Issue with Panasonic Virtual USB Driver for Pro Cameras

[Bassman]

Hello,

This message is for using Panasonic pro video cameras as a USB webcam device. The company released a "Virtual USB Driver" that allows their cameras to deliver a signal over the camera's LAN port to your computer where it is converted to a USB signal that OBS can use. The signal works inside of OBS but the frame rate does not match the camera. The signal is sent in 1080p60 from the camera but inside OBS the highest frame rate is listed as 30FPS. If I change the camera to 720p60 it works fine and 59.94 is a choice. So there seems to be a ceiling on the data rate.

I know this is an esoteric request as most do not use this camera (CX-350) but is there any way for the OBS team to look into this? I am happy to provide and links to the resources etc... A Panasonic representative confirmed the signal coming out of the camera is 1080p60 and that OBS is not recognizing the signal properly.

Thank you.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

I'm not part of dev, just a user. But I've been using the Pan Virtual USB driver for a year now with Panasonic's AW-HN38 NDI PTZ camera. I can't check until this weekend, but I'll see if OBS is recognizing the 60fps from the camera or not. There was a bug in late last years' VirtualUSB driver that caused a crash for me (only 2 times in many months). I've been stable on this year's driver. Though following Pan's tech support I've left camera on vs standby. PTZ Control center gets flaky unless we regularly put PTZ into standby and then power back on (as in every other week or so, plan to switch to regular switch into standby when not in use for now)

When you confirmed the 1080p60 signal, did Panasonic use some other software on the Windows PC to confirm that? I know VirtualUSB driver shows 60fps, but is Windows OS actually seeing/processing that? My first troubleshooting technique with audio and video has been to confirm outside of OBS first. I'm assuming yes, but safer to be sure than foolishly assume, hence the question. What did Pan use to confirm? Zoom/Teams, ??

 

[Bassman]

Hello,

The signal comes out of the camera over ethernet, into the laptop via ethernet and the USB input is created virtually. Complex. Nothing else is plugged into USB ports.

 

[Bassman]

I'm not part of dev, just a user. But I've been using the Pan Virtual USB driver for a year now with Panasonic's AW-HN38 NDI PTZ camera. I can't check until this weekend, but I'll see if OBS is recognizing the 60fps from the camera or not. There was a bug in late last years' VirtualUSB driver that caused a crash for me (only 2 times in many months). I've been stable on this year's driver. Though following Pan's tech support I've left camera on vs standby. PTZ Control center gets flaky unless we regularly put PTZ into standby and then power back on (as in every other week or so, plan to switch to regular switch into standby when not in use for now)

When you confirmed the 1080p60 signal, did Panasonic use some other software on the Windows PC to confirm that? I know VirtualUSB driver shows 60fps, but is Windows OS actually seeing/processing that? My first troubleshooting technique with audio and video has been to confirm outside of OBS first. I'm assuming yes, but safer to be sure than foolishly assume, hence the question. What did Pan use to confirm? Zoom/Teams, ??

Thanks for your reply. I do not know how they verified the 1080p60 as the support had moved to email at that point. They just confirmed OBS was not reading the signal correctly. Their little software interface does not give a frame rate, only the resolution and if the camera is on or offline. So very limited. I do not have any other capture software to check if the 1080p60 is being seen by the computer. Frustrating how weak this is from Panasonic as it is a great idea and tool but only if it is rock solid.

This might be a little too much to ask of the OBS team since the info from Panasonic is sparce.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

My Panasonic Virtual USB interface does indicate framerate of 1080p60, that I recall. And what the camera sends is controlled on the camera itself.
I never had any problem getting OBS to see Pan PTZ camera input using the Virtual USB driver. Feel free to ping my via direct message, and I'm happy to take a look at your system. I just looked and that is a 4K camera. so that has some bandwidth implications

And on Panasonic's PTZ cameras, there is a web interface to see video stream. And I'm also using Panasonic's PTZAdmin interface, which can also see NDI stream. Granted the PTZ aspect my not apply to the CX-350, but camera controls (white balance, IRIS, etc) should... anyway, something for you to look into for having an out of OBS interface

 

[Bassman]

Thanks. I will send you a message Lawrence.

Since this is just a direct connection from the camera to the streaming computer, I want to keep it a simple as possible. Also, I noticed there is no lag when using the virtual USB input where there is lag on all other forms of input including NDI (as I was told by the Panasonic rep.) I would like to eventually use this in a multi-camera live switch situation, so limited lag is very important.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

A direct Ethernet connection from camera to PC is technically possible with a cross-over Ethernet cable and manual setup. I'm hoping that is NOT what you meant/did (unless you have advanced network knowledge). The Ethernet out of the camera typically needs to go into an Ethernet switch, and for simplicity, plug PC into same switch, with the same VLAN (if such applies). Then IP address assignment considerations (DHCP vs static, etc).
Most computers (except workstations) have a single Ethernet port, and you need that to stream out to the Internet. So I'm assuming you didn't plug an Ethernet cable into that PC port. Hopefully you didn't get get a Ethernet-to-USB adapter and use that on the PC (which could work, but again, needs a decent understanding of networking to make this work). And I make sure my streaming environment is behind its own segmented/secured network (I used an older spare home router/firewall for uplink traffic, as I know better than to trust other computers at site's LAN)

And you mentioned multi-cam, so obviously a 1GbE switch would be required. As for NDI vs VirtualUSB driver... might the Panasonic driver be slightly better optimized? maybe, but I wouldn't expect much difference for comparable video streams. But could a non-optimized NDI data path on your computer, cause delay? sure. Again, I only use the PAN VirtualUSB driver as I didn't want to add another vendor (NewTek NDI tools, and an OBS plug-in), into the mix, so I can't speak to my experience of any difference in latency. Now, might I end up having to switch to a generic NDI interface if I add a different vendor NDI camera (due to being 1/2 the price)... we'll see.. hope not
Making sure this network video stream works cleanly requires tracking a number of technical details, on sending and receiving end - One has to account for resolution, framerate, and encoder. My Panasonic 1080p NDI PTZ camera uses NDI HX, compressed, or H.264. There is also HX2 using H.265 (better compression, but means more work to decompress, ok if spare GPU cycles for decode, but still moving data around PCIe bus..).

Again, there are a number of free software tools you can use on your PC to check the video stream details available to the Operating System AFTER that signal comes out of the Virtual USB driver. I'd recommend starting there, and only after confirming those details, move into OBS