Question / Help Stream freezing

[Thebigcheese]

Hey all, new to streaming and looking for some help. I bought an Avermedia Live Gamer Portable so that I would have a convenient way to capture console footage for Let's Plays and also so that I could stream console games if I wanted to. It was a little confusing to get set up at first, but in PC-free mode it works great, couldn't be easier. However, trying to use it with a computer has been trying. I am using a Surface Pro 3 running Windows 10, the i5 one (cheapest one), as the videos would most likely be recorded somewhere other than my apartment, so I don't want to have to drag my desktop along. I was figuring that having the hardware encoding would mean I could get by with the Surface, but that only works in RECentral and XSplit, as far as I know. RECentral crashes 10 minutes in to the stream every time, XSplit is obnoxious about trying to get me to pay to have even basic features but it does keep the stream going. So I wanted to try OBS and with MP, it does at least see the feed coming in just fine. I got a stream going but the feed just freezes after a while. The program hasn't crashed, the video is just frozen. I'm only trying to stream at 720@60fps, and even that I set the bitrate at 1800, so even though the computer isn't very powerful I should think it is capable of doing that. Are there other settings I should check?

 

[dssdassw]

Can you please also post a log? It might help figure out exactly what the issue is.

 

[Thebigcheese]

Sure thing, sorry, I was at work. Here are a couple of logs from the last couple times I ran it. I changed the resolution this morning, though, and haven't had a chance to test it since, so I wonder if maybe it was just too high before.

 

[dssdassw]

I just reaized something: if you're a nonpartnered streamer, I would NOT suggest streaming at 60fps.
It might cause your viewers to buffer heavily as they don't have quality control settings. 720p@30fps ~2000kbps is the best way to go for non-partnered streamers, unfortunately.
Looking at your logs, however, I see that you've switched to 30fps, so that isn't the issue.
I'm not super knowledgeable or anything, so I thought I might direct you to another thread until someone better can help you.
I actually don't have an Avermedia encoder, but I did hear you can switch your encoder to "Avermedia encoder" instead of x264 in the menu, so maybe that will help?

 

[Thebigcheese]

Hmmmm, I didn't switch to 30 on purpose. I had it at 60 because I noticed when we were doing a Super Metroid Let's Play (with an emulator, before I got the box), there were times when the game flashes sprites and they just disappear at 30fps but it works normal at 30fps. Figured it would be better to do that since I will primarily be doing games like that. But if that will be a problem I can try it a different way.

It looks like right now only the Live Gamer HD can be used as an encoder. I imagine they will add more in the future, but for now I have to use x264/

 

[Thebigcheese]

Tried it at 30fps with the lower resolution and same problem. And again, Xsplit doesn't crash, but for some reason the feed is very... temperamental. You know how the power light on a Mac "breathes"? It's like that, but with the video quality. Good to bad to good again. I've only noticed that with Xsplit. Here are two more logs. The first attempt froze almost immediately whereas the second one took a little longer.

I'm also noticing that no matter what software I use, the actual stream (if I try to watch it on, say, my phone) buffers a lot. I'm guessing that has more to do with my internet connection, though, which has a fairly low upload speed (maybe 5-10 mbps).

 

[Thebigcheese]

I think I figured it out. It was the encoding settings, taxing my computer too much I think. But even once I got it working, the audio was stuttering, but only in OBS MP. If I use the Stream Engine to get the LGP into standard OBS, it works fantastic, actually. The stream engine doesn't show up in 32-bit or 64-bit versions of MP, though. My best guess is there's just something off about the way OBS MP decodes the signal from the LGP. Anyway, I have a working solution now.

 

[DoAGoldeneye]

Once OBS MP supports hardware encoding things'll probably get better..