Bug Report Media Source audio problems

[Raen Andaleio]

Hello,

I'm using a short video (5 seconds) with a chime sound (one second) at the end. I also used this with OBS Classic and the video source plugin, it worked fine there. However, with the media source of OBS Studio, only about half of the chime is playing.
This seems to be with all media sources. The first 0.5 seconds of the audio is always skipped. It does not matter when the audio starts.
I have no noisegate or any other filter active in the media sources. It always happens when the video plays - no matter if it is after a scene switch or if I trigger it.

Could this be a bug or am I missing a "don't skip beginning of audio track" setting?

 

[Raen Andaleio]

So... nothing? Nobody? Great. OBS Studio is a mess. Wish I could go back to OBS Classic. But Streamlabs no longer works properly with it and they no longer support it.

 

[Kylix]

OBS support is trash. I followed a thread from early 2015 where admins and the developer said proper audio monitoring for media sources would be implemented by 18.0 well here I am on 18.0.1 and still can't hear a video play, years later.

They keep claiming woe-is-us because of such a small team, well then, GET MORE DEVS! Contract someone to HELP you for certain features. It's not that hard when you have such a great need for it. Generate ad revenue or something to mitigate the cost. Form partnerships with your installer package. Put small ad windows within the software itself. Anything.

Just get these issues sorted out please. You have way too many users to keep using such a small team and dripping out needed fixes so slowly.

 

[Sapiens]

@Raen Andaleio Have you tried using a VLC source instead?

@Kylix This is a free program, developed for free and supported for free. If you want to help improve or support it then awesome. If you need help with audio monitoring then ask, we have the forums here and support chat. If you just want to take a shit on the forums then go elsewhere. "Fill your program with garbage to make money" is not in the cards.

 

[Raen Andaleio]

@Sapiens, I have never heard about VLC source, I'll check it out. And free program or not, it doesn't work properly. I'd rather pay for it and have it work properly, really. Everyone stopped supporting OBS Classic, which works fine and now instead concentrates on Studio, which is not only a confusing and unintuitive clusterfuck, but it's bugged as hell. I'm not saying Studio is all bad. There's a few things I like, such as the ability to apply filters to everything, even though it took me a while to actually find it. For a long time I was convinced Studio no longer has Chroma Key - which, by the way, works WAY better in OBS Classic as well.
I had to toss most of my original overlay because it doesn't work properly in Studio (plugins not working and stuff). But I have to use it because of Steamlabs.
I'm sorry, I'm just really frustrated because of this. There aren't really any good alternatives. I tried Xsplit when I got some free months of HumbleBundle, but the fact that I have to pay for it every month (and that it's even more crap if you ask me), well.

Edit:
Well, I tried to install that VLC video source plugin. Doesn't appear in the list tho. Probably installed it wrong but there's no howto, so I figured I just need to put the files in the obs-plugins\64bit folder. I guess I'll just have to use videos without audio then and hope they'll manage to fix this eventually.

 

[Osiris]

OBS already contains the VLC plugin, you just need to have VLC installed, 32bit VLC for 32bit OBS and 64bit VLC for 64bit OBS

OBS support is trash. I followed a thread from early 2015 where admins and the developer said proper audio monitoring for media sources would be implemented by 18.0 well here I am on 18.0.1 and still can't hear a video play, years later.

They keep claiming woe-is-us because of such a small team, well then, GET MORE DEVS! Contract someone to HELP you for certain features. It's not that hard when you have such a great need for it. Generate ad revenue or something to mitigate the cost. Form partnerships with your installer package. Put small ad windows within the software itself. Anything.

Just get these issues sorted out please. You have way too many users to keep using such a small team and dripping out needed fixes so slowly.

OBS 18.0.1 has audio monitoring, pay attention.
Other then that you don't seem to have any clue how it works with FOSS software, they don't really go actively looking for devs, people can contribute if they want too. If you don't like the support, use something else. If you don't think it's developing fast enough, use something else or contribute yourself.

 

[Kylix]

Lol @ the fact that OP went 10 days with no response or help, but as soon as I come in to say how support here is bad, everyone comes out of the wood works to tell me off within 1 hour.

It shouldn't take a criticism to get some kind of help for people...

And if 18.0.1 has any kind of audio monitoring, obviously it's not as easy to use or find as it should be if people are still coming here asking about it.

 

[Osiris]

Forgot the part where the VLC source was pointed out?

Anyway, people volunteer to help others on this forum, topics can go by unnoticed, if the OP doesn't bump it occasionally noone will notice it ever again.

I just don't understand why you act so entitled when it comes to software created for free and supported for free.

 

[Fenrir]

@Sapiens, I have never heard about VLC source, I'll check it out. And free program or not, it doesn't work properly. I'd rather pay for it and have it work properly, really. Everyone stopped supporting OBS Classic, which works fine and now instead concentrates on Studio, which is not only a confusing and unintuitive clusterfuck, but it's bugged as hell. I'm not saying Studio is all bad. There's a few things I like, such as the ability to apply filters to everything, even though it took me a while to actually find it. For a long time I was convinced Studio no longer has Chroma Key - which, by the way, works WAY better in OBS Classic as well.
I had to toss most of my original overlay because it doesn't work properly in Studio (plugins not working and stuff). But I have to use it because of Steamlabs.
I'm sorry, I'm just really frustrated because of this. There aren't really any good alternatives. I tried Xsplit when I got some free months of HumbleBundle, but the fact that I have to pay for it every month (and that it's even more crap if you ask me), well.

Edit:
Well, I tried to install that VLC video source plugin. Doesn't appear in the list tho. Probably installed it wrong but there's no howto, so I figured I just need to put the files in the obs-plugins\64bit folder. I guess I'll just have to use videos without audio then and hope they'll manage to fix this eventually.

OBS Studio, by and large, works just fine for a vast majority of the users. I understand it can be frustrating when you are having an issue, but please understand that just because you are having an issue does not mean everyone else is. Please try to not be so rude when you're looking for help, it really puts off the people who are doing this in their spare time because they are passionate about the project and want to help people as much as they can. We take the time out of our day, are not paid, and ask nothing in return. Show some respect, please.

There's nothing to install for the VLC plugin (it's included with OBS when installed), it's activated automatically if VLC is installed on your system. And yes, there's no specific readme on how to properly use this plugin that's widely published (this is something I am working on, documentation is quite scattered and I assure you it bugs me as much as anyone), but it was included in the patch notes when it was added, as well as our sources guide located here: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/wiki/Sources-Guide#vlc-video-source

Are you able to share the specific file that is having playback issues? I'm more than happy to take a look and see if we can determine the cause of the issue.

Also note that there is a large update to the media source plugin itself coming in 19.0.0, and it should be handling issues like this much better.

Lol @ the fact that OP went 10 days with no response or help, but as soon as I come in to say how support here is bad, everyone comes out of the wood works to tell me off within 1 hour.

It shouldn't take a criticism to get some kind of help for people...

And if 18.0.1 has any kind of audio monitoring, obviously it's not as easy to use or find as it should be if people are still coming here asking about it.

It's in the patch notes, which are displayed in OBS every time there is a new update. We can't be responsible for people neglecting to take the 5 seconds to read the new features. People are rarely asking about it, given the number of people who have been using it just fine since the update. Your own limited experiences do not apply to everyone. We see a lot more of the user base than you do in a few threads that you specifically went looking for. If you have nothing further to add to the specific issue here, please move the conversation elsewhere as it's derailing us from trying to help.

 

[Raen Andaleio]

Ok, so first of all. I suppose my major problem is that it feels like Studio is more geared towards professionals while Classic is for amateurs. Since I do not have professional equiment, stuff like chroma key does not work properly for me. It worked fine in Classic, but in Studio I can basically choose between cancel out only half of the background or cancel out half of me as well.
I kind of got overwhelmed by Studio, I still don't know what half of the functions are fore. However, I'm basically told left and right that I must use it because nobody supports Classic anymore and this got me very frustrated.
I apologize for this, I'm aware that the devs develop it in their spare time without any compensation.
Concerning this, maybe they should resume support of OBS Classic as a free version, make Studio a paid version, use the money for development and support and you'll soon have probably the best streaming software out there.

Anyway, the playback issue seems to happen with every file I tried. The files I use are rather large (around 90-100MB) so sharing them is a bit problematic. I could upload one to OneDrive tho.
VLC source seems to play the video properly, the audio is no longer cut. Thanks for the tip.
I actually completely missed the updates as I must have set it to not notify me of updates. I'm still using version 17. I'll download the current version and see if that changes anything, and if I can hear the problem in the monitoring.

 

[Fenrir]

Ok, so first of all. I suppose my major problem is that it feels like Studio is more geared towards professionals while Classic is for amateurs. Since I do not have professional equiment, stuff like chroma key does not work properly for me. It worked fine in Classic, but in Studio I can basically choose between cancel out only half of the background or cancel out half of me as well.
I kind of got overwhelmed by Studio, I still don't know what half of the functions are fore. However, I'm basically told left and right that I must use it because nobody supports Classic anymore and this got me very frustrated.
I apologize for this, I'm aware that the devs develop it in their spare time without any compensation.
Concerning this, maybe they should resume support of OBS Classic as a free version, make Studio a paid version, use the money for development and support and you'll soon have probably the best streaming software out there.

Anyway, the playback issue seems to happen with every file I tried. The files I use are rather large (around 90-100MB) so sharing them is a bit problematic. I could upload one to OneDrive tho.
VLC source seems to play the video properly, the audio is no longer cut. Thanks for the tip.
I actually completely missed the updates as I must have set it to not notify me of updates. I'm still using version 17. I'll download the current version and see if that changes anything, and if I can hear the problem in the monitoring.

I understand your frustration completely, believe me.

OBS Studio becoming a paid application is pretty much never going to happen.

As for your chroma key issues, have you tried both Color Key and Chroma Key filters? They operate slightly differently, but I'm not able to do anything in Classic that I can't with Studio, You can see the slight difference outlined here: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/wiki/Filters-Guide#color-key-and-chroma-key

 

[Raen Andaleio]

I tried chroma key and color key. Color key works even less than chroma key. The thing is, in Classic, I set the chroma key to similarity=90, Blend=90, Spill Reduction=50 and it works just perfectly. Moving the sliders slightly hardly changes anything. In Studio, I set it to 80/37/1 and still have noise in the background from not completely cancelled green. Moving any slider in any direction by only 1 will make it worse. With color key I can remove about 2/3 of the background before it starts removing me. Reason is the slightly uneven lightning - the greenscreen appears brighter towards the top. That didn't bother Classic, but like I said, Studio requires a more even lightning which I'd probably need professional lights for. Got no room for those tho.

BTW, this is the transition video I use: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Atf30OKoiC_slgOiK0t-Z6WMCoYn
MOV format, won't play in browser but you can download it. I listened in with the new audio monitor (very helpful addition, doesn't seem to work with the VLC source tho), the problem is still there.

 

[Benman2785]

try to fix lightning - and or try to set your webcam properly in driver -> maybe you find a way to eliminate your problems