Question / Help Max bit/buffer for bad Internet viewers

[Bkid]

So my friend was trying to set his stream up, and we were using another friend (from Australia, and with bad Internet) as a test subject for this.

In trying a few things, we ended up lowering the buffer *below* the Max Bitrate. To me, this didn't make much sense, since you are creating a buffer of data to fill before being sent out, and setting it under the max bitrate wouldn't really accomplish anything. Either way, we ended up leaving it that way for now.

I suggested to instead lower the max bitrate and buffer, and set them to the same amount. We tried a few other things as well, but ultimately couldn't come up with a good solution.

Questions:

1) What would be good settings to use so that someone with a not-so-great Internet connection can watch, without sacrificing too much quality?

2) Can the buffer be lower than the max bitrate, or should it always be greater than or equal to the max bitrate?


Thanks in advance for any help. :]

 

[FerretBomb]

You need to define a few things... a whole lot of your questions are very subjective. 'Sacrificing too much quality' can mean a lot... to some, it's dropping below 1080p@60fps. Some can watch a 240p stream with tons of blocking and be happy.

A lot of it is playing with the settings. Personally, I wouldn't go below 1500kbps in any case (much lower and you may as well just be an audio cast with a slideshow); should be enough for 720p@30fps with passable quality (around 8, VBR). Prefer 2500 to 3000kbps with 10 quality and 720p@60fps, myself.

Setting the buffer below the max bitrate isn't really going to help. It should be equal to or greater than your bitrate. It's just data that's 'ready to send' when the network is ready to go. Setting this below your rate will always have it full (overfull), while more than your rate can help smooth out a poor network connection. Somewhat. Setting it lower will not help a viewer; the connection is between them and Twitch, not you.

 

[DEagleson]

I usually had to stream 480p at 1000kbps but still get complaints about laggy stream yet OBS claims no dropped frames as well as the Twitch video being viewed properly on my end.
Thats why i decided to use YouTube for livestreaming if its important even with the added delay transcoding really helps watchers on terrible net while the people with good net can enjoy a sharper 720p video.

 

[Bkid]

Setting it lower will not help a viewer; the connection is between them and Twitch, not you.

Not necessarily. Your settings can make it harder for the client-side's (IE, viewer's) PC to decode, thus making viewing more difficult. Though that's more of a PC-related issue than network.

 

[FerretBomb]

Your settings determine what you send to Twitch, and what your viewers have to download from Twitch (unless you're partnered and have transcoding available). So if you run at 2500kbps, your viewers need to have a connection that can handle that speed consistently, not to get lag. But your buffer settings won't change that at all.

Your bitrate? Yes. But lowering that will lower the quality of the stream for anyone with a higher rate connection. So the question is, do you want your stream to look good for those with broadband, or be watchable but look kinda crappy so that people with worse connections can watch you?

Again, lowest I personally would go is 1500kbps with a 1500kbps buffer, 720p, 30fps, with a VBR and Quality set to 8. It'll be viewable by most anyone with DSL (even fairly low-end DSL), and still look... passable, at least.

Decoding really isn't the issue (most of the work is ENcoding, as far as that goes, and that's on YOUR end). Hell, 720p streams will run on older cellphones, and $35 Raspberry Pi devices, much less full desktops or laptops. Their network connection speed is MUCH more likely to be an actual issue, unless they're kicking along on a Pentium Pro, or Slot-A Athlon. Probably not even then (well, the Athlon would be able to watch a 720p stream at least... I have an old Ath-700 as a guest system, and it can! Probably not the PPro though).