Okay. It’s seems to me that most do 720/60
I just don’t like the haziness of the 720 portion of the video. The 1080 part is much more crisp and I couldn’t really tell the difference in fps. Thanks for the comment though.
Higher framerate is better, but unfortunately the C922 has terrible quality when set to 60fps. As @owlnonymous mentioned above, you can try setting them to 40FPS to see if you can keep both the quality and some of the smoothness. You might also want to mess with the exposure settings for the camera source in OBS.
As far as resolution, you’re not going to notice much difference when capturing a vertically oriented playfield at 1080p vs 720p, because it’s going to get scaled down to fit your 1280x720 stream anyway.
I really hope the next gen of webcams can do 60fps with high quality! I personally upgraded to the Sony CX-405 that everyone recommends above. The difference is night and day – the downside being that you need a capture card to grab the video.
I’m using the Elgato HD60 Pro capture card. But I couldn’t get it working with Xsplit – it captured at 5fps. I jumped through a lot of hoops and got it working by downgrading the drivers, but Xsplit feels so bloated to me anyway so I decided to switch to OBS. The Elgato works perfectly in OBS, but in the future I’ll go with Avermedia as @kdeangelo suggests!
The one feature I miss from Xsplit is the Whiteboard source for drawing on the stream. I tried various ‘drawing on the screen’ apps, but OBS doesn’t like to capture transparent windows. The one I managed to get working was Smoothboard Air. You draw on your desktop, but OBS captures it with a white background, and you can apply a chroma key filter on it.
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I’ve been streaming a few of our meet-ups here in San Diego. I thought I’d share now that I’ve got a couple events under my belt:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/135031268?t=51m28s
Thanks to everyone who posted their setups and advice in this thread!
The main issue is how finicky the USB cameras are. It’s always a crapshoot whether I can get them all working with the amount of cameras, long USB cables, and hubs involved. I have to set the DMD cams at 640x360 to ensure that I have enough bandwidth to have both the playfield cam and the DMD cam active at the same time. Anyone have any advice on this?
Also, getting the settings right on each camera is a pain, and the settings reset anytime the cables get unplugged. I tried some of the shady looking programs that others have posted (CamControl.zip??), but it just crashed immediately when I tried to run it…
Here’s all my equipment, gathered from various recommendations above. You can definitely get most of these things cheaper if you shop around and are smarter than myself.
Camera setup:
- Lots of Logitech C922
- Playfield cam at 1280x720 @ 40FPS.
- Score cams at 640x360 @ 30FPS.
- In OBS properties, check “Deactivate when not showing”.
- Turn off auto-focus and low light mode in “Configure Video” settings.
- If you want to save some $, you can get the C920 instead. The quality isn’t that better on the C922. (as mentioned earlier, the 60FPS quality is a joke…)
-
Sony HDRCX-405
- Higher quality playfield capture for one game. 1280x720 @ 60FPS.
- Feed to HDMI capture card
- Chauvet CH06 Lighting Stand with T-Bar
- Fit between two games. Cheap, nice and sturdy.
- Chauvet CLP-10 Adjustable O-Clamp
- For clamping DMD cams onto lighting stand.
- Giottos Mini-Ball Head Camera Mount
- Mount DMD cams onto O-clamps.
- Grifiti Nootle Quick Release Pipe Clamp
- Mounts playfield cams on lighting stand T-bar
- I prefer these to screwing directly into the T-bar because you can adjust the horizontal position of the cameras easier.
- AmazonBasics 4 Port USB 3.0 Hub
- Tape one of these to the bottom of the lighting stand. Plug all cams into it. Feed to PC.
- Lots and lots of USB cables. Lots of HDMI cables.
- Seriously, you think you have enough? You probably need more… Longer is better.
- I’ve mostly been using the AmazonBasics USB 3.0 extensions cables with good-enough success, but you might want to get some longer, active USB extension cables if you need a lot of distance.
- Blue Yeti USB Microphone
PC Setup:
- ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 GAMING-ITX/AC LGA 1151 motherboard
- Intel Core i7 7700k
- This CPU is overkill and runs hot, so I’m worried about thermal issues with just fan cooling… If I were to build this again, I’d get a less beefy CPU.
- Scythe BIG Shuriken 2 cooler
- HyperX Fury 16GB DDR4 RAM
- For a small form factor like this, you might want to get low-profile RAM instead, but I didn’t have issues.
- Elgato HD60 Pro capture card
- I was having driver issues with the Elgato when I was trying Xsplit. It works fine in OBS, but I’ll go with Avermedia in the future.
- Intel 256GB M.2 SSD
- Use cheaper SATA drives for bulk storage if you want to save footage.
- SilverStone ML08B-H mini-ITX case
- GeChic 1303i 13" Touchscreen Monitor
Software:
- OBS Studio
- Each table is its own scene.
- One “base” scene contains all the common elements (title text, background, crowd camera). Add this as a Scene source to the specific table scenes.
- Look up Visual Pinball wheels for HyperSpin if you want some pre-made transparent PNGs of game logos.
- KapChat for including chat on stream. Just plug the URL into a browser source in OBS. Tweak the CSS to make it fit your stream.
- Smoothboard Air for drawing on the stream.
- Not as nice as Whiteboard source in Xsplit, but works…
- Add a Window Capture source to OBS and capture the Smoothboard Air window. It will capture with a white background.
- Scale the source to fill the entire stream.
- Right click the Smoothboard source in OBS -> Filter -> Add a chroma key filter to filter out the white.
- Right-click screen in OBS -> Fullscreen Projector. Now you should be able to draw on the stream with Smoothboard and have it show up nicely on stream.
- Scoreboard Assistant for putting names on stream.
- Makes it easy for anyone to change the name of the players on the stream.
- For simple usage, the app outputs a text file with the name of the player. You can point to this file in an OBS Text source.
- If you want to be fancier, the app outputs XML. You can create some HTML+JavaScript that reads this XML and creates a nice display using an OBS Browser source.
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I have 4 of these in the streaming rig.
http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/643
Camcontrol should work with 4 c920s. Make sure you delete the cfg file before running it. If not though, the only way I’ve found to get reliable c920 settings is a pain in the ass. I’m only able to do this because I can plug all 21 in at the same time. You might try this technique after settings yours to the lowest possible resolution they will display just to get them all plugged in and functioning at the same time.
Basically you plug them all in and figure out which one you can control through xsplit or obs. Label this one with a sticker or masking tape with the highest number. If you have 4 cameras this would be camera 4. Then unplug that camera and find the next camera you can control. Label that camera 3 and keep repeating this until you have camera 1. When you set up your cameras plug them in in order. You will have control over each one until you plug the next camera in. You cant make changes on the fly but it works. c920 is hell but, its the cheapest solution I could find 
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Oops this is assuming c922’s are hell. I imagine they are!
I’m piecing together a streaming setup using the HDR-CX405 for the playfield camera. I’m trying to power it over USB while streaming, through a 5V 2A AC adapter and amazon basics USB extension cable. Whenever I plug it in though, I get the message “only playback possible during USB power supply” so I can no longer get video over HDMI. Battery is in, USB power supply is set to ON in settings.
Is there something else I’m missing here, or is everyone using batteries? Is the Sony USB cable special in some way? The manual makes it sound like you can plug in to external power and record, but I’m just not getting it.
Try turning the “USB Power Supply” setting to “off”. I don’t have experience with this specific model, but an older camera I had would use that setting to limit power draw to 500ma, in case you were powering the camera off your laptop for playback, etc.
I get the same response whether I set it on or off, unfortunately.
Don’t you need a capture card for that camera? Just spitballing here.
You do, and I have one. HDMI out to the capture card, then to the pc, and the video looks great. This camera only uses USB for power.
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How long is the extension cable? Did you try other USB extenders? Other power sources, like a powered USB hub or something?
I’m using a CX-405 too and I draw power from a powered USB hub (2.1A). The USB extension cable I use is about 5ft. Works perfect for me.
Instead of extending the USB cable, terminate the USB with a power plug and then use a traditional power extension cord to the wall. I’ve had the same issues, if I read your issue correctly.
Cheers,
-joe
2 Likes
Started trying all of the USB things in the house. Interestingly a powered USB hub worked, but only when it wasn’t plugged into a computer. All of my 2.4A power adapters and batteries seemed to work though, so I guess 2A wasn’t enough. Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
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I use these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OT6YUIY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00
to power my Sony’s and Go Pros.
I’m glad to see my Sony pick ended up working out for so many people 
\m/
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I wouldn’t take credit for them Brian. lol
So the powered USB hub I plug all my travel cams into is
http://www.microcenter.com/product/431651/4-Port_USB_30__3-Port_Smart_Charging_Hub
Is can run my Sony handycam, 2 c920’s, and a blue snowball mic.
But…
My full recomendation is that you plug you Sony handycam into its capture device, and plug that directly into the computer if you can.
Also, if you’re using ANY c922’s, plug those into the computer directly also. They hate sharing bandwidth.
I’ve also used extensions on the USB hub. Works just fine!
Side note, I use the Elgato HD60 for my camcorder capture.
The HD 60S is newer and supposed to reduce capture lag, but I wasn’t able to make it work. The HD60 requires less bandwidth and makes it easier on the hub load.
Although I do have to delay all my cams by a few hundred milliseconds, it’s worth it for the portability.
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K
Would anyone be interested in trading a C922 for my razer stargazer? I don’t have windows 10 and didn’t realize this cam needed it. Or I would sell it outright for $100 plus shipping. Let me know…