Haven’t tried the Yi, but I have successfully used a Gitup Git2 Pro for wireless RTMP streaming. It supports connecting to wifi in client mode out of the box (i.e. it connects to a network, instead of hosting the network). You can add a VLC Video source in OBS and point it right at the camera’s IP.
It works, but the resolution isn’t great and the latency is quite bad. It was delayed by 3+ seconds (!!!) because the default network-caching setting in VLC is quite high.
The development version of OBS adds a Network Caching setting in the VLC source properties, just not in the released version yet. I built this from source and can toss the plugin file to anyone if they need it.
This lets me set the network caching down to ~500ms. Any lower and the stream will cut in and out. Not great, but acceptable enough for a DMD cam.
You could also futz around with delaying all your other video sources to sync up, but I don’t bother.
I use it for a wireless camera rig that’s easily movable when I don’t have enough setups for every game. I use a HDR-CX405 with a Monoprice wireless HDMI transmitter/receiver for playfield, and the Gitup camera for DMD, all connected to a USB battery pack.
I’d also be interested to hear people’s experiences with other action cams, too – Especially if it’s possible to RTMP stream with one of the super-cheapy ones over wifi in client mode (maybe with custom firmware?)
I was somewhat successful with it last night. One camera just would not behave and the adjustments in the app seem to cause different results than with the Logitech app. However it’s better than nothing and worth the $5. If nothing else, you can turn off auto-focus and that alone creates a better stream.
I had a dozen other issues last night, but that wasn’t one of them. Thanks for the tip!
Getting together a pretty sweet rig at home. Last step is to allow the cameras to be far away from the computer. What’s the longest USB extension I can use without worrying about the signal being dropped at any point?
Thanks. So if I go 15 feet to hub, 15 feet to hub, etc I’ll be okay? Interesting. I guess I’ll try that and see what happens. I’d rather be stuck with 6 15 foot cables than one 100 foot one. Haha. Yeah the computer in an ideal situation will be about 60-70 feet away from the cameras and mic.
Three. A C910 and 2 C922s. One snowball mic too. So four devices. I thought of having a hub right at the rig, then have a long cable running from the hub to my computer.
I’ve used a 50’ USB extension cable successfully, feeding an AmazonBasics 4-port hub with two to four C922 cameras attached. I only have two cameras active at a time. USB can be very touchy and YMMV. Usually it works fine, but some days I’ll have issues with cameras disconnecting.
Mainly, you might run into bandwidth issues trying to do 3 cameras + mic all active on a single hub, especially at distance. With two C922 active, I have to set one at 1280x720 and the other at 640x360.
Right, I think these longer cables are meant for more basic USB devices. If @chuckwurt is trying to push 720p@60fps through at that kind of distance, I think he will have problems. I’m pretty sure when I ran my c920 at 20 feet and a hub, I had res at 480.
Well I can tell you guys/gals this much. I will know for sure the limits of USB and using hubs, and also how that USB to Ethernet works with these webcams in the coming months. I’ll report back what I find out.
VLC Video Source properties now has a Network Caching setting, for anyone trying RTSP streaming with their cameras.
You can lock sources to prevent yourself from accidentally moving them.
Stinger video transitions are now built-in. You can also use a transition video w/ alpha and sound. Previously you had to use a 3rd-party plugin which was slow, buggy, and crashed a lot.
Ok, so I just purchased the basic configuration of this gaming laptop to use for our league stream:
I chose it because it has the Core i5-7300HQ processor. If you’re buying a streaming laptop, be sure to stay away from the U Series laptops. These stand for Ultra-Low Power and do NOT perform as well as the full version of the same chip. This rig also has a really nice Nvidia 1050 GPU, which will only help matters. I have 1 C922 for the playfield and one cheapo camera for the DMD. The player view will be either another cheap webcam or the built-in cam on the computer.
We’re starting small with one featured game each week. No WiFi at our location, so I’m going to record with OBS, edit, and upload after league, possibly with added commentary. I set up a Magic City Pinball League channel on YouTube to upload the videos. First league night is Sept. 12, so I’ll look to have something up shortly after that and we can use that as a benchmark in terms of quality and production.
I’d like to give a huge tip of the hat to Buffalo Pinball and all the people involved with PAPA TV. This weekend’s stream was top notch and very professionally done. I really liked the cutaway interviews with Jeff between rounds and game points for beginners.The replays of flipper skills were excellent and put in just the right place. You could watch the replay on the player cam but still keep up with the action on the playfield. Great commentary as always.
I feel as though we’re getting close to an ESPN-quality broadcast in a lot of ways.
I am constantly hearing about tourneys being live streamed too late. Or not knowing about them at all. I was wishing there was one site that would list all the upcoming live tourney streams. Then I realized the perfect place to do this would be on the IPFA site. Minimally you just need to add a field. Under website there could be a spot for Live Stream link. When the TD adds the tourney they could also insert the live stream link in there. I am aware they could put this info in the description field, but if it was a separate field you could do more cool stuff like search for tourneys with live streams.
And ideally there would be some system to alert me when a live stream is about to happen. Might be nice to have alerts when tourneys are added in a certain area(s) as well. I realize this is more complicated but would be a cool feature.
Revisiting this. I think this is going to be what I need after extensive research and using USB extension cables has gone horribly. Haha
Also, if down the road I decide to upgrade my PF cam to a HD cam like the Sony mentioned here a lot, can I convert the hdmi output to USB and use this device linked above still?
Also would it be beneficial to find one of these that is USB 3.0 instead of 2.0?
Not sure about HDMI to usb but I think there are similar HDMI over ethernet box. The cameras you are using are 2.0 so you won’t see advantage as far as I know.
If you decide to buy one of those, I would definitely make sure you are able to run your setup to your pc over one cable. It would suck to buy one of those for $120 and then find out you need two.
