Wireless hdmi transmitter from hollyland.
What is the benefit of the Hollyland transmitter over the accsoon?
I might be willing to pay up for it but just curious what the main differences are
I don’t think line of sight would be a big problem in most of the venues I would be streaming from as they are mostly single rooms. However, I we do often have 50+ people playing and I saw one post talking about the system not working well once a lot of people showed up. I’m assuming bc the constant flow of people were often blocking the signal. Also, one of the venues is an empty house with many small rooms/walls. I am the IFPA state tournament director for South Carolina and one of the main reasons I want to get this setup is so I know we have a quality stream for State every year. It has been difficult trying to cobble together a stream and the person who has helped the last couple of years had a major issue with the IFPA and no longer wants to help.
What would you recommend getting for when line of sight may be an issue? I would likely rather pay more for the convenience of not having to worry about line of sight.
Zero stuttering. Completely smooth, always smooth feed. We discussed it at length in this thread if you scroll back a bit or search keywords.
1 Like
No, the other thread.
Yes, Yolos, Magewell Director and the OBSbot Talent are able to connect USB cams. You then compose most of your program on the rig and use either a HDMI transmitter or BYO network with NDI/SRT/RTMP to get your stream off the rig to your laptop for more overlays and re-encoding for Twitch/YouTube etc. I’ve never used any of these myself but I can see why some folks would find them useful.
Then you can get an external Thunderbolt enclosure and do 4 x HDMI capture, which I strongly recommend if you go with 3 x HDMI transmitter + 1 commentator camera.
A very common problem with HDMI transmitters. Each transmitter introduces at two new WiFi networks, some of them are tri-band (3 networks per transmitter). I helped install a rig at a venue where the transmitters brought down the payment system for the arcade games and pinball machines. If you have an Android phone, you can use WiFiAnalyzer to find free bands (usually in the upper ranges).
I had to switch to a BYO network solution because one of my locations is like a maze of rooms and games everywhere and the place is packed during big tournaments. I use two Linksys MR7500 and get maybe one or two stutters during a 12 hour stream. I’ve also used various TP-link in the past but they somehow just give up after a while which is weird so I would avoid that brand altogether.
Buuuut, I’m the outlier and you’ll be in better company if you use the cookie cutter solution everyone else is using because it’s easy and convenient.
I don’t want to dog anyone’s stream etc but compare for yourself:
- Bond with Accsoon’s: https://youtu.be/EUVpXwg1FdM?t=591
- Bond without Accsoon’s (BYO network): https://youtu.be/-3P2v8KtolU?t=13
Follow the ball, watch people walk past behind players etc. The ball stutter and rubberbanding can be mitigated with the Hollyland Cosmos C1 as reported by many others.
I hate that stutter. I will definitely invest in the cosmos for playfield cam if it will reduce that significantly.
For your BYO network solution what ISP/mobile network are you using? What does that plan look like?
Also for the Magewell/Yolobox is the main draw back the fact that the stream is multiple cams on one feed? Therefore the resolution for each camera is compressed?
I use Internet provided by the venues. I have a 5G puck but I’ve never bothered using it as I can’t find a plan that fit my needs. If I need mobile I just tether with my phone which is on Google Fi.
In a way yes, none of these AIOs (All-In-One) boxes does more than 1080p60 (yes, some do 4K30, but we don’t do 30 fps) so whatever leaves the AIO is what you have to deal with in OBS on your laptop. I rather have 1080p60 from each camera that I can crop/rotate/scale in OBS as I please, which I get with a 4K60 canvas. I usually just have three cameras in a tournament setup.
The other drawback is my fear of how sustainable support is going to be for these AIOs and prefer to have the ability to have each function the AIO perform on a separate device which is a multiviewer, NDI encoder and networking. More gear to haul and connect but more peace of mind, granular flexibility and better overall quality IMHO.
If I had to choose, I would go with the Magewell Director One as every product I’ve used across their portfolio has performed flawlessly and the support has been great when I’ve had questions.
1 Like
What 4x capture would you get?
The feedback I received was that the cosmos C2 eliminates the stutter.
Magewell is the flagship card I recommend. Some folks use the Blackmagic but I have no experience with it. SonnetTech makes good external cases (I dropped mine from chest height with the Magewell in it onto a concrete floor, it kept trucking). StarTech is another reputable brand I’ve seen others use.
If the external case is a bit of a turn-off, Acasis makes a more slick solution but I can’t vouch for it. Windows only. They also make a cheap quad PCIe card, YMMV.
I had a black magic and it had issues immediately. Maybe I got unlucky. But have had Magewell for like 4-5 years and no issues. Make sure and get some small hdmi extenders to put at the card that are flexible so your hdmi cables that go to the cameras don’t stress the ports on the card.
Can you show me a pic of what you mean?
Again thank all of you for all of the insight and expertise. This is extremely helpful for me and anyone getting into the game now will benefit greatly from this discussion.
Still hoping to get some personal experiences from people who have tried the All-in-One solutions.
I am getting the message that this crowd just believes in separate transmitters and that likely will be the way I go but if possible I’d love to get the other perspective.
1 Like
This is good advice if you already have stiff HDMI cables. If you’re buying new cables, I can highly recommend. Monoprice Ultra Slim series.
Check this post (and video) in the other streaming thread. That’s the first-gen Magewell Director.
Edit: If @reclaimarcade is running the same setup, here’s a newer video of an actual tournament: https://youtu.be/hPAMFtyvBoM
1 Like
Yep, in fact we just did a full day tournament running it. We use SRT rather than NDI at the moment but we’re very happy with how it all comes together for a professional stream and it’s been super reliable. I’m using DJI Mic 3s for the game audio (transmitter in one of the cameras, receiver magnetically attached to the game speaker) and sending that over the SRT signal.
Can you explain your setup (cameras transmitters, capture cards, etc) and talk about your experience with it? Pros/cons?
Standard 8020 rig with a ZV1 mounted for playfield, a ZV1 mounted for scorecam, and a Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra webcam for player. These are all plugged into the Director Mini where I have a gameplay scene built out that just includes a layout of the three cameras with borders and a background. That all gets streamed wirelessly via SRT to our commentator booth where a PC running OBS brings that in and adds logos, text, commentators webcam and that’s where streaming to Twitch happens. No capture cards required and rig does not require any line of sight. One con used to be lack of inputs (2 HDMI, 2 USB) but new Director Plug being announced this month would resolve that easily.
Can you explain the SRT of the setup? I am not familiar with this
You could try NDI to start and see if that works for you, we just had better luck with SRT. This is a good starter guide SRT Protocol Streaming Guide | OBS Essentially with SRT you are setting up a “Caller” and “Listener” using IP addresses and port numbers. The caller is the Director Mini streaming out and the listener is the source in OBS receiving the signal. In our experience it’s great quality and fairly low latency. NDI is a bit nicer in that you can just give the stream a name and stream out via NDI and an NDI plugin in OBS will see any active NDI streams in your network. Either options can work and it’s worth experimenting.
A little update on my set up. I have 3 accsoons on the way + an additional ZV1 to go with the one I have. So I will have a ZV1 for the playfield and player cams, a Sony 440x for the score cam, and a yolo S3 for the commentators cam. I ordered the ACASIS 4x hdmi card/case and the small HDMI extensions mentioned to reduce strain on the card ports. As mentioned before I have the Rig already. The next thing I need reccs on are batteries, lights, and mics. I have clamp on usb lights right now but I don’t think they are the long term solution. I have Shure mic for home but I won’t be taking that with me. Again thanks in advance for all of your help!