Question / Help OBS Studio MP4's blury beyond belief and constantly corrupting?

[Cloud557]

It's me again, I've solved the bandwidth issue I was having, but I'm having a new issue and I'm at my wits end now (I'm literally on the verge of tears from frustration...). For about a month now, I've been able to record videos just fine with Studio. It was always a little pixely, but not unwatchable, and it was always usable.

Last week, in an attempt to try and up the quality, I screen capped all my settings for everything, and started fiddling with the options to see if I could find a way to get it to record in a better quality. When every attempt failed to produce anything better, or even worse, made the quality MUCH worse than it already was (We're talking extremely unwatchable), I resigned myself to sadly being stuck with crappy quality for my videos and went through and changed all my settings back to what they were previously. However, and I have absolutely no idea why, as I've double checked all my settings before I go to record, every recording I've made since I changed everything back, has been corrupted or unwatchable!

Today, I changed one or two settings to see if I could make it watchable and usable, and I thought I was in luck when the recorded video was watchable on my PC. However, when I actually went to edit it using the same program I've been using to edit and render videos since I started (Sony Vegas Pro 13), I noticed that there were parts that would just go black and pixely for no reason. I thought it might have just been my editing software screwing up in a couple places and that it wasn't going to stick, so I didn't think much of it. However, when I got to a part that I wanted to add some special effects for, after freezing the frame and doing a small test run, I noticed that no matter where I started the video from, as soon as it got to the frame that was frozen, it went to the black pixels again. Again, I didn't think it was a serious issue right away, as I've had times in the past when something like that would happen and I'd just have to re-edit the whole thing from scratch (A bit of a pain but doable) by closing the whole program and re-opening it. However, when I did that this time, the exact same spots that were going pixelated and black were STILL doing that.

After about 2 hours of trying to sort this out (And missing the deadline of when I had planned to upload the video in the first place), I finally came to the conclusion that the video had been corrupted. I checked one last time with the raw video by playing it in my video player (Not editing software) and sure enough, it was flickering in and out of pixelation and was completely unwatchable.

This is the sixth time this has happened since last week, and I've tried other video recording software just so I could try and get SOMETHING out for my channel, but everything else I've tried doesn't work with the Eglato I'm using, and the Elgato software itself didn't properly record the episode (It also made it almost 4 times the file size as any of the episodes recorded using OBS in the past).

So please, does anyone know what could be causing this or how to fix this problem?

For refferance, my computer's got an Intel Core HD Video card (It's a laptop and I haven't got the money to upgrade it), and Intel Core 6 core Processor (Which for some reason overheats and fails very quickly, but again I can't upgrade it right now), and I'm running Windows 10 as my OS (I've also got 8 GB Ram and a 500 GB HDD).

Once again, please I am desperate at the moment, and would like to be able to record something that is usable for my channel, even if I'm limited to somewhat pixely quality, as long as it's watchable!

 

[sam686]

Show us OBS logs that have recording/encoding in it?

Probably Elgato problem when their own software fails. Is your Elgato a USB 2.0? Limited speed of USB 2.0 capture means anything higher then 720x480 at 30 fps at YUY2 colorspace, the video will be compressed to fit the limited USB 2.0 speed. OBS probably is not corrupting recorded files, but instead might be recording corruption from Elgato?

Use PCI-E (nearly any will work for desktop tower) or USB 3.0 (requires compatible USB 3.0 port) capture card. Both may work better as both will avoid the need to decompress USB 2.0 HD video reducing some CPU usage.

 

[Sapiens]

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/please-post-a-log-with-your-issue-heres-how.23074/

Stop recording to MP4, use FLV or MKV instead. If OBS crashes or otherwise can't finish recording properly an MP4 will typically be lost while FLV and MKV will remain intact.

 

[Cloud557]

Okay, here's the logs for the two recordings.

To answer the first person, I know that the problem with the Elgato software is their problem, I was only explaining that I've tried other software and that I had issues with other software. As for the PCI-E slot and the USB stuff, it is plugged into a USB 2.0 (Because my computer doesn't have 3.0 slots) directly, and as stated, I'm on a LAPTOP, thus I do not have access to any PCI-E slots at all.

As for the second person (Thank you you for linking how to post logs, I was having issues with that), for editing software reasons, I HAVE to record in MP4 format, as FLV and MKV are not supported by my editing software. It would be another thing if they were or if I had the money to afford a new software that does support them, but I currently don't. Also, OBS Studio did not crash or fail to record them, the files simply corrupted when I went to edit them. I did not save the drafts of the edits and I tried a couple more times last night and this morning to see if it was just the heat of my computer and room causing the videos to appear corrupted when they werent, as that has happened once or twice in the past. This was NOT the case however.

 

[Sapiens]

If you need a different container format for your editing software, change the container after your recording is finished. OBS Studio has this functionality built in, look in the File > Remux Recordings menu. This will not re-encode the files, just put them in a new container.

For your own person reference in the future, you have an Intel i5-4200U, which is a dual core CPU, and you're using its integrated graphics hardware, Intel HD Graphics 4400.

What type of Elgato capture device are you using? The log reports it as an Elgato Game Capture HD, which is a USB 2.0 device and not capable of outputting 1920x1080 and 60 FPS as you've tried to configure it. What type of console are you capturing with the Elgato? What resolution is it running at?

If you're concerned about quality and don't understand how to manually set up the encoder options you should use the recording quality presets provided under Settings > Output (Simple mode).

 

[Cloud557]

If you need a different container format for your editing software, change the container after your recording is finished. OBS Studio has this functionality built in, look in the File > Remux Recordings menu. This will not re-encode the files, just put them in a new container.

For your own person reference in the future, you have an Intel i5-4200U, which is a dual core CPU, and you're using its integrated graphics hardware, Intel HD Graphics 4400.

What type of Elgato capture device are you using? The log reports it as an Elgato Game Capture HD, which is a USB 2.0 device and not capable of outputting 1920x1080 and 60 FPS as you've tried to configure it. What type of console are you capturing with the Elgato? What resolution is it running at?

If you're concerned about quality and don't understand how to manually set up the encoder options you should use the recording quality presets provided under Settings > Output (Simple mode).

Thank you, I didn't actually realize that about OBS Studio, and yes, I realized after I replied this morning that I had made a mistake with the CPU info in my original post, but I was a bit busy at the moment of replying so I wasn't able to change it. My mistake.

As for the Elgato I'm using, that is the correct one, and I didn't know that it wasn't capable of doing that. The only thing that I'm not sure on is if the output setting you're referring to is the output of the final recorded video, or what shows up on my own screen. If it's the former, then what would you suggest be a better size. If it's the latter, would it be better to lower it? As for the 60 FPS, I know it's not, and I've been trying to simply bump it's FPS up as much as possible so the video ends up being less pixelated, but that hasn't worked, so I will likely lower it down to 30 FPS before my next recording and hope for the best.

In regards to the Encoder settings, I will stick with simple for the next few recordings to see how they turn out, but I'm also going to look into some guides for how to set them manually and see if I can configure them for my computer better.

Thank you for all the help you've offered.

 

[sam686]

Does OBS preview show corruptions while recording? if yes, then the video corruption happened before OBS encoder, probably from Elgato lack of USB bandwidth or weak CPU.

Having something like a picture or text with scroll filter on top of video in OBS also helps narrow down if the problem is OBS encoder or video input, by checking if picture or text is free of corruption when main video goes bad.

 

[Cloud557]

Does OBS preview show corruptions while recording? if yes, then the video corruption happened before OBS encoder, probably from Elgato lack of USB bandwidth or weak CPU.

Having something like a picture or text with scroll filter on top of video in OBS also helps narrow down if the problem is OBS encoder or video input, by checking if picture or text is free of corruption when main video goes bad.

It does not show these corruptions. There is nothing active other than the gameplay that I'm recording. Yes, the logs show that I have other things programed in, but all of the programed things are hidden and don't show up. If removing them would help, then I can do that.

 

[sam686]

Starting a new scene collection will work to unload everything.

I see "Microphone (USB Audio Device)" in log file, this may use up available shared bandwidth, possibly starving Elgato from having not enough available bandwidth which may result in showing some random video corruption. Maybe unplug mic?

Preferably, in task manager, view by connection, try to use different USB ports until Elgato and USB mic are in different USB (EHCI) controllers.

 

[Cloud557]

Starting a new scene collection will work to unload everything.

I see "Microphone (USB Audio Device)" in log file, this may use up available shared bandwidth, possibly starving Elgato from having not enough available bandwidth which may result in showing some random video corruption. Maybe unplug mic?

Preferably, in task manager, viewed by connection, try to use different USB ports until Elgato and USB mic are in different USB (EHCI) controllers.

The mic is required I'm afraid, as I do Live Coms when playing. That saves the editing and it makes a bit more sense for the games I'm playing and doing playthroughs of. I do have the mic disabled in OBS though, so the only things that are recorded through OBS is the game video and audio.

As for swapping the USB ports that they are in, I can give that a try and see how that turns out.