Question / Help Need advice on setup for streaming multiple cameras

[vedranp]

Hello everyone

While most of the threads here that I went through were about gaming-related streaming, I'm hoping you'll be able to help me with my troubles as well.

I was recently tasked with putting together a system for streaming lectures in the school that I work in. It is supposed to involve (at least) two camcorders and multiple microphones. Being a maths and CS teacher, I have no real professional experience with hardware and I find myself unsure what to focus on. Here are some questions:


1. Since I will probably use camcorders that don't have direct streaming support, am I correct in assuming that I will need to obtain a capture card (be it internal or external)?

2. If I do need a capture card, do I also need a good GPU, or will my CPU graphics (a Haswell core i5) be enough to deliver a good stream?

3. As i add camcorders, which parts of the systems are taking on the most of the additional stress?

4. Any camcorder recommendations? (~350$ cost, just throwing this out there, I know this is not exactly a place for it)

5. Anything else you can think of that an unexperienced person might overlook? Any and all advice is appreciated.


What I have so far: One old camcorder (DV and HDMI connection), a couple of wireless microphones.

What I think I need/can get: A computer with a Haswell core i5, capture card and (or?) GPU, sound mixer and an audio card.

Thanks in advance for everything you throw my way

 

[achmetha]

I think the easiest setup might be to avoid capture card & camcorder setups (as they can get quite complicated if things are not agreeing with each other, which especially likes to happen right as you are about to go "live").

This is my recommendation:

2 webcams; 1 Logitech c920 & 1 Logitech c930e. ~$199 bought together on Amazon
(Different models because there have been cases where 2 webcams of the same model are not recognized correctly.)

M-Audio M-Track Plus ~$150 on Amazon
This has support for two XLR (or 1/4 jack) mic-ins , if you need more than this, I believe there is another model with 4 inputs? It is ~$100 more than this one. Not sure if you already had your microphone audio planned out but this device will give you dials which you can control your audio levels without having to mess with settings on your computer.

Any PC with an i5 CPU & AT LEAST 5 usb inputs would be fine (more is better, 2 for mouse/kb, 3 for usb devices previously listed). So long as you are not capturing gaming video or doing any sort of extremely CPU intensive applications on your PC, you'll be fine. OBS really only uses CPU (unless you are doing hardware encoding, which typically looks worse.)

If you need to use the camcorders, then the previous pc setup would be fine, but just make sure the camcorders support HDMI out and get a PCI-E capture card. I personally have never captured two different devices at the same time, so you may need a capture card that is a tad more expensive or buy two capture cards (which brings me back to the part where you may have issues getting the same model capture card, I am probably wrong but I swear I have read people run into issues with this.) For single device capture, I have heard the Avermedia Live Gamer HD is great, but I can't give any real recommendations that would benefit your specific setup.

TL;DR: Get 2 different model webcams & m-track plus for 2 mic inputs for a way more simple setup.

 

[dodgepong]

2 webcams; 1 Logitech c920 & 1 Logitech c930e. ~$199 bought together on Amazon
(Different models because there have been cases where 2 webcams of the same model are not recognized correctly.)

This issue was resolved several versions ago.

 

[FerretBomb]

Your GPU should be fine just for compositing purposes. CPU could have trouble depending on the resolutions you intend to use, unless you record at a very high bitrate and encoder speed, then re-encode down later with a multipass lossless encoder for archival storage. If you intend to live-stream the lectures instead of just recording, this could be less of an option.

Webcams are handy (and the c920 is an excellent unit) but if you want to use in-place cameras or full camcorders (which will deliver better quality than a c920, at the cost of greater expense) I would STRONGLY advise cruising eBay for Datapath VisionRGB-E2 capture cards. They accept DVI and HDMI inputs (so buy your camcorders appropriately), and support two channels per card. Additionally, there is a native capture plugin for these cards on OBS, which will minimize CPU usage (which can be considerable, going by the default DirectShow capture method). You can usually find them between $120-$160 each (new, they run $700+ each). Do be aware that when using multiple, you need to assign channels via on-card jumpers. A simple process, but one that can trip people up who have never had to deal with hardware-set values on modern motherboards.

For the audio, I would recommend a Behringer 1204 USB mixing board. Provides a master-out to the computer that presents as an audio interface, and can be grabbed by OBS directly. Mic preamps built in, compressors, and offers phantom power. Plenty of inputs for various audio sources, and plays very nicely with wireless body-pack setups. You can also output via dual 1/4" for integration with in-room PA if the lecture hall is so equipped (and/or for disability-assist hookups).

 

[vedranp]

Thanks for your replies.

As Ferret said, we want to get better quality by using camcorders instead of webcams, but that's as high as we can go in terms of price. The main point of my post was to find out how low I can go with GPU if a capture card is necessary. Funds available are in th range Achmetha was talking about, or even below it. Also, used components from eBay are not an option, since it is an official purchase.

The lectures would be live-streamed, but the best I'm hoping for is a video that is pleasant to look at and a sound where you can understand the words clearly.