How can I achieve a higher quality archival recording of my live stream?

[macobs]

I live stream sports using a laptop and I'm wondering if there are some changes I could make to my recording settings to improve visual quality for my archival copy.

I use two different encoders for live stream and the local recording.

Live stream: Nvidia NVENC HEVC 5500 Kbps - Constant Bit - keyframe 2s - preset p5 slow good quality - tuning high quality - multipass two passes quarter resolution
Recording: X264 - CBR - 7500 Kbps - keyframe 2, medium cpu usage, profile main

I'm finding that the NVENC HEVC stream visual quality is exceptionally better than what I'm getting with the x264 recording. (The live stream is less blurry, sharper, and motion seems to just look better with less blockiness)

When I stream I only show about 16% cpu usage in OBS so I have some headroom but I'm not sure what to focus on.

Attached screenshot of OBS settings for recording/streaming.

 

[koala]

Hevc is the better encoder if compared to x264 (half the bitrate for the same quality), so no surprise.

Use nvenc+hevc for both, CBR with bitrate 6000 for streaming and for recording use CQP with a CQ value that achieves the quality you desire. For hevc, check values between 20-30 and see what is the sweet spot between file size and video quality.

 

[macobs]

Hevc is the better encoder if compared to x264 (half the bitrate for the same quality), so no surprise.

Use nvenc+hevc for both, CBR with bitrate 6000 for streaming and for recording use CQP with a CQ value that achieves the quality you desire. For hevc, check values between 20-30 and see what is the sweet spot between file size and video quality.

I can use nvenc+hevc for both at the same time???? I always thought you had to have a GPU with multiple NVENC chips to do that. Wow that makes me sad if I could have been recording higher quality all this time..

 

[koala]

nvenc allows multiple parallel sessions. Consumer GPUs allowed 2 simultaneous sessions for a long time, then 3, current drivers allow 5 as far as I remember. It's not a hard limit of the encoder chip, it's a limit enforced by the driver. Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting uses that many parallel sessions - each separate resolution with its own encoder.