Question / Help Is there REALLY a benefit to streaming at 1600x900?

[MrBayeasy]

I have recently considered streaming at 1600x900 to use a "slower" CPU Preset and 6000 mbps to reduce artifacting and improve clarity, as well as allow more people to watch my streams, however isn't it kind of pointless? I noticed that when creating a test video at 1600x900 and uploading it to YouTube it only registered at 720P and not 900p, would this be the case LIVE as well? If that is the case and Sites like Mixer, Twitch and YouTube all register 900p (if they do I don't know as I haven't tested this yet) at 720p, doesn't that negate the effect of streaming at 900p, or is the 720p image just a bit sharper due to it being a higher resolution to begin with?

Essentially, is there a difference in the 720p video when streaming at 900p, or is there ACTUALLY a 900p option on certain sites if someone decides to stream at such a resolution?

Thanks guys! +)

 

[Boildown]

Twitch just reuses the resolution you use, I think, for anyone getting the raw stream. YouTube always re-encodes though. So the answer is, it depends on the streaming service. Also it depends if its Live or Video on Demand.

YouTube only supports the major vertical resolutions: 360, 480, 720, 1080, 1440, 2160 (but the horizontal can vary). So it always downscales to one of those sizes if you're in-between. This didn't used to be the case, back in the day I had a 1680x1050 monitor and made World of Warcraft videos (recorded with FRAPS). I downscaled them by 1.5 to 1120x700p, and YouTube displayed them at that resolution. But then one day all my videos got downgraded to 480p. I was pretty pissed off about that, it was arbitrary and had I known I could have downscaled to 720p instead of 700p and kept it at least HD.

I've been streaming Battletech at 1080p60, 6000kbps, using x264 Medium preset, and it looks damn good imo. I would only bother with 900p if you truly need a better preset. For your recordings, record at your full resolution, no downscale. Downscaling a recording takes away one of the main advantages of recording to hard drive: the ability to make a best-possibly final video product (something I didn't understand in my FRAPS days).

 

[Deleted member 121471]

For reference, I only stream to twitch so your mileage may vary with other services.

Personally, I consider 1080p streaming pointless since most people either keep chat open on a single monitor and/or watch over mobile devices, negating the perceivable benefits of that resolution.

That being said, 900p is a good downscale compromise for slightly higher quality than 720p while not being as taxing both on bandwidth and computer resources as 1080p. I can't think of any other advantage that would suit the streamer and most viewers.

As far as I know, Twitch doesn't change source resolution without the viewers themselves changing quality settings, if available.