Question / Help My stream is stable, can I now improve the quality?

[CommanderCody01]

Hey fellow streamers, I have finally gotten a reliable streaming arrangement set up. Now that it's working, I'd like to see if I can improve my quality. Here's a rundown of my setup…

I run all audio through my MacBook Pro, and feed that into my PC. I'm an audio engineer, so I don't need any help getting the audio portions setup; just video stuff.

I just got a PC from a friend to use for streaming. Specs are:
2012 Dell Inspiron
3GB RAM
2.3 GHz AMD Sepmtron Processor
ATI Radeon HD 4350

I'm a Mac guy, and know little about PC or video stuff, so I don't know how good this is? I can always swing by Micro Center and grab more RAM upgrades if you think that would help my process.

My capture card is a Diamond MM GC500 HD card, running component cables, not HDMI. I have a reliable video feed from the card, but to be honest, it's not as high-def as I think HD should be… it passes through to my TV and looks great, but in OBS and in my stream it doesn't look full 720p. I'll attach some screenshots of what I see in OBS of my capture.

I have a Microsoft LifeCam in use as my webcam, which looks great (better than the capture card).

As I said, I'm new to video… I watched a few tutorials to help get me up and running. Here are my stream settings

I calculated my bit rate based on my internet upload speed, which is slow, because ISP companies suck. I get about 1.8Mbps up so I'm using a 1300 bit rate.

Resolution is 1280x720 to match 720p. Downscaling 2x to help frame rate and whatnot.

Here's another thing I'm confused about: in "properties" for my capture card, my resolution only works right at 640x368. There is no option in the drop down settings for "custom resolution" to match a 720p input. And when I try to manually type in "1280x720," the video is just a red screen, and the FPS reads "0." I tried every option in the drop down menu and 640x368 works the best, so I kept it.

The LifeCam comes in at 720p also, and I have this resolution set custom to 320x240, to fit in the corner of my screen. Again, I tried most options and this is the one that looked the best.

So that's it… the stream is very reliable, no lagging or anything, but my main issue is the quality of the video. The capture card is supposed to be in 720p HD, but it sure doesn't look like it.

My few recent streams can be found on Twitch and you can see the quality of video: www.twitch.tv/roguesquadpod/profile

Thanks for the help everyone!

 

[CommanderCody01]

Here are a few screenshots and a most recent log file:

https://gist.github.com/0b9393c6b0bb6ea054e1

 

[D2ultima]

What you need sir, is a whole new PC. Your Dell there is so extremely old it's unbelieve-able you got it working, to say the least. It's not going to provide a good experience, and you are sacrificing compression to get the old chip working well.

Your macbook is actually a stronger system. If Apple managed to allow it to cool itself under the kind of load streaming can bring however is another story entirely, and they are unlikely to have done so.

 

[CommanderCody01]

And here's a few shots of what my stream looks like ON Twitch, in my browser (different computer). Note, that when I play original Xbox games that are only in 480, it looks better and is more reliable. I tried an HD game this time just to see what happened.

 

[CommanderCody01]

What you need sir, is a whole new PC. Your Dell there is so extremely old it's unbelieve-able you got it working, to say the least. It's not going to provide a good experience, and you are sacrificing compression to get the old chip working well.

Your macbook is actually a stronger system. If Apple managed to allow it to cool itself under the kind of load streaming can bring however is another story entirely, and they are unlikely to have done so.

That's unfortunate… I'm not really in a place to buy an entirely new PC. I was lucky enough to inherit this one from a friend. Also, I tried using my Mac originally - no dice. Not only could I not find a capture device that EVEN WORKED with the Mac, the graphics processor wasn't strong enough to handle it. I tried using my webcam only, and it wouldn't work. This PC is actually doing pretty well, so far. My main concern is that the capture card isn't operating at full HD like it's supposed to.

 

[D2ultima]

Well, your machine isn't really "doing well" so much as it is "just working". You're streaming at 360p and almost nobody will have a 360p sized video player, and you have the absolute minimum of compression on it too. You could attempt to make up with bitrate, but a high bitrate, low-resolution, low-compression video is not going to be much good for anything other than maybe real-life video of things like talk shows etc. You would not be capable of any high motion games at all, and even lower motion games that have good graphics might also be quite an issue.

 

[CommanderCody01]

I should clarify; I'm running original Xbox games or earlier, so I don't actually have a 720HD compatible game. But the capture card is supposed to handle that resolution. Is the difference in 480 and 720 literally just the size? And yeah, it's been doing just fine since I'm playing KotOR on original xbox. I just want to make it a little more clearer and stable. I guess I should be asking, how are my settings, and should I change them?

Also, no, my MacBook won't handle the video load because it's a 2008. The processor and video card are weaker than the PC. Has nothing to do with "cooling."

 

[CommanderCody01]

Also, I just upgraded my internet speed so I now get 5 Mbps upload speed. Can I just arbitrarily increase my buffer size now? Or does my video processing also go into effect there?

 

[D2ultima]

Is the difference in 480 and 720 literally just the size?

And yeah, it's been doing just fine since I'm playing KotOR on original xbox. I just want to make it a little more clearer and stable. I guess I should be asking, how are my settings, and should I change them?

Also, no, my MacBook won't handle the video load because it's a 2008. The processor and video card are weaker than the PC. Has nothing to do with "cooling."

The difference is just the size, correct. Probably the resolution ratio too (16:9 vs 4:3 etc) depending on the game you're playing. In terms of streaming, the higher the resolution the higher the load on the processor.

You can raise bitrate, sure, but 360p is 360p and you have almost no compression on it, so the quality will always be low. You would need a new PC.

Your macbook's CPU is better than that Dell's CPU. By far, in fact. More than double the processing speed. But your macbook won't be able to cool that thing under the load streaming will require, so yes. It comes down to power draw and cooling for that macbook.

If you want to improve your streaming capabilities, you need to get a new PC. Plain and simple. You have no performance to squeeze out of your desktop PC or your Macbook. I'm not going to sit here and sugar coat it and say "well you could maybeeee try this or that" because it's just not worth it.

 

[CommanderCody01]

Well, thanks, I guess… I'm not buying a new PC as I can't afford it, so I'll work on making my current stream as clear as I can

Also re: my MacBook, the problem I always ran into was the graphics card. Not strong enough to process HD video; probably same thing that's happening with the PC.