Question / Help Four camera issues

TechCat

TechCat

New Member
I'm an art streamer and I've been working on sculpture via Picarto. (Picarto has been having some server trouble the last couple days, so I haven't been able to test.)

My issue is I have made a setup to include four webcams. I had been using just the one for weeks, but it was difficult to see most of what I was doing. I went and bought three smaller webcams to put around the area I work and to mount to my hat. (Here's a link to the camera I grabbed three of http://tinyurl.com/pzk92f8) The layout is a bit tricky (here's a shot of how the computer desk and table are on opposite sides of eachother, hardware has been replaced since then but layout is the same), but it's a USB 3.0 extension cord to a powered USB 3.0 hub, with the three small cams plugged into it. The original webcam is in the main PC USB 3.0 slot.

Each camera works individually and have all been shown to work individually in OBS. The problem is it can't seem to display all four at once, only two at a time. Which two seems to change around to whatever the most recently loaded two are. I've tried them as local sources as well as global sources, but still only two max. The other two will just be null boxes with red borders when I go to edit them together.

Is there a plugin I am missing or a setting somewhere I need to enable?

Also I dunno how this log file thing works so: https://gist.github.com/276dc5332d6d83424876
 
The problem is likely caused by you needing to use a usb hub. Because of how the protocol works, you only have about 480mbit for ALL cameras on the hub, so you basically only have the bandwidth for one plugged into the computer and one from the hub.

Try with all four plugged into the computer directly, and if you can't, you likely need to get a card to add more ports to your computer. The more USB controllers per port on the card, the better.

I see similar behavior when I try to use multiple logitech c920s on a system.
 
I went and tried it that way, plugging the cameras all into the PC main. One camera won't register for some reason. (Switched around which camera was plugged where, the cameras all work.) So I can get a setup with three going live. Even with one of them plugged into the extension port part, which was the main thing I wanted to add.

Still would like to know if there's a hardware issue I'm not aware of. Are other users able to get four separate cameras going simultaneously normally?
 
I have been, but mainly because on the computer that I'm able to do this on, every usb port has its own controller circuitry.

It's a combination of a limitation of USB 2.0 and how USB 2.0 runs on top of USB 3.0.

A card like the Startech PEXUSB3S44V may do the job for you, but it has some specific requirements of your motherboard to work.
 
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