Question / Help General Streaming Questions

[digiphil]

Hello you awesome supporters of open source! I'm planning to surprise my son with his own PC for his birthday (he's turning 13 this December!). I'm sure he's going to want to use it for streaming since he always talks about the games he watches online. Google told me that OBS was the best software for broadcasting so here I am!

I guess my first question would be if there are any kid-friendly streaming sites out there. From what I've seen, it seems like TwitchTV is the only site out there specifically for this sort of gaming stuff. I'm a bit worried about the crowd there from the short time I spent on the site. Of course I'll be monitoring my son whenever he streams but that won't stop a random person from messing with my kid. Any alternatives (if there are any) and suggestions on how I somehow filter people from my son's stream?

Next would be privacy and legality. I'm a wee bit paranoid from the whole NSA thing so I just want to know how much of this data is saved anywhere. I'm also concerned about some reports I saw about takedowns on YouTube videos regarding some games and if those things would also apply to streaming. Another question would be if OBS has all the licenses it needs. My workplace specifically prohibits the use of VLC on our computers because of some questionable legality regarding DRM and codecs. I asked him to look at OBS and he said as long as you have your audio and video codecs licensed, it would be fine. If ever, would I need to acquire my own license for these codes to stream (is there such a thing)?

Thanks for your time and more power to you guys!

- Phil D.

 

[FerretBomb]

Heya! I'd recommend most strongly looking into hardware setups; encoding video in real-time is a pretty CPU-intensive process; you can mostly get away with a current-gen Core i5 with QuickSync if the CPU and motherboard support its use, but for 'serious' streaming, there's really no substitute for an i7.

Twitch is the only one with a specific gaming 'set' at this point of any real repute. You can livestream to YouTube, but the main gaming audience is going to still be at Twitch. Own3d used to be an option, but they folded when they decided that paying their top streamers wasn't a priority, and they all jumped ship.
There are quite a lot of unpleasant folks on Twitch, yes. It really depends on what kind of a game you are playing (CoD, LoL, DotA/DotA2, HoN, and WoT draw some of the worst), how strict your channel rules are, how on-the-ball your moderators are, and how you present yourself.
You CAN use a custom language filter to get rid of some of the more common harsh language, but that isn't really going to stop trolls. Setting up a channel bot (Moobot or Nightbot are both free) can help catch the obvious bad-stuff, but past that you need human eyes on things.

I'd recommend heading to the Twitch TOS and AUP and reading up as far as legality. At the moment, they have switched over so that non-partnered streams are NOT recorded by default. You can switch this on, at which point the retention period lasts about a week, give or take. You can also manually choose to permanently save a specific VOD (video-on-demand) after that, which will preserve it from the auto-housekeeping. Also, creating a highlight will auto-save it permanently.

Takedowns still apply. If a game's EULA forbids streaming/posting video of it, Twitch will comply with takedowns from publishers/developers, including banning accounts under certain circumstances. It's your responsibility to know if you're allowed to stream a given game before you do.
Playing copyrighted music (not provided by the game itself; if the game dev licensed Paradise City from GnR and it plays incidentally as a BGM, that's fine) can also get you taken down and legal action pressed as a public performance of a copyrighted work. Same with Pandora/Spotify/Grooveshark, even if you pay for them, unless you have a rebroadcaster license specifically. No one has been sued though... yet.

As far as I'm aware, OBS uses open-source/free-use licensed codecs (x264, released under GNU GPL; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X264), but Jim or one of the other Devs would have to speak on that more.

 

[digiphil]

Thanks for the quick reply FerretBomb! So you suggest I get at least an Core i5? How about options from AMD? And also, would this streaming business work on a laptop with a game running at the same time? I'm guessing it would probably need to be a pretty powerful one. I might just buy an i7 for future proofing.

Okay, so from what you're saying, Twitch is practically my only choice. My son usually plays Terraria and Minecraft but maybe he will be interested in those other games you mentioned eventually. You lost me a bit on the channel rules bit and the bot part but I guess I just have to research more on that. I'll probably be the one to create my son's channel so I would have control over it.

Thanks for clearing up the recording part. I was a bit worried that random videos just get saved for people to review. Also, does the chat in the stream get saved as well? It doesn't seem like it but I just want to be sure and if it is, could I edit out unsavory parts?

So takedowns can still happen. I guess I kind of expected that and I just have to make sure my son doesn't playback any obvious copyrighted stuff. Thanks for the heads up on that.

I'll go check out that GNU GPL stuff, thanks for that! Seems like these patents and licenses can be a bit messy.

Again, thanks!

- Phil D.

 

[Smoshi]

I just wanted to drop by and say how cool it was that you're supporting your sons video game hobby. Also great to see there are still parents out there that keeps an eye on their child's internet activity, etc.

With the channel rules, Twitch TV has a built in filter that can delete any swearing on the channel's chat. You can also filter out words that aren't already included. Chat doesn't save with the VOD.

Also, bots are AI channel mods that delete messages that contains URLs, CAPITALIZED MESSAGES, etc. I've never used one personally but have seen them used on other channels. I think you can set one up to your liking.

I hate to bring this up, but also keep in mind that your son is young so there will be "trolls" out there that like to make fun of young gamers.

OBS is indeed the best streaming software out there. As far as hardware goes, your CPU is probably the most important. I don't know much about what's good and bad, so hopefully others will give some feedback.

 

[FerretBomb]

Yes, I'd rate an i5 at the minimum. Encoding video in real-time is an extremely CPU-intensive proposition. If you make sure the CPU and motherboard support it, OBS can also take advantage of QSV (quicksync video) support to offload encoding to the built-in iGPU. Definitely a life-saver on the lower-cost end.
I would not recommend a 'gaming laptop' for two reasons:
One, I refer to them as 'the tallest midget'. They suck at both halves of the description; too small a thermal envelope leads to easy overheating, lower performance parts (mobile edition graphics cards, etc), poor battery life, higher cost, no upgrade capability to keep up with the times... if you aren't moving around A LOT, it's a major waste of money in the interest of an all-in-one convenience.
Two, they normally have both a discrete GPU *and* a built-in, and normally only games will run on the GPU; this causes problems with OBS when trying to capture other elements which are handled by the other video card, resulting in black-screen issues. Search the forums for 'black screen capture' and you'll see how widespread the problem is. It's not a small thing. You can usually work around the issue by forcing everything to the discrete GPU, but in some cases that won't work... and in a very few cases people have tried going as far as disabling the onboard iGPU to force things over, only to find out that it was also managing the display interaction, and blackscreen-bricking their machines (still running in the background, but not showing anything on screen... in extreme cases even external monitors as some laptops use the integrated GPU for ALL video connections).

Something I'd avoid, just for sanity's sake.

Up until a month or two ago, ALL broadcasts were recorded by default. Twitch disabled this and made it an opt-in recently. Chat is not saved as a sidechannel, no. If you display it on-screen it will of course be baked into the video and saved in that manner. If you want to edit out unsavory parts, the easiest way is to use the custom banned-words filter to hit the most common words (and typing-bypass variants).

Yep, takedowns can absolutely happen. The large copyright-houses haven't really taken notice of Twitch yet (or at least haven't taken action), but ensuring you are staying within legal bounds is always a good idea. Many don't, and may end up paying for it once things DO kick off on that front.
Patents and licenses are always messy... in many cases out of sheer greed. From what I have seen, h264 patent enforcement has been ruled as un-enforceable. I'd be less concerned given that x264 is GNU GPL licensed, which has some pretty strict requirements on the developer side to be allowed.

And I would definitely second that your son will likely attract 'age trolls', sheerly due to being young. Especially if he plans to use a webcam to provide an onscreen face-cam (a very good interaction option to increase engagement) or microphone (almost a requirement as a livestreamer).

 

[digiphil]

Thank you again FerretBomb! Your answers are very helpful. So from what I understand, laptops are a no-no regarding streaming with OBS. You made it sound like a complete nightmare so I'll get my son a PC instead. Do I run with Windows 7 or 8? Also, I have this idea of maybe getting another PC and make this streaming activity a joint thing where I am the producer of the show and my kid is the star. That way, I learn more about the process, monitor my kid, and have some bonding time. Would this be easy to setup?

Since I'm thinking of taking this streaming thing more seriously and I may end up joining my son in his stream, I asked our IT guy about x264 and he said something about using x264 for free is fine but would still require the software to have a license for h264(?) since the guys that own that are greedy and should die in a fire. I want to do more research about it but I don't really know where to start and this licensing thing is starting to make my head hurt. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Again, thank you for your great help!

- Phil D.

 

[Lain]

If you're using x264, all you need do is abide by the GPL, which you do if you use OBS because OBS is GPL.

As for h264, I'm no lawyer, but judging by the fact that everyone and their brother/mother/cousin all use h264 on youtube/twitch/etc and have never been sued for it, I think it's fairly safe to say it's fine. Twitch doesn't even allow other codecs anymore anyway I think.

 

[FerretBomb]

Quite welcome! Happy they can be of use.

The W7 or 8 question is... loaded. I have a strong prejudice against W8 as an IT guy, due to the fact that it's a PITA to fix anything or work with on a power-user level. Windows has been hiding more and more of the deep config stuff behind 'blinkenlights' barriers (shutten uppen und vatchen der blinkenlights) to keep them away from average users, which just makes it more and more of a hassle to get anything done, much less quickly.
That said, Win8 has a number of important performance improvements when it comes to streaming, including FAST Monitor Capture mode (it's horribly slow under W7 and should only be used as a last resort, whereasunder W8 it's quite a viable option).

A two-PC casting rig is used by many high-end streamers; having someone working the second system as a devoted director/editor/mod could be very helpful... switching between scenes, layers, balancing audio and so on, though it may take a bit of time to develop that sense of coordination between the streamer and director (I'd probably hook up a dedicated external USB numpad as they sell for laptops which lack them, and set it near the main keyboard to act as a scene/audio/control board, myself). But it does come with its own challenges; most especially microphone usage. If the mic is plugged into the gaming system, it needs to be set to play back over the speakers ('listen to this device' in the Windows recording devices preferences menu) which can be VERY irritating.
If it is plugged into the encoding machine, you will not be able to use in-game VoIP communication, but you will be able to control it independently of the system/game audio. You'd need to run TeamSpeak, Ventrilo or whatnot (avoid Skype; it's insecure bloatware) on the encoding machine. This also means that you can't use push-to-talk modes on any of these. Alternately, you can use two microphones; one for the gaming machine for in-game VoIP, the other to the encoding machine for stream audio.

I really wouldn't worry over-much about h264 licensing, but yes, those who own the patent do kind of need to do so. It's effective free-use, but IIRC they tried to hit up a few large companies that were using it to extort cash after it already was in heavy use. I'd more see them going after the x264 project rather than end-user streamers, if it came down to it.

 

[digiphil]

Hello again guys! Just wanted to give you a quick update on my son's computer. I asked our IT guy to spec something for me and I'll just paste it here for you experts to scrutinize:

Streaming PC Specs:
Intel® Core™ i7-4770K
ASUS MAXIMUS VI GENE
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB)
ASUS GeForce® GTX 760 DirectCU II
Intel SSD 530 180 GB
Western Digital WD Black 1TB
Corsair CX600 PSU
Lian Li Mini-Q PC-Q08 Mini Tower Case

The IT guy told me that he could take care of installing whichever version of Windows I buy and I wouldn't really need to get a DVD drive for that PC since I already have an external one for my laptop. Should I go get Windows 7 or 8? What are there any advantages/disadvantages with streaming in choosing either?

Also, I spent sometime looking into this GPL/x264/h264 stuff and from what I found, x264 does not ask for licensing fees for using it on free products but it does not provide a pass-through license. It goes on mentioning having to get a license from MPEGLA. I tried finding more information on the MPEGLA site but I couldn't find anything clear cut so I just mailed them to ask their deal on free use.

This was their response:
All end products are treated the same under our AVC License, including products which are offered for free. As a result, end products that include AVC/H.264 functionality will need coverage under the AVC License and will be subject to the applicable royalties. Of course, there is no royalty for the first 100,000 AVC Products in each year.

Apparently, each copy that exists out there counts towards the total number of "products". Maybe I shouldn't have e-mailed them about the free use of their so-called patents. They seem to be one of those patent trolls out there, the super greedy kind. Then again, I count towards the small fish (bacteria?) in the online world so I guess my kid and I are safe. Until we become super famous and become the father and son duo of streaming! I can dream, right?

Super thanks for all the amazing input. How do you find the time to be so helpful? :)

 

[ThoNohT]

Windows 7 is now old. Although Windows 8.1 has a small bug with monitor capture I believe, Windows 8 generally does a better job at supporting streaming.

Some advantages:
- No need to worry about aero
- Super fast monitor capture (unless that bug kicks in, again, I don't know the details)
- No performance losses on any other areas.

If an IT guy is prejudiced against Windows 8, that's too bad, lol, ain't no stopping it. Even companies are going to have to move on at some point. I personally preferred Windows 7 too at the start, but having used it for a while now, there's no things I couldn't overcome, or just get used to. All in all, I suggest you don't buy an outdated operating system and just go with windows 8(.1).

 

[FerretBomb]

Sadly, I'd have to recommend Win8(.1) as well, as an 'average user' system. Do be sure to get the 64-bit version. Some vendors will rely on consumer innocence to push the less-desired, less-capable 32-bit version when not asked specifically for the 64-bit version.

Not sure I'd call it 'prejudice' really, given that it's a regular headache in my workday whenever one starts pitching a fit for no apparent reason... it's simply experience. Win8 is a pain in the ass to work with on a power-user level, as compared to Win7 (which is a pain in the ass compared to XP, which is old enough that I'll accept it's no longer viable). As a result, if something breaks it's quite a bit harder to get the information needed to actually fix it, as there is no 'disable the shiny crap and show me the bones' button. And the shiny crap is DESIGNED to get in the way, to keep average users' hands away from it. Digital childproofing, if you will.
Personally, I'm going with the 'skip a generation' model. 95, skip 98, XP, skip Vista, Win7. Skip 8, go to whatever's un-****ed the stuff they boned up in 8.
I'm not sure I'd list 'no performance losses in other areas' as an 'advantage' either. It's just not a DISadvantage. That's like saying 'will not stab you in the neck with a DVD'. While technically true (usually), it also applies to Win7 and most any other operating system out there (ChuckyOS excluded).


That out of the way. I do have to say that machine is quite beastly (in a good way) and should serve very well. My only recommendation would be to add an aftermarket cooler, as the stock Intel heatsinks... will work, but definitely not as well as a devoted solution for an extra $40 or so that will keep temperatures down, a larger margin for error, and increase the longevity of the system (running hot is bad for silicon; the cooler you keep it, the longer it 'lives'). If the case has the space, my go-to is a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ (Evo, whichever has the upgraded bracket to fit the 1155 form factor). Be aware that it's not a small cooler by any means, and may cause space issues with a small case.
I'd also recommend taking a look at the AMD R9 290 (non-X); it's one of the biggest bang-for-buck performance cards currently available, and blows the nVidia offering at the same price point out of the water entirely.