats)]. I start with enterprise VDI environment type recommendations as good starting point for reducing background workload and resource consumption.

 

[armyofda12mnkeys]

Yes W540 (windows10) is from 2014, Mac is from early 2013. I still use the W540 for programming/coding on a 3 monitor setup :).
It has 32GB RAM in the W540 and seems more powerful than the Mac (with its 2GB Nvidia K2100M card).

The main guy I see recommended on Youtube for his "Video Capture from old camcorders" videos seems to recommend even older machines if can't use the "mulitple adapter+dongle" way I been using (since ThunderBolt4 video capture doesn't seem to work on alot of newer machines, and Firewire isn't on any new PCs either, and RCA cables lose quality for Digital8 and other formats):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXXSZdOZb-k (1m22s Macs, 1m50s PC) going back to 1999 Macs :).
Maybe recording doesn't require as much realtime power as streaming? as recording with CPU issues maybe will just slow down the process usually but still give the same end result (well except in my original case where it was extreemmmmmmely slow cause of missing drivers but now works fine), whereas with streaming if there are CPU issues users will notice them realtime.

 

[armyofda12mnkeys]

Update: the Startech Firewire expresscard worked on my Windows 10 laptop (Lenovo W540) with the WinDV and ScenalizerLive apps.
OBS didn't work however.
OBS could see the camera as the "Microsoft DV Camera and VCR" when I added via 'Video Capture', but unlike on the Mac, couldn't capture the video for some reason, like the video didn't show up in the app window or in the output file.
When I played the output file back, I could hear it recording audio from my room (like I was talking during the 'Start Recording' session) but not from the actual Sony camcorder. and no video as well, only empty/black output as stated earlier.
I tested and the Audio was recording from my laptop microphone (as I put the Sony farther away [length of the cable] from the laptop and tested talking near each device).
Nothing in the Log File analysis indicated why. https://obsproject.com/logs/gj9gHYsT9ssHBDIO
Note: I had to use Software H264 Encoding as the video drivers are too old for Hardware H264 Encoding and get popup error complaining about that.
Anyway Im happy i could get it from OBS+Mac or WinDV+Windows, but thought I'd throw up the log file in case anyone sees anything interesting (i didn't see anything in the Analysis that stuck out).
Here is a compare of a paused frame in the video.... so you can see "Microsoft DV Camera and VCR" working in WinDV and not in OBS on Windows (note: I tested each app individually and only have them both up at same time so you can see the same device was used in both systems):

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Do real-time hardware resource monitoring (in this case CPU... I suspect CPU pegged at 100% for an extended period of time... or the entire time.)

 

[armyofda12mnkeys]

Not sure , but I tried with the old 2016 version of OBS called OBS Classic: on version "0.659b", and that worked easily capturing the video with no issues at all on the CPU (only using 8% CPU on my 2014 Lenovo W540 laptop).

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