Lag between OBS output and Youtube console live

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fsona

New Member
I have a Gopro 8 with USB capture dongle connected to HDMI output of the cam. I have observed that while streaming in you tube directly with webcam the lag is ca. 1 second , streaming via obs (the same camera) introduces a lag of about 7-8 seconds. Output is 1080p.
Cannot be internet connection as the lag via webcam is pretty good. My laptop has i7 and 16 gb of memory. Any hint or suggestion?
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
a lag of only 7-8 seconds is fantastic. you should be very happy it is so low
speed of light is NOT that fast, and video re-encoding (which all CDNs do from bandwidth heavy H.264 to more optimized formats) and video re-distribution to CDN end-points, to clients end-points to be rendered all takes time. and that lag time will vary over time (weeks/months), and different clients on different ISPs and devices will have different experiences.. so you may see 7-8 seconds, and others 30 seconds or more... this is normal and should be expected

And CDNs like YouTube will prioritize streams based on client viewership, subscribers, monetization considerations, etc. So, someone starting out... bottom of the priority stack.
 
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fsona

New Member
Lawrence_SoCal said:
a lag of only 7-8 seconds is fantastic. you should be very happy it is so low
speed of light is NOT that fast, and video re-encoding (which all CDNs do from bandwidth heavy H.264 to more optimized formats) and video re-distribution to CDN end-points, to clients end-points to be rendered all takes time. and that lag time will vary over time (weeks/months), and different clients on different ISPs and devices will have different experiences.. so you may see 7-8 seconds, and others 30 seconds or more... this is normal and should be expected

And CDNs like YouTube will prioritize streams based on client viewership, subscribers, monetization considerations, etc. So, someone starting out... bottom of the priority stack.
Click to expand...

Thanks , but still I don't understand why lag is about 1 second while streaming with the webcam in youtube (not using obs) . Internet connection is the same. Must be something in the upstream , OBS or horsepower (I have an asus laptop powered with i7 10th generation intel and 16 gb of ram )
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
fsona said:
Thanks , but still I don't understand why lag is about 1 second while streaming with the webcam in youtube (not using obs) . Internet connection is the same. Must be something in the upstream , OBS or horsepower (I have an asus laptop powered with i7 10th generation intel and 16 gb of ram )
Click to expand...
Because you are talking about 2 COMPLETELY different stream types (even if you only use OBS to send unchanged webcam video)... seriously, completely different things even if end results looks the same

- webcam is simple single camera source, from browser page written by CDN (YouTube, in this case) using whatever streaming video choices webpage enables. You have no control, basically on ANY of the settings (frame rate, bit rate, color space, B-frames,etc,,etc,,etc)
- OBS (or any other streaming software, is using industry standard streaming protocol(s) and CDN's process and prioritizes those differently (as is reasonable and to be expected). You'd see the lag difference REGARDLESS of the streaming/compositing software you used (nothing to do with OBS)
 
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fsona

New Member
Lawrence_SoCal said:
Because you are talking about 2 COMPLETELY different stream types (even if you only use OBS to send unchanged webcam video)... seriously, completely different things even if end results looks the same

- webcam is simple single camera source, from browser page written by CDN (YouTube, in this case) using whatever streaming video choices webpage enables. You have no control, basically on ANY of the settings (frame rate, bit rate, color space, B-frames,etc,,etc,,etc)
- OBS (or any other streaming software, is using industry standard streaming protocol(s) and CDN's process and prioritizes those differently (as is reasonable and to be expected). You'd see the lag difference REGARDLESS of the streaming/compositing software you used (nothing to do with OBS)
Click to expand...
Thank for the explanation. I am new to obs and live streaming in general, but I found distracting and disturbing the lag. It means I have got to learn not to look at the youtube studio console while doing the livestream.
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Correct, you look at YT (FB, or other console) only to check to make sure stream still working/running (ie, what are others seeing, knowing there is a lag)... and at FB at least, what I see in /Live/Producer has less lag that general viewership has
.. and that means you need to recognize there will be a longer-than-live-in-the-room delay for chat/comments
 
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