Need Suggestions

[Peter Jones]

Need Suggestions on what to get. This is a little unlike the others I've read. This is not for use in a Gaming System, but a Church environment. Here's what they have the need for.

They have a single 1080p Camcorder running through HDMI to a USB 3.0 Capture Device that also brings in the sound from their Sound Mixer via an aux out port (using a stereo 1/4 to stereo 1/8 single cable) so that each channel can be blended properly.

They use a program called SongShow Plus to push out their song slides and video as well a single image file to their projector. This also is recorded in their livestream currently via a window capture as it pushes through a 2nd monitor display.

They use PowerPoint for their morning Slides that run on a loop cycle for 5 mins before service (The first 5 minutes of the recording), and the shut down entirely unless their is a presentation during the service, however that is expected to rare.

The current setup is a Lenovo H520 system running an i3 (3ghz) with 16GB Ram, 1TB HD, Win 10, Nvidia GT 210 1GB.

They have been experiencing intermittent encoding issues with even less frequent YouTube errors of not enough video sent. This has caused an issue during their livestream and playback of livestream where they get buffers, stutters, and video/audio being out of sync temporarily.

Due to an unfortunate event of the CPU fan being in the middle of dying they are looking at the need of purchasing a new machine. What I need help with is directing them towards a machine that will suit their needs (match what they use software wise with the input of the camcorder along with the need to output at 1080p), without breaking the bank. To say that this Church can't afford a top rated system is an understatement. They currently have an attendance of about 45 ppl (30 with Covid-19), and average age of 72. They are wanting to bring in younger generation and understand that a need to reach out in a medium of Social Networking and Livestreaming is a start.

So they are looking for something in the range of machine about 400-600. Doesn't have to prebuilt, it can be components that's not an issue. I've built systems that range from a kid pc, to a server, desktop to workstation and many others. The one thing I've not built is a machine to be a projection system and livestream.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated and I am available to get any specs or provide any information that you need. Disclaimer: My father is the Minister at the Church so I can take time from my own life and family to go to the Church and have full access to the PC.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

So a low-end CPU on a 6yr old PC. You dad did better than I did on a Inspiron 15 7559 laptop i5-6500HQ with SATA SSD for House of Worship broadcast (I hadn't optimized OBS, but a upper-end 2yr old laptop handled stream just fine). I personally can't stand consumer level gear (too low quality, poor drivers, poor support, etc), so I prefer business class machines. And so we just got a new, 5yr onsite site next business day tower with i7-10700k nVideo 1660 Super for $1,500 . I'm sure that will last for many years.. but is way over your budget.
On a side note, my primary home PC is a 10+yr old tower, but with multiple SSDs, and other than video/photo editing, is powerful enough for my other uses.
My thinking is at that budget level, to consider a component upgrade instead.
So, on the Lenovo.. is that a HDD, or an SSD. If a HDD, put a SSD in (1TB 2.5" for under $100) for a huge performance increase. What I don't know is the motherboard, and what CPU upgrade it can handle. a replacement i7 from that timeframe and new CPU cooler should be cheap. Then upgrade the GPU, you should be able to get a nVidia 1650 Super for something like $150
Also, quick look online shows that desktop only had USB 2.0 ports. Confirm on your system, and if true, then consider getting a USB 3.x PCIe add-in card. Though if that motherboard is Intel H61 based, that doesn't even support SATA III, it may make more sense to get a 2-3yr old motherboard CPU combo ... but that would also most likely mean new RAM chips as well :(
and maybe you already thought through all this, and ended up at getting new system instead. ;^) If yes, I'd be inclined to look at a 3-4yr old gaming rig that wasn't overclocked. A lower-end GPU should suffice for lower res video stream (720p for Facebook, 1080p for YouTube at 30fps). And make sure OS is on SSD vs HDD to make sure that doesn't become a bottleneck.

Personally, as video decoding (from camcorder) / encoding (for stream) is often CPU intensive, I'd recommend a quad-core hyper-threaded PCU (so Intel i7 or AMD equivalent). Also, my newbie research points out to using nVidia GPU due to better GPU encoding offload that doesn't work as well for FB/YouTube... again the $150 GPU class should be more than plenty.

Good luck

 

[Peter Jones]

Thank you for the info. I know already that the mobo won't support more than an I7-3770 which limits me to 8GB Ram. It does come with only USB 2.0 ports but I upgraged that already with a PCIx 3.0 card. The HD is only a HDD and getting them to invest in an SSD is a waste of breath.

This is their only system running Win 10 and thats only because I told them it was 100px more stable than the Win 8 that it came with. The rest of their machines are still on either Win XP or Win 7 and a stern don't upgrade those.

I've noticed that the CPU fan is on its way out, it sounds like a lawn mower running. Running a sensor check the CPU is currently running about 2°C below max temp under next to no load. I'm sure it's cooking the mobo so I'm sure a new machcine is gonna be in order real soon.
With their current budget I'm just trying to get a list of specs that will handle what they need and then determine rather I can build one within cost or find a prebuild in cost, or a hybrid of the two.

I appreciate your input. Unfortunately there is not a lot of information out in streaming except for gaming.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

You have my sympathy. what you describe is an environment ripe for constant self-inflicted problems. My family knows to follow my recommendations, or don't ask for my help (and no ignoring recommendations now and asking about new issue later... nope.. ).
What you describe is an environment that I'd walk away from saying "Good Luck", even if that was to a parent or spouse.
If any single one of those XP or Win7 PC access the internet (handle email, web browsing, etc) then the whole network is unsafe [assuming not paying MS for extended service which is a safe assumption if they won't upgrade streaming PC to an SSD]. Oh, my family and friends also know I won't support anyone or system that users log-in w/ local admin rights. period. no discussion even allowed. IF they want to be stupid, that is their choice... they don't get to abuse me by wasting my time with their foolishness
Flip side, I get reluctance to upgrade to Win10 with Microsoft's string of poor code quality, unethical data collection practices initially, etc.

Though are you sure about the i7-3770 only supporting 8GB RAM? my over 10 yr old i7-920 has been running 24GBs RAM since new. A quick check online would seem to indicate CPU support for 2x16GB, though not sure about the motherboard/BIOS (I'm seeing reference to H61 limiting to 16GB RAM)
- As for the SSD, fortunately, I have spare ones laying around so I could show/test/demonstrate the performance impact. For that Lenovo, its HDD is undoubtedly a primary bottleneck, after which for video decoding/encoding, the next bottleneck is bound to be the CPU

Other basic lessons I've learned as I started on this part only back in March, as it relates to HoW streaming
- double check that Internet connection for stability of upstream bandwidth
I'm streaming to Facebook Live at 720p using 3000 kbps and content looks fine. For YouTube at 1080p, you'll probably use a bit more bandwidth
- read guides and other material on optimizing OBS setup (canvas size, screen resolution, streaming resolution), etc [short answer - have all those resolutions be the same so no rescaling required]
- include discussions on scenes and sources, how resource consumption correlates, etc. One recommendation is to close a source when done using it. But I've had issues (stuttering/glitches on pre-recorded video playback) following that advice. Not being resource constrained, I focused on ease of use for other volunteers (so whole process not dependent on me, which it is for the moment.. but getting there)
- CPU video encoding usually of higher video quality that GPU encoding (in general)
- if you are CPU bound, then a search on these forums will tell you which nVidia GPUs support NVENC for GPU hardware offload of encoding [the challenge for you will be I'm pretty sure they will be PCIe v3 and not sure about your current motherboard, and how a PCIe version mismatch will play out for this particular use case... could be non-issue, or ??]
- Stream viewers more impacted by audio quality than video quality, so pay attention to that
- you probably don't need stereo nor high bit rate for audio, so you'll lower bitrate requirement by dropping to 44.1Khz mono.
- the look into things like Audio compression for streamed content

There are those on here who have streaming working on systems as low-end as your Dad's. The issue is the exact OBS config, and sources used. And the amount of work to put into content in advance. For example, someone shoots a short welcome or announcement video to broadcast on their cellphone or laptop. Is someone going to re-encode/render that into exact format for broadcast, or simply play it as is (which is what we do)? Some of those videos will be 4K. And that,combined with Service Bulletin in PowerPoint, was when my i5-6500HQ laptop with SSD & 8GB choked.. terribly. Why do I bring this up? because you may be able to get current video setup working, and the broadcast needs to mature as social distancing is likely to go on for some time, especially with at risk groups like the attendees you mention. Then you start adding recordings like I mentioned, etc. and then what worked today isn't sufficient anymore.... So, I'd recommend leaving some headroom in your requirements.
You may think this isn't likely. But as time goes on, and some will take safety precautions seriously, the ability to still 'see' each other will make a difference [ie short video recordings from members]. Anyway... just food for thought

There are a number of YouTube channels by folks focused on House of Worship broadcasts using OBS, of varying sophistication levels. When I looked locally at Craiglist, used 3-4 yr old business class PCs with decent add-in GPUs, RAM, SSD, etc could all be had in the $400-500 range, which should be plenty. As for GPU, the nVidia GTX 10xx Pascal series was released in 2016, if not too much extra and you have a choice, go with a GTX 1060 or equivalent [you could probably make do with optimization with a 960, ok with 1050, and more breathing room with 1060]
also see
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/broadcasting-guide/ / https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/nvidia-nvenc-guide.740/
https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

Then of course the obvious of making sure background processes aren't running during broadcast (anti-virus scans, cloud drive sync, email program checking, etc)....

 

[wasdvd]

Lawrence's reply matches with what we have experienced, and I feel his assessments are spot on. The internet upload speed was one of our sneaky bottlenecks.

 

[Peter Jones]

Its not the CPU that has set our memory limit but the motherboard. If you look at the memory configurators for the Lenovo H520s you'll see the max is 8GB. I've looked at mew cards and the best Nvidia we can get is a GT720. I'm considering looking (if even still an option) for a new Mobo/CPU combo for a couple hundred and then get some memory and a video card.

I do agree that his info is spot on. Lawrence's advice has been wonderful. I'm in your debt for the advice. I played with the settings. Our source comes in at 1920x1080 which is what pump out. I dropped the fps down to 24fps and we seemed to stop the encoder overload issue. My main concern now with the system is that the CPU fan was going out. We replaced the fan but the temps are still running about 7 degrees from max temp. I'm concerned we are cooking the CPU and may already have created unrepairable damage. Hince the new CPU/Mobo need.

I do agree with the old systems. I've finally got him to allow me to upgrade all the systems but his to Win 10. I finally replaced the last XP system with one that runs Win 10. He is about to be forced to goto Win 10 as well. He is running an old emachine computer and its starting to fail on him as well. Which means new computer and no option but Win 10.

 

[ivank1935]

Check out techsoup.org they can get discounts from manufacturers and have refurbished computers that have been donated and they refurbish them. Dell through TechSoup got me a 10% discount from Dell for my church. You will need your 501c number.