New to OBS but stream quality is poor on YouTube but ok in Preview

Leroyvdw

New Member
Hi Guys,
Appreciate some help/guidance as I am struggling with OBS and YouTube streaming.
On OBS preview everything seems ok regardless of stream quality I pick in YouTube (4K, 1080 etc) however as soon as I go live on YouTube the quality is almost as if it's in 340P and the video jitters into a grey or pixelated screen every 10 seconds or so resulting in live cricket match videos being of no use once uploaded into YouTube channel.
Any thoughts/ideas and suggestions?
Laptop is running i7 CPU and 16MB RAM
 

konsolenritter

Active Member
The preview/program window just shows your active composition before entering the encoder. So it's no preview of the output of the encoder. The preview window at Youtube-Studio would come closest to a "preview" for the stream. At least for your upstream (how your material enters the Youtube servers.)

To guess your issues and help we need a logfile from a session showing the problem. Provide a YT link showing the issue too, if you can.
 

konsolenritter

Active Member
Oooh, wait. Either i don't understand the log, or there are a couple of issues:

You are using a i7 (good) 2670QM (old generation!!) cpu with software encoding, then transmitting by rtmps (secured rtmp means even more resource demanding!). Is this needed?

And what is this thing with your camera by rtsp with unknown format/resolution? Do you have a physical connected camera to check against?
 

Leroyvdw

New Member
Oooh, wait. Either i don't understand the log, or there are a couple of issues:

You are using a i7 (good) 2670QM (old generation!!) cpu with software encoding, then transmitting by rtmps (secured rtmp means even more resource demanding!). Is this needed?

And what is this thing with your camera by rtsp with unknown format/resolution? Do you have a physical connected camera to check against?
I am not sure what you mean "Is this needed?" (Simple answer would be probably not as I am new to OBS but RTMPS is the ONLY availoable option under service in OBS)
Unknown Format/Resolution - Not sure what you are referring to as settings are 1920 x 1080 and 25fps - PTZ Camera is on the same LAN
 

konsolenritter

Active Member
Using the "show all" button you get the choice (at least) for "Youtube HLS". But you can use "Customized" entry as well and set it by hand to
"rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2"
As you can see, the leading "rtmps" is changed to "rtmp". You are encouraged to try this way.

Back to topic: You wrote "regardless ... 4K or 1080" originally. Trying to understand your issue it can be said at least that your laptop(?) with an old cpu trying 1080 or even 4K at first... is... something... like a... suicide. =D But to be serious. You should provide a test recording or link to a stream to show the problem. Rethink if your machine is really capable to handle this. Video encoding and streaming is quite hardware demanding!
 

Leroyvdw

New Member
Thanks,
1. I have set it to YouTube HLS and will see how that goes.
2. Does live 2 in your example point to the second stream of the camera i.e. resolution is 800 x 600 in 2nd stream?
3. What is the best specification for a laptop/desktop to stream to YouTube? We really rely on streaming of live cricket matches and want to make sure eveything works as it should as we don't have time to fiddle around especially on match days.
4. Please find attached a 45sec screeb grab from the camera where you will notice the grey screen/pixels
 

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konsolenritter

Active Member
To much questions at once... ;)

The "live2" is just an url typically provided by youtube. They know nothing about your local cam setup so it has nothing in common with that. At least you can use the upstream url that YT provides you in your YT studio screen where you prepare the stream.

Regarding specs for streaming: To be short, especially for live streaming of sports or gaming with alot of motion the demands are high. Go for a machine with 8th or 10th generation of i7 and strictly an NVENC capable gpu, for instance Nvidia GTX 1660 Super or Ti. Google for a "NVENC nvidia compatibility list", i don't have the link at hand.

Regarding your screenshots. Its no video, but it looks totally wracked at all. You have to know that PTZ cameras aren't pristine/primal developed for high resolution and/or movement intense purposes, but merely for the security industry sector. From there they developed towards industry standards. Using a network capable PTZ camera brings additional delays, buffering, possible stutter and so on. Thats just my humble opinion, but you may better go with a typical profi camcorder with huge sensor (something in the better series of canon or panasonic, i've the HC-X1e for instance) and a directly connected capturing device, for instance HD60 S+ by usb-3. Then you should go for a 1080p30 (and if that works good) for 1080p60 streaming your events. Before investing in such cam equipment, just try to borrow one and test for your purposes.

As i learned this week by myself, even upscaling (but thats an additional hint) to 1440p before sending to YT may enforce their VP9 codec for livestreaming, which seems far better for keeping artefacts low on fast moving content.
 
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konsolenritter

Active Member
PS: The change back to rtmp from rtmps shouldn't play a big role if your machine is sufficient for all the tasks.
And you should go for bitrates beyond 6 or 8 mbps for sporting events.
 
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Leroyvdw

New Member
His actual hardware seems to be such lean...
This is exactly the part I am trying to understand.
If I use the exact same hardware (Laptop & PTZ Camera) but use Anycam.io software to stream to YouTube, I can stream at 1080p without any issues (No distortion/pixelation etc) and it works for 6 - 7 hours per match.
Using the exact same hardware again but with OBS, we get the distortion roughly every 40 seconds but nothing has changed (Internet speed and hardware etc remains the same)
I am struggling to undersdtand why NEW hardware will make a difference/resolve the current issue unless there are specific settings within OBS that requires resolution/frame rates/colour/encoder etc to be set manually/changed.
OBS provides much more in comparison with Anycam but ultimately if we can't get OBS to work uninterupted, we won't have a choice but to uninstall OBS.
 

konsolenritter

Active Member
I understand your astonishing.

Don't know what anycam.io does exactly. My assumption (may be wrong on this) is, that anycam.io just "tunnels thru", i.e. gets the encoded stream from the ptz camera and even doesn't transcode or re-encodes it. If that's the case, then almost no computational demand stresses the laptop.

OBS in comparison takes all sources, decodes it (if not uncompressed already) and routes thru its own compositing/mixing stage. Then its final outcome will be encoded independent/fresh to the target formats for streaming and/or recording. Even in the cases:

- input and output resolution is the same,
- framerates are the same,
- no color-changing or filters applying.
 

TryHD

Member
anycam does not encode anything and is simply a player and a transcoder, even a raspberry pi would be able to do that. OBS on the other hand does decode the stream of your cam, enables you to have overlays, do transform and add effects and so on and encodes that at the end so you can send that to your desired streaming plattform. That are complete different usecases and with that have different requirements for hardware. If you are not willing to get the hardware required for your requirements there is nothing we can help you with.
 

Leroyvdw

New Member
anycam does not encode anything and is simply a player and a transcoder, even a raspberry pi would be able to do that. OBS on the other hand does decode the stream of your cam, enables you to have overlays, do transform and add effects and so on and encodes that at the end so you can send that to your desired streaming plattform. That are complete different usecases and with that have different requirements for hardware. If you are not willing to get the hardware required for your requirements there is nothing we can help you with.
Understand the comment but in order to justify the additional expense in purchasing new hardware just wanted to ensure this will 100% solve the issue i.e. what's the point in spending £2K on a new laptop and ending with the same result where footage is not usable?
 

Tomasz Góral

Active Member
IT is strange, you have 2. gen of I7 and now you want pay 2k for new.
Newest gen. in sell is 11. of I7.
Your picture show some problems with decode stream from PTZ.
2. gen. have qsv, hardware video encoder, install correct intel driver.
 
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