Question / Help single vs double compression

J

Jake Morton

New Member
Hi everyone,

I know that usb 2.0 capture cards have built in encoders and i know of a few usb 3.0 that dont and just use uncompressed. i know obs encodes the stream itself with either .264/quicksync/nvenc. but just wondering would you get better quality out of the uncompressed capture only compressed once by obs or the one thats compressed by both the capture card and obs ? thanks
 
Yes, but OBS can't usually use the first compression step those USB devices use, as its a quick and dirty compression that's probably proprietary to boot.
 
Only compressing an image once (by OBS using x264) will give better quality.
One more reason external USB 2.0 cap devices aren't really recommended.

Compressing a compressed video source is kind of like recording to a videotape from another videotape, if you're old enough to have had that problem. :) You degrade the image worse each time it's compressed again.
 
FerretBomb said:
Only compressing an image once (by OBS using x264) will give better quality.
One more reason external USB 2.0 cap devices aren't really recommended.

Compressing a compressed video source is kind of like recording to a videotape from another videotape, if you're old enough to have had that problem. :) You degrade the image worse each time it's compressed again.
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thanks alot for clearing it up for me ferret, thats helped make up my mind to get a cap card without encoder in it, thanks again
 
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