Twitch/livestream setups.

For now I am just talking going straight to my TV.

My wall mount rotates so I think displaying 4k 65 inches full screen will be awesome.

Okay then the brio is an option.

I feel like the latest GoPro might be the cheapest way to get 4k 60fps PC free.

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PAPA is using 4k cameras, but we donā€™t stream at that resolution. Upcoming pre-filmed segments will most likely utilize 4k.

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Iā€™ve been working on WiFi webcams using a Raspberry Pi for a bit. Itā€™s been working pretty well lately and Iā€™m just about done with the software for managing them remotely, adjusting exposure, brightness, etc remotely. It creates an RTSP feed of the video and audio (one video, one audio) for each camera plugged into it. Iā€™ve mostly been testing with the C920 for budget setup and running off a battery charger for a full remote camera off a mic stand.

I need to work on my livestreaming setup but Itā€™s not bad I think for a cheap portable rig. I run some custom basic broadcasting software off a NUC for a fixed scene right now. Iā€™m trying to figure out how to get it to play nicely with OBS but havenā€™t had much success. I think XSplit might be better.

This was my latest test run with remote audio using a Snowball.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/293093843

If anyone has XSplit, Iā€™d love to see if they can get the RTSP streams to work, or anyone that knows how to use VLC sources in OBS.

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And shortly after I posted that I found a video on how to add RTSP sources to OBS. So Iā€™m going to play around with that tonight. If itā€™s as easy as it seemed, thatā€™d be awesome and hopefully help many folks with location streaming.

Three C920s and a Snowball running off a Raspberry Pi 3 over WiFi to an i7 NUC using OBS. The audio is out of sync but Iā€™m sure thatā€™s an adjustment somewhere in the settings.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/294062400?t=11m58s

Earlier in the stream I tweak some of the camera settings on the fly, which by the way can be done individually without any hassle of having multiples connected.

The only downside I see so far with this is that the cameras are active all of the time, even if their not being viewed as long as theyā€™re added as sources. So thatā€™ll chew through battery. Technically they turn off when nothing is consuming the stream. But hey, remote webcams.

Whatā€™s really neat about the RPi is that you can get 60fps (though at 720p) off a $20 IMX219 camera module. 720p90 with a few hacks, as I understand it. There are also plenty of camera modules to be found on on Aliexpress with adjustable lenses, etc.

We had to use lightning to get a decent image out of the v2 RPI camera module. Didnā€™t know there were other cameras available but, we couldnā€™t get acceptable results in low lighting with this one.

It looks like most of the options on Amazon right now are either fixed focus, fisheye, or lack an IR filter (ā€œnight visionā€), but the vast majority of IMX219 and OV5647 modules are set up in a manner that should ā€œJust Workā€ with an RPi. Availability is super hit or miss, with a ton of very short-lived products hitting the market, but there are occasionally some really interesting options available dirt cheap.

Aliexpress (or Alibaba proper if you feel like ordering in bulk) is full of finds like this guy:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Waveshare-Raspberry-Pi-Camera-B-Module-Adjustable-focus-5-megapixel-OV5647-Sensor-Camera-Module-Kit-For/32610379341.html
That should do 720p60, albeit with cropping.

edit: looks like the same module is on Amazon for $10 more: https://www.amazon.com/Waveshare-RPi-Camera-B-Adjustable-Focus/dp/B010GF9SF6/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1533661238&sr=1-3&keywords=waveshare+camera+b

60fps using a C922 and the Pi3 software encoder (its hardware encoder is limited to 30fps). No audio but I havenā€™t had much luck getting smooth 60fps yet. But it does support the C922 or other cameras as well, just probably not as many per Pi since itā€™s doing the encoding.

I originally played with the Pi Cameras with the intentions of using a Pi0W, the camera module and a C920 per machine but the Pi camera isnā€™t nearly as nice quality and the configuration options are much more limiting than the C920. It works, but just not as well as all C920s. And the Pi hardware encoder is limited at 30fps. I have a Le Potato I need to play with that is supposed to support 60fps but itā€™s not as easy to work with as the Pis yet.

I donā€™t think the C922 has full v4l support yet, so youā€™re going to end up with the Pi doing a lot of extra work until the driver supports the C922ā€™s h.264 stream. With the C920, youā€™re able to pull h.264 directly off the camera and avoid doing any encoding on the Pi. Of course the C920 still limits you to 30fps.

I wouldnā€™t set my expectations terribly high on the Le Potatoā€™s VPU. The upstream vendor (Amlogic) has a kernel stuck in the stone ages thatā€™s required if you want most of the SoCā€™s features (including video processing) to work correctly. It often involves downloading big ugly sdcard images off shady looking file share services. The BayLibre folks have done a lot of amazing work in porting support for the SoC over to a modern (and eventually mainline) kernel, but multimedia features tend to arrive dead last.

edit:
Looks like the c922 does already send over encoded h.264 at 1080p60, itā€™s just wrapped in an odd container: http://w2017.pl/logitech-vlc-ffmpeg-c922-streaming/

This might get you to a smooth c922 stream via the RPi.

So Iā€™m getting things setup to stream and got a couple of LED lights now but where should I position them? I also thought Iā€™ve read that wall/ceiling colors make a difference, so what are the incremental improvement steps?

From the side of the machine, pointed down st an angle onto the playfield. Shouldnā€™t see any glare.

I merged in my recent changes for C920s and C922s with support for 60ish FPS. I need to work on the live controls web page UX but it should be functional and ready to start playing with now. https://gitlab.com/singleballplay/picam

Submit issues or other things to the project or you can send them to my the gmail address of my username.

Very cool! Instead of going completely wireless, Iā€™m tempted to try using a Pi 3B+ with the PoE HAT. That way the rig will just need a single CatX cable to supply both power and stable network for the stream.

Although Iā€™m not using this setup, a cat 6 run only to each stream location is the goal for me too.

Another local streamer and I had talked about doing something like that early on. If thatā€™s an option, running them into a switch underneath and a single cable running to another switch by the ā€œboothā€ makes for much fewer cables and probably more reliable signal. Also, technically this isnā€™t limited to RPiā€™s and webcams, itā€™s generic Linux tooling so itā€™ll work with any Linux machine and device that is supported by Video4Linux. You could use something better than a Pi and run more inputs too. Iā€™m going to be playing with the Cam Link soon to integrate better quality options like camcorders but still have the benefit of network protocol vs HDMI. Part of my original intentions were to have a really cheap solution for location streaming though.

I was also inspired by the Pinburgh broadcast and thought they had a pan and tilt on the backglass. So I grabbed a few cheap 9g servos and since I have I/O on the Pi I think I can add a cheap option for that too.

You realize their pan and tilt on scores was being done by a human camera operator :slight_smile:

The ā€œskill shotā€ can, was remote controlled.

I did after I started watching the stream and saw the camera man. :slight_smile:
But that was well after I thought it would be a good addition for the non-DMD backglasses. Iā€™m not holding out much hope though since the cheap servos might be too jittery in practice. But theyā€™re cheap enough to play with.