Question / Help Help to stop the drop outs!

[Ian O'Brien]

Hi guys,

I've been using OBS for a few of months now for weekly live sessions (no screen share just me on webcam with a guitar), I've been hunting through this forum and trying various things and I'm still getting drop outs and freezes on my broadcasts.

I'm using Youtube live for streaming at 720p... and I have an upload speed of 9mbps, tested repeatedly.

Could you please help me to find out if the problem is my settings (and improve them), my internet connection or my Mac?

I'm using the built in Facetime HD camera 1280 x 720 setting. (Not sure if I need to turn on buffering.)

My settings are:

Encoder x264 (would the Apple one be better)
Rescale output: Unchecked
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 1500
Use Custom Buffer Size: Unchecked
Key frame Interval: 0
CPU Usage Preset: Veryfast
Profile: Main
Tune: None

Base Resolution: 1280x720
Output Resolution: 1280x720
Common FPS: 30

Here is my log of the stream last night:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/e885a7e61ded019597296f8437a8d1c8

Another problem is that when the steam jumps etc the replay (recorded by youtube) then drifts out of sync with the audio and video. It takes me hours to edit them back in sync!

All help and advice very much appreciated!!!!

- Ian

p.s. I don't mind a delay of up to about 30 seconds on the live broadcast if I can remove the drop outs. And I'd prefer to optimise for picture quality over reducing any delay if possible.

 

[Narcogen]

You're dropping frames. Suggest going to the fast or superfast encoding preset.

19:56:13.698: Output 'adv_stream': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 13444 (14.5%)
19:56:13.698: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 1331 (1.4%)

19:04:33.203: Output 'adv_stream': Number of skipped frames due to encoding lag: 602 (7.8%)
19:04:33.203: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 59 (0.8%)
19:04:33.213: ==== Streaming Stop ================================================
19:04:36.383: ---------------------------------
19:04:36.383: [x264 encoder: 'streaming_h264'] preset: veryfast​

Also, is Yosemite (10.10) the latest MacOS you can run? OBS 0.16.2 is quite old (current is 21.0.2.)

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Thank you kindly, Narcogen.

Now updated my os and version of OBS.

I'm on very fast encoding preset. Fast is below and Superfast is above which direction should I be moving in?

Also would moving to the Apple Hardware Encoder in theory help with this too?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Narcogen]

Move up. Superfast gives the lowest load and the lowest quality. If you get "encoding overloaded" messages, go to a faster preset.

Slower presets use more CPU and deliver higher quality.

Apple Hardware Encoder switches the load from the CPU to the GPU-- however that means OBS is competing with whatever app you're running for rendering, as well as with itself, since you're now using the GPU both for rendering frames and compressing them.

Whether this improves the situation for you depends on whether or not the app you're capturing is GPU or CPU intensive, and how powerful your CPU and GPU are.

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Thanks a lot Narcogen.

I'm not running much in the way of apps just using OBS to stream myself on webcam to youtube.
I just ran some test and It seems that I have less drop outs with the Apple hardware encoder. But I do still have them.

I also tried to have a smaller resolution than 720p by changing output scaled resolution to 960x540 but again I'm still getting dropouts in the log.

Is it normal to have some dropouts?

and what else can I try?

Thank you for all of the help!
- Ian

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Also moving up to Superfast and I'm still getting drop outs!!

I used to get pretty good results with this computer but was streaming from a different place with a different Broadband connection.

I have a MacBook Pro 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 with 8GB 1333 Mhz DDR3 and intel HD graphics 3000 512 mb.

Could it be that my machine is just not up to the task?

- Ian

 

[pkv]

your cpu is not very capable for streaming (passmark score about 3000).
If superfast preset doesn't help, consider ultrafast preset. This is even less demanding for the cpu.

If it doesn't remove the drops, then lower resolution to 960 x 540 indeed. Or 480p .
In addition to using apple hardware encoder ...

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Thank you pkv.
I previously had great results at my last place but now it's struggling.

I will try everything suggested so far. Thank you for more clarity on this!

 

[pkv]

it is kind of odd if with this mac at another place it would stream 720p @superfast with same bitrate ; your logs show encoding lag and also rendering lag which suggest your cpu /gpu are struggling a lot.
So review your previous settings at the other place. Some info is missing.

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Thanks PKV.

I sadly no longer have access to the other place : (

What information is missing? I will try to locate it as I'm determined to make this work. I'll do a full 1 hour live stream again on Thursday with these new settings and get another detailed report to work from.

all the best,
- Ian

 

[pkv]

the missing info would be a log from streaming sessions at previous place to have a real basis for comparison

 

[Ian O'Brien]

ah ok thank you. I'll see what I can do!

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Hi guys thank you so much for your help.

I did another 1 hour broadcast using your recommendations.

At first it dropped frames and freaked out but then I stopped the broadcast tweaked the settings and went again and the second part seemed to run smoothly without dropping frames! I did it again from my new location as I don't currently have access to the old place.

Please look at my log below and let me know what you think. What was the bottle neck to the quality of the broadcast (computer or broadband upload speed)? and do you think I am able to increase my bitrate or quality at all from here?

P.S> One thing that I also did that I think helped a lot was to close the page on my website that has the video streaming to it and also the youtube live broadcast page. I think this saved CPU.

The only problem that I had was that on the replay on youtube after the live lesson the audio and video gradually drifted out until that we're completely out of synch with each other.

Do you think my computer will be able to handle also recording the stream through OBS while broadcasting to remedy this problem?

Any thoughts or advice are very, very much appreciated!!!!

- Ian O'Brien

 

[Narcogen]

According to this portion of the log, the initial problem was your network, not the computer:

19:13:14.926: Output 'adv_stream': stopping
19:13:14.926: Output 'adv_stream': Total frames output: 9794 (15863 attempted)
19:13:14.926: Output 'adv_stream': Total drawn frames: 15880 (15883 attempted)
19:13:14.926: Output 'adv_stream': Number of lagged frames due to rendering lag/stalls: 3 (0.0%)
19:13:14.926: Output 'adv_stream': Number of dropped frames due to insufficient bandwidth/connection stalls: 6069 (38.3%)
​

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Hi Narcogen,

Thank you kindly. What can I do about this on my end? Would reducing the bitrate below 2500 help?

Are there settings for example that will help me use a bit more of my computer power instead of the network and to find a balance between these?

When I do a speed test I'm getting at upload of 9mbps. Does this seem like enough?

- Ian

 

[Narcogen]

Is that a speedtest you're performing to the ingest server you're trying to stream to?

You can try 1500 or 2000 and see if that helps. 9Mbps should be enough, but it matters what speed you're actually getting to the destination you're trying to reach, and how reliable that connection is.

 

[Ian O'Brien]

Hi Narcogen.
I used http://www.speedtest.net/# I'm not sure what doing a speedtest to the ingest server i'm trying to stream to means?
How can I do/check that?

Also do you think changing to Google's DNS servers could help with the network?

Thank you!!

- Ian

p.s. Doing another live stream tonight as usual.

 

[Narcogen]

Meaning you need to test the speed of your connection specifically between you and Twitch. The general results from using speedtest.net are nor always relevant.

Changing DNS would only help your problem if your problem is that you can't connect to twitch because OBS times out before the name resolves. This is unlikely.

OBS has a feature that tests the performance of your network to the various available streaming ingest servers. Go to Tools > Auto-Configuration Wizard.

 

[Ian O'Brien]

ah brilliant thank you I'll try that feature.

Also I'm using YouTube Live rather than Twitch, not sure if that effects these things.

Thank you again!

- Ian

 

[Ian O'Brien]

I've tried another LIVE session where I also recorded the video as .flv in OBS to try to fix the sound sync issue. But it is still out of sync on the recording. It's very strange.

Do you know why the audio could be in sync for the the Live broadcast but out of sync on the recording?

Also here is my latest log. It did start to drop frames and mess up at 2 points in the stream so I stopped streaming and started again which seemed to resolve it.

Please could you take a look at the log and let me know what happened /why it messed up?

Thank you kindly
- Ian