Question / Help Freezing problems with couch streaming...USB to blame?

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turnaboutstepladder

New Member
Just to preface this, we are streaming from our couch. The Wii U and Elgato HD60 are about 12 feet in front of us. The PC that we're using is in the den behind us, and I have two USB hubs about half way that connect everything :-/ I know it's not ideal

So we tried our first attempt at streaming last night. Streaming via the PC worked great! We used OBS to have our webcam and game footage on the stream.

I then tried using our new Elgato HD60 to stream our Wii U. It worked for a few moments but it soon froze. I believe the webcam kept going though. And then at some point, the webcam froze as well. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the stream to stick. It always just started freezing.

Now, I later just tried Elgato's Game Capture HD just using my laptop to handle the stream, and it worked fine. I'm afraid that the problem streaming with the PC was that I do have some USB extensions and hubs to reach the PC (which is in the den behind us). I'm attaching a rough diagram, which I believe is how the wires are set up.

Does anyone have any suggestions for couch streaming? I suppose I could stream to my laptop but I know it's not ideal. I'm using a Yoga 2 Pro, Core i5 with 4GB of RAM. Thanks so much! I'm so excited to get started streaming. Just after a couple minutes, we already had a few people in our chat room submitting Mario Maker levels to us!
 

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turnaboutstepladder

New Member
Update: I bit the bullet and moved the PC next to the TV. Way better results now that the Elgato is directly plugged into the PC. Experiencing trouble getting a smooth feed at 60fps but I think it might be a matter of finding the right bitrate and other settings.
 
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dping

Active Member
turnaboutstepladder said:
Update: I bit the bullet and moved the PC next to the TV. Way better results now that the Elgato is directly plugged into the PC. Experiencing trouble getting a smooth feed at 60fps but I think it might be a matter of finding the right bitrate and other settings.
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Make sure the HD60 is set to 1080@60 in OBS and also a 1ms buffer in the HD60 properties.

Yeah you really want any hub dedicated to such a high bandwidth item and move the webcam, KB and mouse somewhere else. as for extending the signal. I would see about getting USB cat5 extension cable. its not all about power (even though you need to stay above 4.8v) its more about noise. usb 2.0 will gain noise over the line from various close by items. a Cat6 cable will hold out noise and you might be able to get away with a cheaper adapter. you can alos try a more expensive one like the one listed below which will give you 2.0 over a longer period.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._re=usb_cat5_extension-_-12-400-628-_-Product

Personally, I would buy two of the cheaper extenders and use one of your powered hubs and use this for your KB mouse and webcam.
 
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turnaboutstepladder

New Member
Could the USB items possibly be contributing to the stuttering I'm experiencing when streaming? If not, all of my devices seem to be working perfectly.

I only have one CAT5 input on my PC, which goes right to the router. Would a splitter be useful in this situation or would it degrade from the internet stream? If I have to I'd be willing to try that out, but right now I don't feel like my other USB items are seeing any kind of degradation that I can observe.
 
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dping

Active Member
turnaboutstepladder said:
Could the USB items possibly be contributing to the stuttering I'm experiencing when streaming? If not, all of my devices seem to be working perfectly.

I only have one CAT5 input on my PC, which goes right to the router. Would a splitter be useful in this situation or would it degrade from the internet stream? If I have to I'd be willing to try that out, but right now I don't feel like my other USB items are seeing any kind of degradation that I can observe.
Click to expand...
no, a cat5/6 usb adapter uses a cat5/6 cable as a medium to transport USB signal. its like a wire replacement. you have a USB type A male and rj45 at one end then you use a cat5 cable to whatever length you need then a rj45 at the other end to a USB type a female at the other. at that point you can use a powered hub and know that the signal as almost as clean as it would be connected to the PC.

Anyway, GL
 
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dping

Active Member
turnaboutstepladder said:
Got it. I might have to invest in that. Thanks for the advice! We'll have to get these things little by little.
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If oy ugo with the cheap cable, note that they state USB 1.1 standard. in the end, it is just an adapter so passively, if you can keep voltage up and noise down, there really isn't the limit to USB 2.0
 
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