Question / Help OBS Livestream drops Decklink Mini Recorder Audio random

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

Hello,
Set up is HD-SDI in to Decklink Mini Recorder. Live stream out is OBS studio to a webstream server.
That is all computer does. Decklink driver 11.5. OBS 25.0.4 (64bit). Streaming out x264 800Kbps.
It works.
But at random (1 hour or days) the Blackmagic Device audio meter in OBS goes blank and no audio till OBS restarted. As a side note and its not hooked up to anything the Blackmagic device was putting audio on Mic/Aux fader I have it muted but it would sometimes be there or not so anyways I disabled Mic/Aux in windows to not confuse issue, if I did bring Aux up it was delayed and crackeled anyways red herring but I mention it.

So its a live 24 hour stream that audio goes out in OBS. It works tell it does not.
Rarely may or may not be related I did see a overload encoding error in OBS very rare again red herring but hey Data helps.

Any Ideas? this does not appears so uncommon if you search it out BTW.

 

[vapeahoy]

I have 2x of the decklink mini recorder 4k.
11.5 driver did something with the flash/firmware update to the fan's curve or voltage or both, idk. But I did repeat tests on this to check if i wasn't kidding myself. With 11.5 upgrade done the card was, or is, much more static noise from. So much so it was annoying.
11.41 driver turns it back to "silent" mode. I ended up having to replace the fan on the card to keep 11.5 driver. I had to forgo the card's power outlet tho, with the current fan.

So i'm sorry to not say anything specific in regard to your audio issue, but it's a bigger concern with this driver. I was able to replicate the issue on both my decklink cards, where the other card have been checked to be working fine and then not used for more then a few hours (to see its fine).
Perhaps a previous driver would work better. I've also been annoyed that they spent like 4 driver revisions to fix a rather small autorun feature of what programs start or not. Which just adds to it that they need to do better driver quality control.... For streaming and such purposes, stability is the king. Without it everything is forfeit.
For what it's worth the obs audio offset/sync feature is really good and as such using a dedicated audio solution work really well imo.

I reported the issue to blackmagic who just wanted me to digup where i bought it as if i was going to ship the cards to usa for a refund or something, where as i live in eu and couldnt care less as the cards are rather cheap, relatively speaking. I guess the good guys who want to fix issue are not at work due to the current ongoing chaotic situation in the world.

Best of luck.

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

I have 2x of the decklink mini recorder 4k.
11.5 driver did something with the flash/firmware update to the fan's curve or voltage or both, idk. But I did repeat tests on this to check if i wasn't kidding myself. With 11.5 upgrade done the card was, or is, much more static noise from. So much so it was annoying.
11.41 driver turns it back to "silent" mode. I ended up having to replace the fan on the card to keep 11.5 driver. I had to forgo the card's power outlet tho, with the current fan.

So i'm sorry to not say anything specific in regard to your audio issue, but it's a bigger concern with this driver. I was able to replicate the issue on both my decklink cards, where the other card have been checked to be working fine and then not used for more then a few hours (to see its fine).
Perhaps a previous driver would work better. I've also been annoyed that they spent like 4 driver revisions to fix a rather small autorun feature of what programs start or not. Which just adds to it that they need to do better driver quality control.... For streaming and such purposes, stability is the king. Without it everything is forfeit.
For what it's worth the obs audio offset/sync feature is really good and as such using a dedicated audio solution work really well imo.

I reported the issue to blackmagic who just wanted me to digup where i bought it as if i was going to ship the cards to usa for a refund or something, where as i live in eu and couldnt care less as the cards are rather cheap, relatively speaking. I guess the good guys who want to fix issue are not at work due to the current ongoing chaotic situation in the world.

Best of luck.

Interesting. I was thinking software. But maybe it is related to hardware. maybe even a weak voltage for a min or two, or a dip. This is a older computer rebuilt. I may need to firm it up some or do a new build I will think on this.

 

[vapeahoy]

Just to be perfectly clear: 11.5 driver flashes the card with new firmware, and if then reinstalling previous driver it does the same with older firmware, that causes the change. There is nothing lacking in the computer on my end. its a corsair ax1600i or whatever its called in a x299 box.

as for SDI and audio, you might need a mini converter for it, i have no idea as i havent the need or tried to use sdi audio with the card. It should work without i think tho. Idk.

 

[Tomasz Góral]

1. set Audio to 48kHz, now you have 44,1kHz, but Decklink Mini Recorder send 48kHz.
2. DVR set OFF
3. 1080p30 i think minimum bitrate is 3500kb, you have 800kb.
4. for 800kb bitrate set resolution 480p, for 720p think minimum 1500kb.

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

1. set Audio to 48kHz, now you have 44,1kHz, but Decklink Mini Recorder send 48kHz.
2. DVR set OFF
3. 1080p30 i think minimum bitrate is 3500kb, you have 800kb.
4. for 800kb bitrate set resolution 480p, for 720p think minimum 1500kb.

I will try that 48... understand I was trying to limit my upload bandwidth but may up that also

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

1. set Audio to 48kHz, now you have 44,1kHz, but Decklink Mini Recorder send 48kHz.
2. DVR set OFF
3. 1080p30 i think minimum bitrate is 3500kb, you have 800kb.
4. for 800kb bitrate set resolution 480p, for 720p think minimum 1500kb.

Yea I did that an I thought it was working came in Saturday for different issue in master Control and sure enough it did it again I had to restart OBS to get audio back. I am building a new computer but am 50/50 on that being issue.

 

[Tomasz Góral]

Very strange, I own a Mini PCIE 4K Recorder and never interrupted the sound. Have you tried uploading older drivers?

 

[vapeahoy]

I have another issue with some regular usb audio cards and the best setting i found on them so far is second-lowest buffer size at max bitrate. Otherwise weird things happen with for instance firefox can't call the audio card saved in settings for playback etc. (programs can now remember what audio card to use- finally-on these recent win10 builds, no need for third party programs anymore, quite happy about that!). But it's still not a finished design, and hardware drivers and software also need time to catchup to how windows now *behaves*.

So there's that. The other thing is just regular audio cut outs from unexpected events, which would be stuff like power failure, or driver conflict. For instance, Microsofts default driver for the audio cards i use, will cause static noise at certain higher pitched sounds and at fixed intervals almost. It sounds terrible.

Given I know BMD has an issue with their recent driver, it all makes sense.
However I would check with Task Scheduler, under administrative tools, that there isn't a task being run that causes a hardware desync temporarily or such. Which may be caused by things like blue tooth, or wifi-discovery, or some other totally seemingly non related thing that still impact and causes the issue. If such a possible culprit is found, disable it instead of deleting, as windows 10 has switched around how they do things on there and deleting a task will often cause it to just simply be re-created. Which is actually a bit annoying. I wish we could have a new mechanism for that to "block and remove", so it doesnt re-enter the system. Ie wifi tasks is 100% pointless on a system with no wifi card, ie workstation.

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

Thanks for the replies. It happened with drivers on install. It happens with new drivers. Its a 24 hour stream so finding drop point as its random is tricky but I think I have found a freeware silence alarm that emails and or send text. https://pira.cz/show.asp?art=silence I will set up and when it alarms I will know to check logs at that time to get more data for trouble shooting... funny I posted to BM fourm and it appears a dead end no rplies I find that interesting the amount of equipment they sell. https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/...s+Decklink+Mini+Recorder+Audio+random#p615926

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

well the silence alarm works, same drop out of audio though its there, but isee nothing at that time in log files Silence detected - 2020-04-27 19-59-00 minus 2 mins logs attached

 

[vapeahoy]

"... And today behind the curtains we have our brave contestants stepping up, I present:

THE LOG FILES!"

Have you tried adding more memory or something, 4GB for a live stream 24/7 seems extremely optimistic given you're streaming from windows.

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

LOL I am building a new computer now we shall see

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

upped to 8 meg ram same problem it drops out. Will try a new computer shortly

 

[vapeahoy]

Really dont want to read all the logs still, have you ruled out any isp drop outs? Some isps like to reset once a day, even the one i have here, so connection is then lost, albeit briefly. Other then that DHCP time out from local modem could be a culprit as well, or just a bad bug in it's firmware or such. I'm afraid there are many reasons why a once per day loss of connection or similar issue, can occur. I understand you are paraphrasing just an audio drop out, but im troubled by that you could be the victim of a domino effect.
Also consider disabling memory compression, which is a relatively new thing in windows.

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

On same computer (minus my memory upgrade) I was streaming SD video from an osprey capture card for many years. To same stream provider serverroom.us. It rarely stopped and was 24/7 stream like 600meg. I add Black Magic card and this starts to happen and yes I went HD and upped stream to like 1gb but I am on biz fiber 100x100... …. the software or BM card drops sound channel but yea it could be a windows trigger or OBS trigger I am prepping a new new egg hp refirb now and am trying to shut down everything I can on windows 10.. as all I want is OBS stream (and team viewer).. I may add this has me concered as I was planning on using this setup for a studio capture computer.. if it dropped audio during recording... major problem

Really dont want to read all the logs still, have you ruled out any isp drop outs? Some isps like to reset once a day, even the one i have here, so connection is then lost, albeit briefly. Other then that DHCP time out from local modem could be a culprit as well, or just a bad bug in it's firmware or such. I'm afraid there are many reasons why a once per day loss of connection or similar issue, can occur. I understand you are paraphrasing just an audio drop out, but im troubled by that you could be the victim of a domino effect.
Also consider disabling memory compression, which is a relatively new thing in windows.

 

[vapeahoy]

Sorry for the long post, i have been very bored, but also im working on some things so...:

Well SD video is less bandwidth demanding no? Once we up the bandwidth we're increasing chance of problems.
I'm happy you have an insight into your isp provider and it's health status. It's often an overlooked aspect. Which is sad because so many ISP's suck. With fiber 100/100 you should be good i hope.

In regard to shutting down, disabling, deactivating, deleting or similar taking control of system in windows now.. I have tons of experience in this field. And the rules have changed... To be brief:
I would not delete anything anymore, and i would also be very careful with how control is taken.
F.ex i use for some things now a setacl command to take control of registry keys, and also in a manual, controlled way - disabling a service's registry key. There are some conflict areas here where if you do these kind of things via a third party program, how they go about doing it, can make things worse, as they can do other things too - that they dont tell you, or they add the wrong permissions and such to the data.
Windows task scheduler has for a good 2 years now been ramping up in how its being done and so only disabling tasks is the best way forward.
Writing down default values can be a good practice here...........

On a sidenote, Remote desktop can by its design cause a hickup, as infact once you are remoting in, you are doing a very obtrusive interrupt to the system. So not sure what you're doing in teamviewer but yeah.

But let's take a step back and assess what is the problem:

But at random (1 hour or days) the Blackmagic Device audio meter in OBS goes blank and no audio till OBS restarted. As a side note and its not hooked up to anything....

So what you are saying here is that you wish for the audio stream, that never really starts anyway with any data, still stays up regardless..
Would that be a fair assessment?

I recently found myself in a conundrum with stream channels in ffmpeg, and it turned out while newer version of ffmpeg was infact slower, it wasnt that much slower, and so the syntax, the way you give it settings for parameters had drastically changed, from old version to new.
So the thing is that video and audio can be on it's own "channel", let's put it that way. Their own stream. And u can have many of them.
Infact you can stream video and have any many pany sany audio tracks going over it's own separate happy little stream. Might have setup some pictures to be streamed consistently as well. Quite interesting nerdy thing actually. Anyhoooooooo, we can of course set it so that the data is sent with video and audio on the same channel. What is not clear to me, is if audio can be timed out by design of the software encoder part, or hardware, if this is by design somehow - you're screwed. But i'd argue that be bad design and i dont find it likely.
for ffmpeg x264 this would be something like giving it:
-map :v:0 0:a:0 - check https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html - section 5.3 avoptions.
I believe as i checked a few things last night i saw it was combined by default, meaning user doesn't have to configure this manually.
Anyway, i dont think the problem is actually here either... I find it more likely it is to do with your device's driver or hardware and that it somehow stops and doesnt manage to start or be triggered to come online again.

What i know is that i've had and i have confirmed problem with the recent 11.5 driver of bmd mini rec 4k cards. i never had similar issue as you, but i never used audio on them either so cant really help with input to that end. But it seems more likely even still.
OR, we should just all face the horrible workload of reading all those damn logs. ;)

coffee time!

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

Thanks for the reply. Well mainly I was going to do this...https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2019/04/25/windows-10s-ugly-updates-just-got-uglier-heres-how-to-stay-safe-by-disabling-automatic-updates/#79adc0607ff0 In addition to any other "safe" thing I can disable. On these video only computers I don't need updates, I don't need any outgoing pings I don't need anything really just the card and software what I really need is like a windows "lite" the nice thing VS a dedicated box for stream and recording is off the shelf parts and tech support (me) were as boxes not so. Mainly non standard power supplies is a big one. I am admining network with Team Viewer .

Sorry for the long post, i have been very bored, but also im working on some things so...:
coffee time!

 

[vapeahoy]

Your best bet would then to install a windows server, dont install any modules, and go about enabling stuff like directx for it. At least a route to consider.

 

[JAMES WILSON WTJR]

I have a new HP rebuild does the same thing. I would say that that card and OBS do not and have not made a reliable 24/7 webstream. The audio disappears the meter in OBS goes dead. x out rea6art program its fine. I may build a macro script to do just that start and stop program every 24..