Help me sell the use of OBS to my Church

S

SPNC

New Member
I need help from the community at large, more specifically from places of worship. I started using OBS for livestreaming this year for our Church. OBS is full of great content and resources and I am getting the hang of many aspects. Here's my dilemma, I need a better quality stream going out. I am currently running one Avipas 1081 PTZ camera over HDMI for the entire celebration. I have pretty much mastered getting my transitions down and such. The quality of the video is great on static images but at times I get blurring and jitters. I am pushing out a 720 30fps signal, and its clear as long as there is little to no movement. I know that the ideal situation would be to invest a ton of money in Switchers, Controllers, SDI cameras etc. I would rather spend less money on a better computer as opposed to the laptop that we are using with a much more powerful GPU. I know its a hardware issue with encoding. What I need is examples of your setup as well as links to some of your livestreams. I would like to stay with OBS as it is something that I can preprogram and teach someone else to work with so that I don't have to be here all the time. Any help ore suggestions would be great. mike@newmancenter.org
 
You might just need to change a few settings. It's really hard to tell without a log so

Please post a log with your issue! Here's how...

OBS Studio creates a log file each time you run it which contains very useful diagnostic information. Without a log file, it's much harder for any support volunteers to figure out problems and your post may be ignored. To upload a log file, go to the Help menu > Log Files > Upload Last Log...
obsproject.com

I stream pool matches and I'm pretty sure all the equipment is from 2012. The rig is in my sig, I use a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder and camcorder (I think it's a Canon). This is streamed at 3-5 Mbps VBR. Here's the most recent stream at a break (usually most motion) https://youtu.be/HUgzCXeUhdA?t=184 (no sound).
 
March of last year, being the techie oriented type, I suggested moving to a decent livestream setup for Sunday services... silly me... haven't had a Sunday off since, but had fun learning OBS, audio, etc .. anyway
Part of the issue is that for many non-tech types, a PC and OBS is more than they can troubleshoot. So even though I have a fairly simplified setup, and had used a lot of automation which was running smoothly, still way more complicated than most folks could handle, hence I'm still required every service. So, if your community is more tech inclined, good for you, but don't assume it

To give you a comparison - we started with a Logitech C920 720p webcam and my work workstation laptop. I had streaming issue most every weekend until I got a dedicated PC. [We alternated between pre-recorded music, announcements, etc) and live video. I suspect the corporate security s/w being the culprit as the machine was plenty powerful enough. We then got a Panasonic 1080p NDI PTZ camera and I'm using an analog connection to sound system, but will migrate to a USB/Digital Audio connection and running a DAW soon (so easier/quicker adjustments to livestream audio vs in-house... we don't have a dedicated sound person). So that we have a higher resolution local recording, I keep my resolution at 1080p and re-scale the stream to 720p 30fps using 5mbs bitrate. Our quality is good, and we have people watching on large screen TVs.

As for your current setup
- try recording vs streaming and how is video quality? if still having issue, then
- is issue video camera? is it a 30 or 60 fps camera (or 15fps security camera)​
- is your PC have the computational horsepower to do a quality encoding job?​
- and do you have the bandwidth for a quality stream?​
notice the above is irrespective, essentially, of OBS vs other solution

And how many volunteers can you count on to get trained? I found smooth PTZ camera controls takes hands on and a while. So you'll want a decent size team that is all trained and relatively consistent.
 
Lawrence_SoCal said:
March of last year, being the techie oriented type, I suggested moving to a decent livestream setup for Sunday services... silly me... haven't had a Sunday off since, but had fun learning OBS, audio, etc .. anyway
Part of the issue is that for many non-tech types, a PC and OBS is more than they can troubleshoot. So even though I have a fairly simplified setup, and had used a lot of automation which was running smoothly, still way more complicated than most folks could handle, hence I'm still required every service. So, if your community is more tech inclined, good for you, but don't assume it

To give you a comparison - we started with a Logitech C920 720p webcam and my work workstation laptop. I had streaming issue most every weekend until I got a dedicated PC. [We alternated between pre-recorded music, announcements, etc) and live video. I suspect the corporate security s/w being the culprit as the machine was plenty powerful enough. We then got a Panasonic 1080p NDI PTZ camera and I'm using an analog connection to sound system, but will migrate to a USB/Digital Audio connection and running a DAW soon (so easier/quicker adjustments to livestream audio vs in-house... we don't have a dedicated sound person). So that we have a higher resolution local recording, I keep my resolution at 1080p and re-scale the stream to 720p 30fps using 5mbs bitrate. Our quality is good, and we have people watching on large screen TVs.

As for your current setup
- try recording vs streaming and how is video quality? if still having issue, then
- is issue video camera? is it a 30 or 60 fps camera (or 15fps security camera)​
- is your PC have the computational horsepower to do a quality encoding job?​
- and do you have the bandwidth for a quality stream?​
notice the above is irrespective, essentially, of OBS vs other solution

And how many volunteers can you count on to get trained? I found smooth PTZ camera controls takes hands on and a while. So you'll want a decent size team that is all trained and relatively consistent.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I am the Techie, I have a few people that I can get to help me occasionally but nothing that I can rely on. We are not streaming every liturgy so that is a plus. The camera is capable of 1080P @ 60fps. Great optics on the camera, that's not the problem. The problem is computing HP as you put it. I am relying completely on software encoding and want to get a bigger stand alone "Gaming Computer" with a larger GPU and processor. The bandwidth is sufficient for the stream that I am putting out but I would prefer a larger buffer. When I record the quality is better but still not where I want it. I've been producing live sound for over 30 years so I am not at all concerned with that aspect.

What are you running for a computer?
Do you have any links to your broadcasts?
This is one of my broadcasts that was run by someone else under my supervision. There are a couple of times I had to adjust the camera although I did not have my joystick controller available.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be youtu.be
 
From my research, what you are looking for is a nVidia Turing or Ampere GPU to get NVENC encoding offload, so a GTX 1650 Super or better [not GTX 1650 which has older chip]
With my limited knowledge of OBS optimization last summer, I tried to stream using a gaming laptop with an Intel i5-6300HQ (2.3GHz 4c/4t circa Fall 2015), 8GB RAM, SATA SSD Win 10 Home edition, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M and failed ... the PC wasn't up to the task (no gaming, just alternating between USB webcam and simple pre-recorded videos, alongside a PPTx slide show window capture, streaming at 720p 30fps with no OBS effects/filters). I’ve learned a lot more about OBS since then, and I might be able to just squeak it out, but wasn’t worth it, especially as pre-recorded 4K videos in different formats, etc... so very sure I could get our current stream to work on that system, but again, not worth my time and issues if stream isn't right and folks go elsewhere.

Our new rig is overkill, but I spec'ed so it would last 4-5 years, and be able to edit the recordings if desired, and not be short on resources (I wanted to focus on content and presentation, not optimization). I'd have preferred a Ryzen 8c/16t, but last fall based on availability and wanting a Tier 1 OEMN business class system with next business day onsite support, I ended up with an i7-10700K, GTX 1660 Super, 16GB RAM, 250GB NVME SSD for OS, 1TB HDD for archiving, and a DVD burner (used once already for a baptism recording, nice memento for family). Again, complete overkill for today. But in a few years, streaming at 1080p or maybe 4K becomes an option... my preference is to spend a little extra and get a good quality item that lasts (so computer is protected by auto voltage regulating UPS). The cost of the computer is less than 25% cost of streaming setup when also considering costs of new 1080p NDI PTZ camera, and other associated construction, cabling & adapters, new microphone for choir/organ, setting up workstation space in sanctuary not designed for such (so up in choir loft) etc

I use a software controller for the NDI PTZ controls, single camera for now, which necessitated a 2nd monitor in our situation (expected).
Video library link of weekly service sent via email
 
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