Question / Help HD60s crackling/dropping audio in OBS? (Mac using OBS Link)

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Sheahogan

New Member
Hey everyone, I’ve started streaming using an Elgato HD60S with OBS on a Mac to stream from my Xbox One S, but I've been having persisitent issues with the gameplay audio dropping during the stream. It beings stuttering, then completely drops out, and keeps stuttering as it comes back it. The audio might drop for a few seconds or stay out for ten or twenty minutes before popping back in, while my Yeti sound/facecam/gameplay video will continue playing like nothing happened - just missing all the game audio.

Here's a link to a picture of a sound log in Final Cut Pro that another user with the same issue posted: https://uploads-us-west-2.insided.c...ment/c3dc19dc-7999-4c8a-bba1-a7562066bb26.png. The large amplitude waves are his speech and the low baseline is the game audio. You can see where it drops out at the red line, then again a couple seconds later, then for good a couple seconds after that. If stream audio helps, here's a clip from earlier - there's no issues with my Blue Yeti audio (even though I didn't speak in the video), or the facecam, or the game video, just the game audio https://www.twitch.tv/videos/575186356.

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this issue?? Using a mid-2012 Macbook pro, but my CPU doesn't get any higher than 40% at any point as measured by OBS. Using OBS Link with the NDI driver, and recording the audio from my desktop using IShowU Audio Capture/Multi Output Device. I have a feeling it's coming from the OBS Link, as when I restart that program the sound typically comes back, but its been happening within an hour of each restart so it's not exactly sustainable.. any suggestions?
 
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beyonder

Member
open the OSX Activity Monitor. open CPU history, GPU history. Next time the audio starts to drop out see if the CPU or GPU is maxed out.

You can turn off the OBS preview to cut down on render time per frame and free up some resources.
 
D

DRymez

New Member
Sheahogan said:
Hey everyone, I’ve started streaming using an Elgato HD60S with OBS on a Mac to stream from my Xbox One S, but I've been having persisitent issues with the gameplay audio dropping during the stream. It beings stuttering, then completely drops out, and keeps stuttering as it comes back it. The audio might drop for a few seconds or stay out for ten or twenty minutes before popping back in, while my Yeti sound/facecam/gameplay video will continue playing like nothing happened - just missing all the game audio.

Here's a link to a picture of a sound log in Final Cut Pro that another user with the same issue posted: https://uploads-us-west-2.insided.c...ment/c3dc19dc-7999-4c8a-bba1-a7562066bb26.png. The large amplitude waves are his speech and the low baseline is the game audio. You can see where it drops out at the red line, then again a couple seconds later, then for good a couple seconds after that. If stream audio helps, here's a clip from earlier - there's no issues with my Blue Yeti audio (even though I didn't speak in the video), or the facecam, or the game video, just the game audio https://www.twitch.tv/videos/575186356.

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this issue?? Using a mid-2012 Macbook pro, but my CPU doesn't get any higher than 40% at any point as measured by OBS. Using OBS Link with the NDI driver, and recording the audio from my desktop using IShowU Audio Capture/Multi Output Device. I have a feeling it's coming from the OBS Link, as when I restart that program the sound typically comes back, but its been happening within an hour of each restart so it's not exactly sustainable.. any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Hi bro have you fixed this issue?

This is driving me into depression...
 
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Stenka

New Member
My windows OBS has a similar probelem after (OBS?) software update.
Not all our machines has that problem thoug.
 
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whitefalls

New Member
I'm having the same problem recording xbox one with MacBook Pro (2016) and Elgato HD60S. I think I've narrowed the problem down to OBS Link. Everything records fine using Elgato Game Capture HD program, so its not a hardware issue with the capture card. I downloaded NDI Monitor from the App Store to monitor the NDI feed coming from OBS Link, and the crackling audio is audible there as well. There aren't many settings in OBS Link to mess with to try to fix this, but changing the output from 1080 to 720 seems like it might be helping a little... but I don't have any way of measuring that objectively. The crackling still eventually comes back.

I'm going to start running my audio through a mixer so I can have my computer and game audio in my headset, so I think I'm going to try to work around this problem by muting the NDI audio and running audio from the console through the mixer as another input. Would be nice if it worked as intended though.

edit: Setting the output in OBSLink to 720p30 seems to keep the audio clear for noticeably longer. I'm wondering if this is a buffer or cache problem in OBSLink. Seems like its having trouble keeping up with the amount of data its handling. But I have no idea what I'm talking about so I'm not sure if that even makes sense.
 
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Ac1DrAiN3

New Member
Sheahogan said:
Hey everyone, I’ve started streaming using an Elgato HD60S with OBS on a Mac to stream from my Xbox One S, but I've been having persisitent issues with the gameplay audio dropping during the stream. It beings stuttering, then completely drops out, and keeps stuttering as it comes back it. The audio might drop for a few seconds or stay out for ten or twenty minutes before popping back in, while my Yeti sound/facecam/gameplay video will continue playing like nothing happened - just missing all the game audio.

Here's a link to a picture of a sound log in Final Cut Pro that another user with the same issue posted: https://uploads-us-west-2.insided.c...ment/c3dc19dc-7999-4c8a-bba1-a7562066bb26.png. The large amplitude waves are his speech and the low baseline is the game audio. You can see where it drops out at the red line, then again a couple seconds later, then for good a couple seconds after that. If stream audio helps, here's a clip from earlier - there's no issues with my Blue Yeti audio (even though I didn't speak in the video), or the facecam, or the game video, just the game audio https://www.twitch.tv/videos/575186356.

Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this issue?? Using a mid-2012 Macbook pro, but my CPU doesn't get any higher than 40% at any point as measured by OBS. Using OBS Link with the NDI driver, and recording the audio from my desktop using IShowU Audio Capture/Multi Output Device. I have a feeling it's coming from the OBS Link, as when I restart that program the sound typically comes back, but its been happening within an hour of each restart so it's not exactly sustainable.. any suggestions?
Click to expand...

Totally having the same problem with the exact same setup you're using. Was thinking about abandoning OBS link and the NDI source completely and just window capturing the El Gato HD Capture and pulling the audio from that. I also posted my log yesterday and haven't heard back from OBS. I also agree this looks like an OBS Link issue but not 100%. My CPU usage in the scene doesn't go above 40% so to me there's no logical explanation either. This is the only thing keeping me from streaming so I'm hoping they fix it soon. It's at least good that this is a common problem so we know it's probably nothing wrong with our individual streams or settings.
 
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Ac1DrAiN3

New Member
whitefalls said:
I'm having the same problem recording xbox one with MacBook Pro (2016) and Elgato HD60S. I think I've narrowed the problem down to OBS Link. Everything records fine using Elgato Game Capture HD program, so its not a hardware issue with the capture card. I downloaded NDI Monitor from the App Store to monitor the NDI feed coming from OBS Link, and the crackling audio is audible there as well. There aren't many settings in OBS Link to mess with to try to fix this, but changing the output from 1080 to 720 seems like it might be helping a little... but I don't have any way of measuring that objectively. The crackling still eventually comes back.

I'm going to start running my audio through a mixer so I can have my computer and game audio in my headset, so I think I'm going to try to work around this problem by muting the NDI audio and running audio from the console through the mixer as another input. Would be nice if it worked as intended though.

edit: Setting the output in OBSLink to 720p30 seems to keep the audio clear for noticeably longer. I'm wondering if this is a buffer or cache problem in OBSLink. Seems like its having trouble keeping up with the amount of data its handling. But I have no idea what I'm talking about so I'm not sure if that even makes sense.
Click to expand...
Wow! We're using the exact same setup and I too am having the same issue. Were you able to get it fixed after downscaling or did the problem still persist?
 
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NewtXing

New Member
Hey,

I recently got the HD60s to take my gameplay from my gaming pc to my imac which i am using as the streaming pc. Everything works fine except the audio has the same issues you have described above, its only the game audio, the video never stutters and my microphone audio comes through fine. I am also using OBS Link and was wondering if anyone had had anymore success fixing this isuue? I was starting to think that my HD60s was broken until I found this thread.
 
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whitefalls

New Member
Ac1DrAiN3 said:
Wow! We're using the exact same setup and I too am having the same issue. Were you able to get it fixed after downscaling or did the problem still persist?
Click to expand...

I've worked around the issue by running my game audio through a usb mixer and into OBS so I can mute the OBS Link audio. The OBS Link audio is unusable to me, and it happens using an NDI monitor as well, so I'm pretty sure its an OBS Link problem.
 
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Jess91

New Member
I also have this issue, running on a MacBook Pro. I think it’s an obs link issue too like some others in the thread as I stream from ecamm live not streamlabs or obs studio.

it’s really frustrating. I stream from ecamm live and use the obs link as ndi source for gameplay, I changed to 720 in the obs link preferences which helps it abit but still sometimes stutters and then will completely cut out after an hour or so.

Using game capture HD software from elgato has no issues. Hope we work out or get a fix soon.
 
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dukestew20

New Member
Hi,
I have been following this thread for a couple weeks trying to find a solution to this issue. I found a solution that worked for me and I just wanted to share my experience in hopes to help others.

I had been trying to stream with an elgato HD60s with 2019 macbook pro (intel i9) and my game sound was constantly cutting out. Very frustrating indeed.

I tried a number of different rendering/streaming softwares and the only one that seemed to work was the elgato capture HD, which i didnt want to use long term. This led me to believe it was a problem with the NDI link required for streamlabs/obs (which to my understanding is relatively new so it very well may be buggy). Monitoring my cpu i was at 40-50% and my macbook was HOT.

I think it may be a problem not only with the NDI link but the macbook choking CPU in order to not overheat.

So i bought a PC, nothing fancy - but a 300$US Lenovo with intel i7 16g ram. Now my stream works perfectly and even looks better even though the processor is less. My first stream with the PC my cpu was running anywhere from 80-90% which is high, I know... but after the 4.5 hour session the computer was barely warm.
I really was apprehensive about buying a new machine especially since i have been a mac user for over a decade.

I really suggest biting the bullet and getting a PC, it doesnt have to be expensive just enough to meet streaming requirements. Seems like every mac user i have followed to fix this issue has a bunch of work-arounds but thats exactly what they are...work-arounds. The software compatibility for Mac OS is just not where it needs to be yet for streamers and who knows when it will be.
 
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mitstreiter

New Member
OMG, i have the Dame issue! I Google for fixes, but nothing i find. Its only the Audio. I use a iMac Late 2012 27“. I Stream in 720p with 30fps. CPU usage is 10-20%.

i find no fixes. Maybe Its the ndi thing, or obs link. :(
 
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antonionii

New Member
I have the same issue btw. hopefully this is addressed in the next version of OBS for Mac OS. Random audio drops only in OBS. In game capture HD, its totally fine. Must be OBS Link/NDI. We need a fix! Soon! Making me resort to delaying plans or making crazy runarounds.
 
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Rockettman

New Member
Has anyone reported to Elgato/OBS? If so what was there response? Thank you! I think these threads should be shared to them so they don't think it's just our hardware.
 
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