PROBLEMS USING 5 USB CAMERAS IN OBS WITH A MACBOOK PRO M1

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dpereira13

New Member
Hi all,

I am having problems configuring more than 2 usb cameras in different scenes in OBS. I configure, for example, 3 cameras and only 2 of them work. After that I shut down the OBS in the scene of the camera that isn't working and restart the program and this camera start works. The problem is that one of the others stop work.

Anybody can give an hint on how to solve it?

Thank you very much,

Diogo
 
J

JamRatt

New Member
Hmm. Larence_SoCal is probably right IF you are running multiple cams off a hub vs directly in the Thunderbolt4/USB4 ports. I would try running the USB cams directly on the native ports as a test and see if OBS still drops the cam.

That said, I've run two USB (1080p) and two HDMI capture cameras (4k & 1080p) on a 2013 MacBook pro. Two of the 1080 cams were on one hub, one USB 1080 cam off another hub, and the 4k directly into the USB 3 hub.
You could have cooked steak on the chassis, but no dropped cameras. I did get some packet loss/pixelization. So we cut it to three cams.

What about the question of power? Are the cameras powered separately or via USB? Also if you have multiple per USB port... I don't know the max Watts of the TB4, but the minimum is 15 Watts. Again, like the data bandwidth, a hub with multiple devices drawing power diminishes the potency too.

Look into a Thunderbolt 4 hub, not just a USB 4 if you have to share the bandwidth on one hub.
 
deinyramos

deinyramos

New Member
I have the same problem...
dpereira13 said:
Hi all,

I am having problems configuring more than 2 usb cameras in different scenes in OBS. I configure, for example, 3 cameras and only 2 of them work. After that I shut down the OBS in the scene of the camera that isn't working and restart the program and this camera start works. The problem is that one of the others stop work.

Anybody can give an hint on how to solve it?

Thank you very much,

Diogo
Click to expand...

I have the same problem, Diogo!
Any thoughts??

(BR aqui também hehe)
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
JamRatt - You haven't mentioned what your computer is, and therefore we can't know whether its USB port(s) are capable of processing a 4K webcam video stream. And a built-in port is NOT necessarily faster than a dock port (if that is a Thunderbolt connected dock... maybe/maybe not.. depends)
 
J

JamRatt

New Member
The MacBook that I referenced using 4 cams on was a 2013. The UBS hubs and 4k cam were run off the USB 3.0 ports. We only sent out 720p via OBS as it was for Facebook Live. I didnt have access to a TB drive for thats etup.

But I had to ditch that idea as our web two cams were terrible in low light and running four was pushing the temps/processor too high for a 50-60 minute broadcast.

As to my logic for the Thubderbolt USB hub I had just answered a similar question on another thread where it was about a MacBook Pro M1. So I had my brain crosswired- sorry. Buuut, the logic is sound, you try to supply a firehouse with another firehose in power and speed if you can.

Sometimes cameras and hard drives on USB hubs give low power warnings or "wink" in and out without sufficient power. Another thought is a powered hub. But this is only ONE probable issue.
 
M

Miguel Matos

New Member
Hi, I have been having the same issue.

I have a 2021 M1 Max MacBook Pro and a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 usb hub and the same thing happens.

I have tried reducing the resolution on each webcam in OBS and having all cams @ 960x540 seems to allow all 4 to work at once.

I would like to understand what could be causing the cameras to freeze when I try having even one of them at full resolution (1080p 30fps)
I don't believe bandwidth to be the issue as TB4 should allow for this and the hub is TB4 and powered, so I am quite lost here.
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
Miguel Matos said:
I would like to understand what could be causing the cameras to freeze when I try having even one of them at full resolution (1080p 30fps)
I don't believe bandwidth to be the issue as TB4 should allow for this and the hub is TB4 and powered, so I am quite lost here.
Click to expand...
As you mention, issue should not be TB4 hub and computer. Rather, that hub encapsulates many protocols, and routes them back to computer. I suspect 4 cameras, coming in via a single USB connection is overwhelming the USB Root Hub (or equivalent on a M1 based system). Have you tried getting 3 cameras to work, at higher resolution (a level where a 4th camera would be a problem) and then connect that 4th camera to a direct USB port on the MacBook? Just a guess/hope that a different USB Root Hub would come into play. but no idea if such even applies to M1 world. but if you can't figure that out, maybe worth playing with/testing?
 
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bflclimbingcombine

New Member
Have the same exact problem on the M1 MBA. I have a thunderport USBC hub with 3 USB 3.0 inputs, I have 3 cameras running, OBS only shows 2 at a time. When setting up one camera it shows all three. As soon as I had two cameras, the 3rd camera stops showing video, just black.
 
XLCOLDJ

XLCOLDJ

Member
There's probably not enough bandwidth on that bus to support all three. You could probably get some IP cameras to work if that's an option for you.
 
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