Phone camera to OBS

R

robby98

New Member
Hey guys!

I'm doing YT livestream for storm chasing and I'm wondering if there is a best method to add the phone camera to OBS which has a good quality, without pixelated video and a good color space. I mean, I've tried many apps but the video looks very desaturated.

I've tried DroidCam OBS too, I even purchased the pro version, but same. The video is too desaturated and a bit pixelated. If someone can help me, I will apreciate it!

Thanks!
 
Are you planning for a wired phone to OBS PC connection, or using Bluetooth's very limited bandwidth, or WiFi, which may or may not be adequate (and even then, can fluctuate)?
What resolution, frame rate, and color depth are you looking for/expecting/desiring?
 
Lawrence_SoCal said:
Are you planning for a wired phone to OBS PC connection, or using Bluetooth's very limited bandwidth, or WiFi, which may or may not be adequate (and even then, can fluctuate)?
What resolution, frame rate, and color depth are you looking for/expecting/desiring?
Click to expand...
I'm using an USB for connection and the settings was set to 1920x1080 resolution, 7k-8k bitrate and 30 fps.
I'm looking for a realistic color depth, but mine is too desaturated and looks wierd. If I add a color correction filter in OBS studio to the phone camera source, the video quality will looks worse?

And about the resolution and rate, I'm a storm chaser. And everysingle time I live streaming the chase on YT, so I need 1080p with low latency. (My laptop is connected to the hotspot shared from my phone). Sometimes I drive in a cellular dead zone, but this isn't a problem. The pixelated video while I'm in movement, is always there, even with 4G LTE, 4 lines. I tought to buy a 4g booster or antenna to boost the internet when I have 1 line for example, but this is off topic here.
 
Odd, I use Droidcam OBS and don't have those issues over WiFi It's actually better than my C922 with lower latency
Are you talking about how your stream looks on YT or in the OBS preview
Also, what phone are you using

Could you post some screen grabs
 
The AVC encoder tends to have a hard time when there is a lot of movement in the video, it's designed to calculate "differences" between each frame with the assumption the changes aren't super fast or significant.
For 1080p I would recommend at least 8MBps, and make sure i-frames interval is set to 1s. The "Very High" preset in the app will do this, but you can also enable advanced options set the options manually.

The MJPEG video format might work better, it's a little more CPU heavy but there should be no pixilation.

The color quality depends on the phone/camera/lens and lighting. Adding some color effects in OBS can compensate for the desaturated output.
 
For internet use bonding (multiple modems, i build with 4 modem and antennas).
MJPEG get better colors because use profile YUV422.
H.264 don't like too much move, 7-8Mb/s it's too small i you got more move, maybe 25-50, but for some specific like 'all Intra' frame 200 Mb/s is not small value. H.264 use color profile YUV420 (less color, 12bits per pixel).
Check Ip Webcam (free or pro).
 
dev47 said:
The AVC encoder tends to have a hard time when there is a lot of movement in the video, it's designed to calculate "differences" between each frame with the assumption the changes aren't super fast or significant.
For 1080p I would recommend at least 8MBps, and make sure i-frames interval is set to 1s. The "Very High" preset in the app will do this, but you can also enable advanced options set the options manually.

The MJPEG video format might work better, it's a little more CPU heavy but there should be no pixilation.

The color quality depends on the phone/camera/lens and lighting. Adding some color effects in OBS can compensate for the desaturated output.
Click to expand...
Everything worked well, thanks so much!

I've changed the video format to MJPEG and set the target bitrate to Very high. I tested it out how it works and is much better, but still have pixelation on the house edges and cables sometimes tho.

About the saturation. I've added a color correction filter to the Droidcam source in OBS, and now looks much much better.

Another problem but I'm not sure if it's from the DroidCam app. Sometimes is very laggy, I used 30fps. 60 fps will be too much for a cellular internet connection and don't think can handle it. In my test live stream looks like the lag appears when my signal is low. ( maybe I should buy a 4g booster antenna ) .

And one more thing. I have a 2-3 minutes delay on stream. I can disable it somewhere or it is a YT thing? Thanks!!
 
Tomasz Góral said:
For internet use bonding (multiple modems, i build with 4 modem and antennas).
MJPEG get better colors because use profile YUV422.
H.264 don't like too much move, 7-8Mb/s it's too small i you got more move, maybe 25-50, but for some specific like 'all Intra' frame 200 Mb/s is not small value. H.264 use color profile YUV420 (less color, 12bits per pixel).
Check Ip Webcam (free or pro).
Click to expand...
Thanks! I already tried with MJPEG and it's much better!
What type of modems and antennas?
25-50 isn't too high for a cellular internet connection?
 
With MJPEG, I would actually recommend using the "Normal" video quality. The bandwidth requirements are higher and the quality difference should not be significant. To remove the remaining blurriness you would need to step up to 60fps, but this will put considerable load on the phone and the computer - so try with caution.

YT/Twitch will always have some delay, this is normal, but see

Understand live streaming latency - YouTube Help

Stream latency is the delay between your camera capturing an event and the event being displayed to viewers. When setting up your live stream, think about how the level of latency may affect your view
support.google.com support.google.com
 
dev47 said:
With MJPEG, I would actually recommend using the "Normal" video quality. The bandwidth requirements are higher and the quality difference should not be significant. To remove the remaining blurriness you would need to step up to 60fps, but this will put considerable load on the phone and the computer - so try with caution.

YT/Twitch will always have some delay, this is normal, but see

Understand live streaming latency - YouTube Help

Stream latency is the delay between your camera capturing an event and the event being displayed to viewers. When setting up your live stream, think about how the level of latency may affect your view
support.google.com support.google.com
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if the cellular internet can handle the 60 fps because not everywhere I have 4G LTE. Sometime I have 3G and 3G can't handle even 30fps.

Here is a link to my live streaming test with MJPEG and target quality set to High or Very high and 30 fps.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be youtu.be

Is laggy only when I drive into a cellular dead zone, I think.
 
Last edited:
cellurar internet does matter, matter is computer and bitrate.
You can send 60 fps with 1Mb/s (quality with 1080p will be drama, 360p be almost good), you can use 6Mb/s and quality not be enough.

Record on computer and send stream to yt and compare quality, yt reencode your stream.
 
Tomasz Góral said:
cellurar internet does matter, matter is computer and bitrate.
You can send 60 fps with 1Mb/s (quality with 1080p will be drama, 360p be almost good), you can use 6Mb/s and quality not be enough.

Record on computer and send stream to yt and compare quality, yt reencode your stream.
Click to expand...
Yeah I know. Just don't know what type of modem and antenna should I buy
 
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