Question / Help Help, OBS recorded videos are choppy

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

Hi,


I am recording videos but when I play back the .flv files they are quite choppy - I'm looking for the optimal settings for recording (not streaming) while maintaining smooth video based on specs below

MacBook Pro
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Nvidia Geforce GT 750M 2054 MB

Black Magic Intensity Thunderbolt capturing Xbox 360 Gameplay
Logitech C920 Webcam (player video - plugged in via a powered 3.0 USB hub)
USB Microphone (commentary - plugged in via a powered 3.0 USB hub)
Mac Webcam (commentary video)
Cog (music audio)

All being captured by OBS, there is no delay or lag on the Mac / OBS while recording, but playing back the local videos are very choppy, even when I move them onto a more powerful desktop for playback.

https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/how-to-make-high-quality-local-recordings.16/

I tried some of these settings, but this is only partial settings and did not see any drastic difference. I'm afraid I may have used a combination of these settings with my default 720p stream settings and now have stuff kind of mixed up.



Output Mode (Advanced) Recording setting:
Type Standard
Encoder x264
Bitrate 2500 (tried from 1000-2500)
Use CBR unchecked
CPU Usage veryfast (tried from medium to very fast)


Xbox360: Set to 720p
Video: OpenGL, 1280x720 (base and scaled), Bicubic Filter, 59.94 FPS


CPU Usage was never going above 70%, I would actually like to ideally do 1080p recording as the video quality (even if it wasn't choppy) ...really isn't that great.

Cheers

 

[Harold]

And what player exactly are you using to play the FLVs?

 

[dodgepong]

Can you post a log? (accessible from the OBS Help Menu)

 

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

Thanks for the prompt responses, I attached 3 logs I found from yesterday.

I was using VLC to watch the videos, I also tried Media Player Classic to ensure the video was lagging on multiple machines/players. One of the videos isn't as choppy as the others, and as I mentioned since I was changing the variables I'm hoping this was just a poor choice of settings on my part.

I am setting up everything again now to run some tests, I want to change to 1080p and try to get a smoother high quality recording if you guys think this laptop will allow it

 

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

I forgot the last time I tried to get 1080p displaying I could never actually get anything to show in OBS. When I change the Xbox360 from 720p -> 1080p, I change the base resolution in OBS to 1920x1080 and I select a 1080p setting on the black magic but no matter what setting I do it's a black screen.

I'm hoping I can get better quality while using the 720p/59 FPS.

Here are screenshots I just took, the first is off OBS and the second is of the video I'm replaying;

OBS - http://s10.postimg.org/x4q5nlr3d/OBS_view.png

Video replay quality - http://s17.postimg.org/xddozirpr/recorded_video.png

Is this the quality I should be expecting?


My settings are currently:

(Output / Advanced (Recording tab))
Encoder x264
Bitrate 2000
Use Custom Buffer size is Unchecked
CPU Usage medium (I may want to bump this down, I got up to 85% CPU usage, though I also have safari open)


(Video)
OpenGL / 1280x720 (base &scaled) , bicubic, 59.94 FPS

Edit: My cameras are set at 1280x720 and have the Use Buffering Checked. The Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt is set at HD 720p 59.94 and Use Buffering is Checked


Are there any other important parameters I'm missing?


Thanks

 

[dodgepong]

Hmm, can you post some logs after updating to 0.11.1?

 

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

I can tonight when I get home tonight. Based on my most recent post, do you think that is anything related to 0.10.x versus 0.11.1 ? At this point I am thinking it is parameters/settings that are leading to the poor quality of the recorded videos -- let me know if I'm mistaken. Or it could be that the settings I am are in line with the quality of the video being output, I just don't have enough experience to know.

I am hoping that I can achieve better quality with recordings I am planning on doing at an event this weekend

 

[dodgepong]

Logs from 0.11.1 are easier to read and provide better information.

 

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

Got it. I've actually started to make some progress

I'm using Lanczos downscale filtering now and I've disabled CBR which allows me to set the CRF variable

When I set it in the 15-20 range, the video quality starts to get much better but the video then starts getting choppy and laggy

Right now I am recording 720p game footage with the following, I think these are main parameters I need to tweak to find the sweet spot.

2500 bitrate
custom buffer size (0)
CRF 24
CPU Usage Preset = veryfast

Is there an ideal bit rate ? I read that one high quality local recording post suggested 1000 bit rate with a CBS of 0. I'm also unsure of which one I should be prioritizing, CRF versus CPU Usage preset

 

[Lain]

It seems it's having a little bit of trouble keeping up the encoding for some reason. Maybe one or more of the sources are eating up all the CPU? or something else on your machine? Also, noticed that you're using a lot of devices it seems like. I'd love to see what sort of setup you're using. Seems like you have a ton of sources active.

CRF shouldn't be almost at all relevant to the CPU usage.

 

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

Sorry for the delay, I was in vegas with the recording set up for http://evo.shoryuken.com/ !

Thanks for all your development efforts on OBS!

Set up with those previous posts/logs:

-MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Nvidia Geforce GT 750M 2054 MB)
-Black Magic Intensity Thunderbolt capturing Xbox 360 Gameplay (inputs thunderbolt for laptop, also feeds audio into mixer for headphones)
-Logitech C920 Webcam (player video - plugged in via a powered 3.0 USB hub)
-USB Microphone (commentary - plugged in via a powered 3.0 USB hub)
-Mac Webcam (commentary video)
-Cog (music audio)
-Soundflower (output music from the laptop to mix with game volume into headphones for commentators)
-Scoreboard Assistant (via Wine - GUI to quickly update OBS text files)

---------------

I recently did a few recordings without the music - this eliminates the need for Cog and Soundflower. I read that C920 wasn't built with Mac compatibility so I thought that might be the issue - I switched to a Logitech C615 which has Mac compatibility but I noticed there still slowly builds up a delay and the video on the webcam lags behind the microphone commentary. If I use the Mac built in facetime camera, there isn't any lag. I have tried plugging the webcams directly into the mac and through an external powered USB 3.0 hub. I may need to lower the settings.

 

[bowlingotter]

Make sure that all of your audio sources are recording at the same sample rate. If one is at 44 and the other is at 48, you'll get that slow drift out of sync

 

[JDILLACHANGEDMYLIFE]

Thanks for the response - that makes sense. How do I check/modify the sample rate of my various audio sources?

 

[bowlingotter]

Typically any capture software should have an option to configure the audio sample rate. OBS has it listed in preferences, for instance. If you can't find the option in one piece of software, I would go into your video editing software to check the properties of that file to find out what sample rate it's recording at, and then configure OBS to match