Hi all, first time poster here.
With Covid preventing the norm, the music venue I work at has decided to start a live streaming endeavor without a live audience. I'm decent at tech stuff but am new to OBS and streaming in general so I've been learning as I go. Generally with no problems except for a sync issue. For reference my equipment consists of:
Mac Mini 2018 (3.6GHz quad‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i3, 16GB 2666MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630, 128GB SSD storage)
Focusrite 2i2
Allen & Heath QU-24 Mixer
El Gato HD60 S+, Magewell HDMI Capture, and ATEM Mini switcher
I'm located in NYC. We stream to Youtube, I always have a soundcheck stream I use to check everything which I start about 3 hours before the actual stream. I shut this off around 10 minutes until starting the real stream, then launch the stream at the time it's set to start.
We've done four concerts so far and here is a rundown of what happened:
1) (no log) First concert was 4 weeks ago. For this I routed the QU24's 9-10 stereo aux to the Focusrite inputs and used that as my interface (OBS wasn't reading anything past the first two channels of the QU when using as an interface), single camera stream with the El Gato. The audio was fine, I would have liked to use Logic to mix it and add some better effects but I didn't have time to set up Loopback for this one. In any case, it was fine. Video was a bit choppy but that was due to the internet not being good that day.
2) (07-09-20) This concert suffered from really bad sync issues, I'm talking like 2 seconds off. For this concert I set up the QU24 as the interface, then Loopback with logic as the input, and using the Magewell and El Gato for two different cameras. The soundcheck was totally fine, what bothers me is it literally went out of sync 5 minutes before I shut off the soundcheck, I reset everything, and it was fine, but as soon as I started the concert stream it went right back off sync. I then tried plugging in my Focusrite to use that as an input instead and I guess OBS picked it up as an input automatically or something because the audio immediately went off. I immediately disconnected the Focusrite, but audio stayed off for about 6 minutes. When it came back the sync issue was fixed and that lasted for about an hour and a half. 5 minutes until the concert finished, the sync went back off but I decided not to mess with it. I did realize that my Logic sample rate was not matching the OBS sample rate, so this may have been a problem. I spoke to a friend who is better at computers than I am, he suggested that overheating might cause compression issues, and Logic also seemed to be glitchy for him.
3) (07-16-20) I ran this stream the same as week one but with both capture cards and had the exact same result. Connection was a bit bad this week again, so had some choppy video but otherwise the experience was about the same.
4) (07-23-20) I had called Spectrum after the previous week, they came and checked the internet connection and it improved for this week, so when I arrived I was logging a much better upload and download speed. I tried running the same setup as week 2 but this time I used the ATEM Mini as my switcher. I made sure I matched the sample rates on Logic/Reaper and OBS. The soundcheck, just like week 1, ran fine, for about an hour and a half. After that, the audio started glitching out (it got grainy, and glitchy). I think this was a Logic issue, as per my friends suggestion above, I tried Reaper out which eliminated the audio issues. Everything remained in sync. I shut off the test stream as usual, then when the concert started, the sync started skating off. This one was strange as the audio kept skating off, I would adjust the sync offset in the advanced audio properties, and after a few minutes I'd have to push it a few milisecs again. I started at about 60ms, and ended the concert at about 300ms. Viewers also reported a strange fluttering glitchy sound which I think would happen every time I adjusted the offset. I spoke to my friend again and we deduced that it might be overheating since the sync issues always begin at the start of the concert which is also when we turn off most of our ACs.
So my question, does anyone know exactly what might be causing the problems? If so, would a laptop cooling mat help the heating issue? Is this something that having an external GPU would also help? If so, what would you recommend?
I'm going to attach log files for the streams so if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. The logs are dated and the above concerts should match the log dates.
With Covid preventing the norm, the music venue I work at has decided to start a live streaming endeavor without a live audience. I'm decent at tech stuff but am new to OBS and streaming in general so I've been learning as I go. Generally with no problems except for a sync issue. For reference my equipment consists of:
Mac Mini 2018 (3.6GHz quad‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i3, 16GB 2666MHz DDR4, Intel UHD Graphics 630, 128GB SSD storage)
Focusrite 2i2
Allen & Heath QU-24 Mixer
El Gato HD60 S+, Magewell HDMI Capture, and ATEM Mini switcher
I'm located in NYC. We stream to Youtube, I always have a soundcheck stream I use to check everything which I start about 3 hours before the actual stream. I shut this off around 10 minutes until starting the real stream, then launch the stream at the time it's set to start.
We've done four concerts so far and here is a rundown of what happened:
1) (no log) First concert was 4 weeks ago. For this I routed the QU24's 9-10 stereo aux to the Focusrite inputs and used that as my interface (OBS wasn't reading anything past the first two channels of the QU when using as an interface), single camera stream with the El Gato. The audio was fine, I would have liked to use Logic to mix it and add some better effects but I didn't have time to set up Loopback for this one. In any case, it was fine. Video was a bit choppy but that was due to the internet not being good that day.
2) (07-09-20) This concert suffered from really bad sync issues, I'm talking like 2 seconds off. For this concert I set up the QU24 as the interface, then Loopback with logic as the input, and using the Magewell and El Gato for two different cameras. The soundcheck was totally fine, what bothers me is it literally went out of sync 5 minutes before I shut off the soundcheck, I reset everything, and it was fine, but as soon as I started the concert stream it went right back off sync. I then tried plugging in my Focusrite to use that as an input instead and I guess OBS picked it up as an input automatically or something because the audio immediately went off. I immediately disconnected the Focusrite, but audio stayed off for about 6 minutes. When it came back the sync issue was fixed and that lasted for about an hour and a half. 5 minutes until the concert finished, the sync went back off but I decided not to mess with it. I did realize that my Logic sample rate was not matching the OBS sample rate, so this may have been a problem. I spoke to a friend who is better at computers than I am, he suggested that overheating might cause compression issues, and Logic also seemed to be glitchy for him.
3) (07-16-20) I ran this stream the same as week one but with both capture cards and had the exact same result. Connection was a bit bad this week again, so had some choppy video but otherwise the experience was about the same.
4) (07-23-20) I had called Spectrum after the previous week, they came and checked the internet connection and it improved for this week, so when I arrived I was logging a much better upload and download speed. I tried running the same setup as week 2 but this time I used the ATEM Mini as my switcher. I made sure I matched the sample rates on Logic/Reaper and OBS. The soundcheck, just like week 1, ran fine, for about an hour and a half. After that, the audio started glitching out (it got grainy, and glitchy). I think this was a Logic issue, as per my friends suggestion above, I tried Reaper out which eliminated the audio issues. Everything remained in sync. I shut off the test stream as usual, then when the concert started, the sync started skating off. This one was strange as the audio kept skating off, I would adjust the sync offset in the advanced audio properties, and after a few minutes I'd have to push it a few milisecs again. I started at about 60ms, and ended the concert at about 300ms. Viewers also reported a strange fluttering glitchy sound which I think would happen every time I adjusted the offset. I spoke to my friend again and we deduced that it might be overheating since the sync issues always begin at the start of the concert which is also when we turn off most of our ACs.
So my question, does anyone know exactly what might be causing the problems? If so, would a laptop cooling mat help the heating issue? Is this something that having an external GPU would also help? If so, what would you recommend?
I'm going to attach log files for the streams so if anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. The logs are dated and the above concerts should match the log dates.