Question / Help Streaming/Recording Questions regarding Hardware and File Compression

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Kyomaku

New Member
Hello OBS Community. I've read many tutorials on this site before and finally registered recently, when I encountered an issue that I couldn't really solve via google. I'm quite sure that someone else might have asked a similiar question, but I didn't find it "fast" enough to prevent myself from opening this thread. (I apologize if there is indeed one that answers my questions)

So, I have multiple issues and will describe them one by one.

1) I've been searching for a good video converter. I googled but most sites that were brought up looked very suspicious and some even caused my browser to warn me. (scam warning etc) Thus, I tried youtube, but its spammed all over with obvious advertisement tutorials, hence I don't trust it either. I'm very inexperienced in this area (and very careful as well) and sadly, didn't find anything that I would put my trust into. A friend recommended me mpeg4 (my video files created via OBS are in a mp4 format, normal I guess?).

Now the question is, which filetype should I go for? Which has the highest compression while maintaining a good quality? And which converter should I use? (please provide a link that I can trust)

2) First off, I use OBS recommended settings for local recordings. The quality is really nice and I experience 0 lag during gameplay, but when I want to watch the video that I created, it lags. The video itself! Going back in the timeline and rewatching the same scene plays it without lag, with a little luck, proving that the video itself is actually lag free. I assume my computer is too weak to watch it, but I'm not sure. Anyone knows the issue? (let me add that sometimes my computer even crashes - a similiar issue exists on youtube. On very very few videos, my comp bluescreens on 1080p, the same video in 720p doesn't however. It makes me think it has to do with a super high quality or size?)

Would be really curious if someone knows about that issue!

3) Probably funny in connection with the aforementioned issue, but I'm planning to upgrade. I'm aiming for a PC capable of HD streaming, recording and video converting and obviously gaming. My computer is quite strong for gaming, but when it comes to streaming/recording, my CPU seems to meet its limits. Anyone got a few advices? What is the most important / what do I need? Don't worry, I wont take your word as my only source when I make a decision, I always go for a variety of opinions, reviews, charts,etc, but I will consider your opinion and highly appreciate it.

If there are any questions, feel free to ask and I will try to elaborate further and provide necessary information.
 
A good and free Video converter is Handbrake for example. I think it supports flv, mkv and mp4 output. For the highest compression you should probably check google, but using x264/h264 should be a good choice at the moment.
MP4 is sometimes also refered to as mpeg4 format, maybe he meant this.

It could actually be the high quality of the recording which causes the lag. In this case, test convert a short part of your video for example using Handbrake to a lower bitrate and using some compression. The resulting video should playback fine. If it also lags, we would have to see a log file of your recording session, to see if it stressed your system too much for example.

Since I dont know anything about your current setup -> Go for Intel, Quadcore or Quadcore with Hyper-Threading (i5/i7).
 
I record to FLV in OBS, use avidemux to trim the recordings down to the sections I want, then use Handbrake to compress them to MP4. avidemux is nice because it means I don't have to throw an enormous file into Handbrake (less processing) but isn't required.
 
Jack0r said:
It could actually be the high quality of the recording which causes the lag.

Since I dont know anything about your current setup -> Go for Intel, Quadcore or Quadcore with Hyper-Threading (i5/i7).
Click to expand...

Yeah I guessed that it could be related to the high quality of the file, so my comp is probably just too weak.

@compression, I will try handbrake then, a + that its free. Mpeg4 being Mp4 is a little confusing, but makes sense why I couldnt find a Mp4 to Mpeg4 converter. I guess the filetype just stays the same after the compression. Ironically the reviews (youtube) of handbrake gave me the impression of very bad acting, hence I thought the software might be a scam and not worth my time.

@Computer setup, my current setup is basically not relevant, as I go for an entirely new computer. Is Intel as good as some say? I've seen a really "high" ranked I7 from Intel, but I don't know if I can trust that rating. (but if its relevant, I have an AMD Phenom II X4 850 3.30 GHz, 8GB RAM and an AMD Radeon HD 6700 atm - ask if I missed something important)

Thanks for the responses so far. :)

@Sapiens, why do you record to FLV? Are there advantages?
 
@Kyomaku FLV is much more resistant to corruption compared to MP4. If OBS crashes or the recording is otherwise terminated unexpectedly an MP4 file is usually rendered useless. Remuxing (changing the container format, in this case from FLV to MP4) is quick and doesn't require re-encoding so there's no quality loss.
 
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