Question / Help LTE wiress sports live streaming - bandwidth and $$

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ProVideo1

New Member
Question for you experts but a little story first detailing my setup and the issues I encountered and how I'm trying to overcome them (might be helpful for non-games using OBS) -

I'm using OBS to stream live sporting events.

Setup -

Sony HXR-NX70U
15 ft HDMI mini to HDMI standard
Elgato HD
USB
Laptop ASUS X750J I7 Quad Core 4700HQ 8GB Ram
OBS
LTE Telus USB stick for internet
YouTube Live Event

I got everything working great and did a test on wifi - video looked good, pretty clear. OBS bitrate default was 1000 so I changed to 2500.

Camera HDMI out setting was at 1080p - and Elgato HD and OBS only support at 720P...didn't realize this till after my first event.

So I went to live stream - ran off battery power on the laptop and camera.

Streaming went fine - no issue with connection. Elgato HD disconnected about 20 times in 1 hour - talked with them and they said most likely a USB power issue as laptop was running on battery and trying to power both LTE stick and Elgato HD.

Bigger problem - in 1 hours 20 minutes of broadcast I used 1.6GB of data. My plan is up to 10GB for $85. Overage is 5 cents a MB.

I want to stream an event coming up - three days - 8 hours a day.

I lowered the bitrate back to 1000 and tested the camera at 720P to match OBS and it OBS was still showing around 1200kb/s. A 10 minute test was roughly 115 MB used.

At that rate for an 8 hour stream I would use 5520 MB which with my basic $85 plus overage it would be around $520 to stream the entire event.


SO HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS -

#1 ) Regardless of the HDMI camera output 1080P or 720P - Elgato will downsample to 720P I believe - so does it matter how I set the camera, does it make Elgato HD work harder? In otherwords, does it matter? Camera has to go to a STD rather than setting for 720P HDMI output.

#2 ) Any OBS settings I can adjust to maximize stream quality and keep bitrate at 1000 kb/s or lower for 720P stream?

#3 ) Any other suggestions?

I've built a scoreboard using ZOU's program from this forum and it looks awesome so I can do scores, players names, and sets. OBS works great, Youtube stream seems to work pretty good - quality definitely didn't look as good as my wifi test.

Main issues -

Elgato disconnecting (which I think is a USB power issue as it didn't happen during my testing at home when everything had 120V). I hope my next live stream won't run into the same issues as we have power there.

$$$$ for LTE stream using wireless stick - need best quality at lowest bitrate so I don't break the bank.

Although - $600 for 24 hours of video isn't terrible considering local sports streaming companies are charging $850 for 6 hours of streaming.

Thank you for any input! I'm not sure if anyone here is even doing anything like this with OBS so at the very least maybe my thread will be helpful to other video folks.
 
dodgepong

dodgepong

Administrator
Community Helper
1) I'm not really sure what you're asking here...the question doesn't really make sense to me.

2) You can change the x264 CPU preset in advanced settings to faster or fast, but that will greatly increase CPU usage. You'll have to experiment and see what works for you.

3) Live video tends to be more tolerant of low bit rate, so 1000kbps for 720p isn't terrible.
 
P

ProVideo1

New Member
Hi Guys, Sorry if I didn't make the question clear.

The Elgato HD dropping the signal probably won't be an issue going forward as I'll have access to power the laptop and thus won't experience the USB voltage drop that caused the disconnect (I believe).

My question is -

If camera is set to 720P, and OBS is set to 1280 x 720 at 1000 bitrate will my stream still look okay when streaming through YouTube? (I think dodgepong anwered this above).

What is the lowest bitrate I can go without making the broadcast look like total crap?

I'm trying to go as low as I can on the bitrate to reduce my data and thus reduce my total LTE usage and cost.

I made the following chart based on my tests with the bitrate setting at 1000 - OBS showed 1100 to 1200 actual at 30 FPS.

I believe these numbers are correct - I'm trying to predict my total usage so I can determine how long I can stream at events and calculate my costs for LTE data.

The 10 mins at 115MB is my baseline test I did - it's what the LTE stick recorded as total used for the 10 mins at 1000 bitrate.


10 mins 115 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
1 Hour 690 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
2 Hours 1380 MB = 1 GB 356 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
3 Hours 2070 MB = 2 GB 22 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
4 Hours 2760 MB = 2 GB 712 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
5 Hours 3450 MB = 3 GB 378 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
6 Hours 4140 MB = 4 GB 44 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
7 Hours 4830 MB = 4 GB 734 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
8 Hours 5520 MB = 5 GB 400 MB at 1200 kb/s bitrate
 
dodgepong

dodgepong

Administrator
Community Helper
You will have to experiment what bit rate you can live with in terms of quality.

You can predict how much data a stream will use at a give bit rate with the following formula: ((bit rate in kbps) / 8) * 1024 * (number of seconds you are broadcasting for) = data transferred in Megabytes
 
dodgepong

dodgepong

Administrator
Community Helper
VBR will make it more difficult for viewers to watch, so I can't really recommend it, but it will certainly use less data.
 
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