Question / Help Direct stream to second computer over internet with no lag.

[LordYanLiang]

So my cousin and I live several states apart and we are attempting to put together a show on Twitch. The problem, of course, is that damned Twitch delay. Is there any way that I can share my stream with him directly that he gets no lag, possibly through a private RTMP server? It's fine if viewers get the standard lag, but I don't want to react to something in a stream and have him wait 20 seconds to see what I'm talking about. Is this possible, and if so, how can it be done?

 

[Harold]

Direct RTMP will only get it down to about 5-7 seconds.
You're not going to get the zero latency you want using anything that OBS supports.

 

[LordYanLiang]

Okay. If not OBS, what other options are available to make this happen?

 

[FerretBomb]

Short version, nope. I've been working on a super-low latency workaround since the HLS changeover, to continue a co-cast with a friend. The best you're going to get is setting up an RTMP relay using something like a DigitalOcean droplet that forwards your stream to Twitch, and let them tap into the relay using JWPlayer or VLC. But you aren't going to get instant in any case.

There are no other options. Real-time video encoding and playback takes time and CPU. You could try setting up a second machine with a camera pointing at your screen and do a Skype call, but it's going to be low-res, eat your already valuable upstream bandwidth, and isn't going to be enjoyable for whoever's on the far end of the connection.

 

[Harold]

skype screen sharing, that's about it.

 

[FerretBomb]

skype screen sharing, that's about it.

Even skype screen sharing is going to lag a lot. Tried it. :b

 

[LordYanLiang]

That's a shame. Now, with DigitalOcean, what type of delay would I be looking at? 5-7 seconds again?

 

[FerretBomb]

Yes. You'd still be setting up direct RTMP. With a REALLY good connection, you might shave it down to 3-7 seconds, but there's no guarantees, and you'll probably run into some stuttering.

 

[LordYanLiang]

I have to assume that, even if we tried something like not pushing the stream into Twitch -- maybe if I can improvise just capturing video and audio to save a copy to upload on my own, there's no way to avoid that lag at all. Am I right in assuming that?