Twitch/livestream setups.

Would love to hear about any pinball streaming setups. Advice? Type of equipment from cameras to computers. Also post your channel link if you have one.

Here are some of the ones I follow:

Dead_Flip
iepinball
NHpinballstreams
BuffaloPinball
GaPinball
beneficialmalfunction
FSPApinball
PAPAtvPinball
TableCam
pinballjoe

Here is my current setup:
27" 2013 iMac
3.4 Ghz i5
16GB Ram
500GB SSD
1TB HDD
2GB Nivida GPU

2xBlack Magic UltraStudio Mini recorder adapters
2xAtlona At-HD560 scaling device
2xApple Thunderbolt cables
1xJVC GZEX210BUS
1xPanasonic HDC-TM15
1xLogitech HD webcam
1xUSB 3.0 Plugable Triple Head Output (DVI, HDMI or VGA with gigabit Ethernet)

misc stands, hdmi cable,etc.

What software are people using to do the video mixing? That is the part that I was always most curious about.

I am looking to build a setup like this at some point as well and the software side has always been my biggest question.

I’m running XSplit Broadcaster using an Intel i7-4770 with 3 Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD HDMI capture cards.

Edit: I’ll add a more comprehensive list soon with costs involved. Putting together the INDISC broadcast was not cheap by any means.

What would the rough estimate be for somebody wanting to just do a stream like the Deadflip guys do? Or even not really streaming but recording the video for broadcast on youtube?

I use wirecast for broadcasting. I imagine you could record fairly cheap with just webcams. It’s when you start encoding on the fly is where you need horsepower. I use the Atlona scalers to bring everything in at 720p and my broadcast is 720p so I’m not encoding on the fly 1080 down to 720. Wirescast is very CPU sensitive. I wish Xsplit had a OSX version I would try it.

Karl is right it isn’t cheap. Your broadcast looked great Karl and congrats on the win

Heya Folks! Thought we’d chime in.

Here is our current setup:
2014 MacBook Pro
2.7 Ghz i7
16GB Ram
1TB SSD

3x Logitech c920 HD Pro Webcams.

• Top Down
• DMD
• Player

Powered USB Hub
Blue Snowball Mic

Software:
CamTwist - Capture and layout.
CocoaSplit - To stream out.
Audio Hijack - Volume adjust and delay to match picture.

Rough Costs:

Logitech c920 HD Pro Webcams - $99 each
Blue Snowball Mic - $50
Powered USB Hub - $50
CamTwist - Free
CocoaSplit - Free
Audio Hijack - $50

Not including computer or cables, about $450 for our setup.

apparently, CamTwist and XSplit are software vision mixers and there’s more:

That’s not bad at all and my iMac has similar specs to your Macbook. I watch your streams a lot and they look great!

Thanks, Gov.
Quality of webcams really depends on lighting.
We could use more light where we play, but don’t have it.
But all in all, those c920’s are perfect.

So is the CamTwist for the live broadcasting? Say for just making gameplay videos at home for the time being could i just get by with two C910 webcams and something like xSplit?

Gov - if you are going to use xsplit you may need to get two different camera models. If it sees two inputs with the same name, it will only access one of them. I asked a friend who is more experienced with xsplit and he said it is a known issue and he gets around it by using three different models of cameras.

Good to know. I think I will grab a c920 and a c910 for now to save a bit. The c910 should work fine for the DMD. I am never going to mess with streaming, probably just recording gameplay.

Finally all of my equipment showed up. Built my camera rig out of some 80/20 Aluminum I had from another project. Logitech 910, 920, laptop webcam and Blue Snowball mic.

Should be fun!

How well does the Snowball Mic work on it? i’ve been using the built in mic on my C920 and not liking the results.

I am happy with it. For best results it would probably work better closer to the speakers, but as it sits, the sound is very clear even though the mechanics of the machine are louder than the sound. I have been testing on ACDC. I might try just using the C920 mic and compare and let you know.

Ok, I just tested the difference between the C920 internal mic and the Blue Snowball mic, and the difference is astounding. The Snowball is the way to go if you had to choose between the two. I am sure there are other options out there but this one works great. Not a bad price either. I think I paid around $40 shipped for it off of ebay. The C920 mic is awful.

Here is what the rig looks like with a game under it.

Thanks for doing the comparison. I was getting frustrated with built in logitech mics. Good to know there’s a better solution.

Gov pointed me in the direction of this thread from Pinside.

@Ucheatdrjones - I have a streaming channel I started a little over a month ago. The link is: http://www.twitch.tv/akmpinball

For my hardware, I am on the lower end of things and just barely get by doing what I do, haha. Like many I use a c920 for the main playfield, then I was using a c615 for the DMD (switched over to a different cam last week but don’t remember the make/model, it was a donation). I use the built-in low-res webcam for the player view, but now that I’ve got a new cam for the DMD, I may try to mount the old c615 high up to do that. For audio for both the game and commentary, I use a cheap Logitech H390 headset (about $40). It’s not great but it gets the job done. My laptop itself is the weakest link, being a cheap HP rig I picked up from Wal-Mart recently for about $400. It has a modern Pentium CPU and came with 4GB RAM (I upgraded it to 8GB last weekend, which helped). The laptop is reliable and it gets the job done, but I am unable to max out the resolutions on either of the cams, unless I want to sacrifice the smooth framerate.

@DEADFLIP - You mention the lighting could be better in your room, but from watching your stream for the past few months, I think it looks pretty great. The game playfields are nice and clear, and the framerate is silky smooth. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.

Ya my biggest gripe with the webcam setup is the reduced framerate at lower light settings. What gives me the best look visually gives me the lowest frame rates.

FYI, it is possible to stream with only a 2mbs upload and over wifi

Have been streaming all week and have had good success. 1300kbps rate, which gives decent results.

Is there anything else you can use to mount the Logitech cams? I don’t have the time, patience, or materials to build a rig like that.

A lighting rig from a music store should work fine and what a lot of people use. I only used the materials I did because I had them on hand.

I’d like to essentially copy what was done for the IFPA National Championship with at least 4, but eventually 12 cameras. Can anyone provide the details for the cameras, stands, mics, software, etc that was used for that stream? This will be for the late April PAPA event in Oklahoma City.

Paging @kdeangelo, the man behind the curtain of IEPinball.

I’ll try to get my list up soon… It’s a ton of equipment

Due to “time is running out”, I’ve ordered a few Logitech C920 web cameras to get me started configuring. I need software that will combine video from two ore more cameras into one video feed (eg, playfield and DMD). Any recommendations? Also, how does one “send” the video to Twitch or YouTube live?

Sorry for the delay, so much to get done around here. Here’s the general setup for my camera rigs:

Monoprice Lighting Stand - The benefit to using these is they’re cheap and can hold two overhead cameras PLUS any number of side/player/dmd cameras with additional mounts

Chauvet Light Duty Adjustable O-Clamp CLP-10 - Clamps to mount onto the lighting stands.

Mini Ball Head Camera Mount - I’d been buying these when they were $8 each, now $17 each. Would probably look for a cheaper alternative but these have been great and hold nicely.

Aluminum Bar - Any home improvement store, cut to 3’ lengths. Drill one end to receive O-Clamp, the other end to receive the camera mount, then bend the O-Clamp end 90 degrees.

Panasonic HC-V250 Camcorder - Best/cheapest camcorder I’ve found that performs well in low-light situations. Can be found around $200 on sale. Might need to look for the successor V270 as this may be discontinued at this point.

GOBS OF HDMI CABLE - I like Twisted Veins cables for 50’ runs and Monoprice cables for anything under 15’. Also need Mini-HDMI->HDMI cables for each camcorder, or Micro-HDMI->HDMI for any GoPro cameras, and a HDMI coupler for each of those.

Monoprice HDMI Switchers - I’ve found this 8x1 HDMI switch to be the most reliable. Multiples are needed based on how complex your setup is.

Computer Stuff…

AverMedia Game Broadcaster HD - I have 3 of these in my computer used for streaming. The thought is one for playfield cameras, one for DMD/Score cameras, and one for player/side cameras.

Webcams - I’ve gotten away with using a Panasonic C270 for the commentator camera, would like something better though like the C920. Ideally if I get DMD cameras the commentator camera will be used much less.

Blue Yeti Microphone - Great mic that picks up EVERYTHING (may or may not be a good thing [i.e. Tim rants]). Simpler than setting up a full blown audio mixer by far.

Software - XSplit - I’ve found this to be the most flexible package for my needs. There is a subscription required for features needed in all but the simplest broadcasts.

Telestrator - This is nothing more than adding a Whiteboard source inside of XSplit and using a touchscreen monitor. You can do this with the mouse too but it’s sooooooo much nicer having a touchscreen for it.

The Computer - I’m running an Intel Core i7 4770k processor with 16gb ram, Windows 7 64-bit, 120gb SSD for the OS with a 1tb drive to store recordings on. With the built-in i7-4770k graphics, setting XSplit to 1080p with all three capture cards active and all accessories pegged the CPU at 75-80% usage which presented some choppiness in the video. I’ve since added a dedicated graphics card but haven’t had a chance to test 1080p broadcast/capture. All previous broadcasts have been recorded locally and broadcast at 720p without issue.

Network - Broadcasts have been run off of a Verizon LTE JetPack using a bitrate of 2100kbps for 720p. Bandwidth used for the Vegas broadcasts topped 50gb!

Edit: Added Telestrator info…

@kdeangelo - THANK YOU for posting - that list is a big help!

I really like Xsplit as well. Very easy to use and performs well if you have the horsepower. I tried streaming from my Mac using camtwist and all of that stuff that Dead Flip uses and while it appears to be a powerful program with lots of customizability, it is very cumbersome to get setup.

Hey all, just thought I’d share a link to our Twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/buffalopinball

We do a live stream on a different game each week on Thursday nights at 8 Eastern. The format is that we invite a guest to battle the Bro Crew, where the guest starts vs. the lowest IFPA ranked member and works their way up to the ladder, Mortal Kombat-style, to the highest. We interview the guest, do a tutorial on the game and then the battle commences!

Tonight we’re playing No Fear (play better!).

If you miss our broadcasts they’re archived on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIHXNgmql6U2CHahFwlArow

Awesome to see so much streaming going on! Keep it up everyone!

Thanks for this comprehensive list! Very helpful.

Are you able to rotate the video source (top down camera) in xpslit? Or are you doing that with some other software?

I’m having a similar computer setup, but I have 3x AverMedia LiveGamer HD.

For software I’m using vMix which is very good but a bit expensive.

What kind of touch screen are you using for the Telestrator feature?

Rotation is done within XSplit, and the touch screen is a Dell P2314T

Thanks guys for the posts. I got my setup up and running now.

http://twitch.tv/owlnonymous

And with the guidance of @kdeangelo, we too have 3 live streams running:
twitch.tv/cjarcade
twitch.tv/cjarcade2
twitch.tv/cjarcade3

Audio wasn’t workable with the built-in mics - way too much noise, so had to mute them.

Just saw that the HC-V250 Karl recommended above is on closeout for $169 shipped at BHphotovideo—in case anyone was looking for one.

the C920 webcams are on sale today only. http://amzn.com/B006JH8T3S

I went with Panasonic for my cam because everything I found while researching cams mentioned Panasonic having the best low light performance and quality in the I’m a cheap bastard price category. Another thing that tends to be true with most of the consumer grade cams is that they reuse the same lens and sensor and add features that you might not need or find important for shooting pinball videos. I guess the baby monitor feature could technically be used on a machine you consider to be your baby? I bought two HC-V110’s from ebay and didn’t pay more than 80 shipped for either. They look great for 80 bucks and can shoot 1080p etc. The only thing that sucks is the magnification starts at 30 something mm so its hard to get the camera far enough away from a SS game to see the PF and displays with my rig.

Does anyone have a real world estimate of how much upload bandwidth you need to stream at least 720p? I’ve always wanted to try streaming but, figure my 5Mb up isn’t going to cut it.

We stream at 720p with 5MB upload speed.

That is a great price!

I posted a few vids with the HC-V250. They look pretty good. I’m still getting a hang of the settings but the timelapse is wayfun.

We’re doing a special Saturday stream on America’s Most Haunted today at 3:30 p.m. Eastern. Charlie and Ben will be joining us in the chat and giving away some Spooky Pinball t-shirts. Join us! http://www.twitch.tv/buffalopinball

Thanks for this thread, and from personal help from Dead_Flip, I am up and streaming. I am putting together a mobile rig for Project Pinball, and needed to gather all of the links to the equipment I purchased, so I thought I might as well post it here as well, but I am restricted to only posting two links. Can I get that removed, so I can share my setup?

Done and done and done (I only did one thing but I needed 10 characters)

Here is my streaming setup:

Monoprice Lighting Stand

USB Extension Cables x 3

Logitech c920 Cameras x 3

Tri-pod for DMD Cam

USB Blue Snowball Room Mic

Powered USB hub x 1

OPTIONAL

Microphone stand

Laptop I use, but I would recommend something more powerful

C-clamp for removably hanging cams:

Adjustable ball mount with 3/8" bottom and 1/4" top x how ever many c-clamps you order

SOFTWARE

X-Split Broadcaster with license

OR OBS Multi-Platform

I have been watching your stream quite a bit and your laptop seems to work really good. When I stream from home I use my gaming PC which runs everything just fine, but we tried broadcasting our league night this week and my laptop proved to be a bit of an issue. It is my work laptop and I just need a bit more horsepower to run 3 cams and a screen capture for the chat.

I need to start using an IRC client for the chat anyways to cut down on memory as having Chrome open just for the chat is kind of a waste of resources. My rig worked really well for league night on location though. I added locking casters to my setup which kept the rig nice and stable on the concrete floor. It also allowed me to just wheel the rig back into the storage room at the store so it is ready to go next week. All we have to do is wheel it out and stick it between two games and we are ready to rock

I will try to get some updated pics of the setup this week when we stream.

Also the fact that our location kind of has crappy internet upload speeds doesn’t help. :-/

I do pinball broadcasts as well, but only digital versions. I use OBS to capture footage.

http://twitch.tv/pinballwiz45b

For those that don’t want to use their web browsers for the IRC chat, you can use a Java applet called “Chatty”. Or, at least, that’s what I use. Considerably less memory usage and it allows you to customize how the chat looks. It also gives you the tools to update your stream title and game right from the applet and is much more reliable than doing it from the Twitch website. I believe there are other similar tools you can use for chat, but that’s the one that’s been working well for me.

Awesome thanks! If all goes well we are planning to stream our league night again tonight. Hopefully using the IRC chat will help on resources. I have a new Macbook Pro coming on Friday, so hopefully that will solve my computer issue when streaming remotely.

First of all, I would like to thank all of the contributors to this thread for the helpful information. I found this thread (and the one on pinside) when I started playing around with filming my gameplay with my GoPro. I had a look at all the nice and professional setups listed in this thread and this got me motivated to try it out for myself.
I wanted to start as “cheap” as possible, using cams and parts I had laying around in my office - trying the setup first without a large investment. I quickly managed to record one machine with USB cams with good results but I wanted to be able to switch between two machines for the recording of the league nights.
Unfortunetaly because of the Windows drivers, two webcams of the same model have to be used in two different USB host controllers, so I had no luck at first. Also I was not able to use more than two cams (independent from the model) on the same USB host controller. To solve the problem, I extended the system with two PCIe USB 3.0 cards and managed to get the 6 USB webcams running altogether.
The next problem was the location of the PC: I wanted to place the PC in the
second room of our pinball league basement. I tried with active USB cables (30 feet), but it didn’t work (camera was not recognized). So I ended up storing the PC under one pin beside the camera rig and using a wireless keyboard to control XSplit (pausing, switching scenes, etc.) and a long HDMI cable - this works quite well.

Here is the complete list of the setup:

• 1 x old Dell PC (i5, 4GB RAM, Windows 7)
• Logitech C910 and C920 for playfields
• 2 x Logitech C525 for player
• 2 x webcams for dmd (C270 and noname)
• 2 x PCIe USB 3.0 cards
• 3 x USB Hubs
• 1 x noname external microphone
• 1 x Monoprice Lightning Stand
• 1 x Logitech bluetooth keyboard
• XSplit professional (we need the projector mode )

optional:
HDMI cable 45 feet for the display of the stream on a secondary monitor (40 inch Full HD TV)

Unfortunately we have no internet connection in our league location, also cell reception is not available. Due to this we can only record and publish to youtube at ths time. We will try to fix this problem and we will stream in the future from other locations in Germany as long there is an internet connection available.

Here is a link to the Youtube Channel:

If you want to see the final games of our yearly tournament, with Top 20 player
Robert Sutter (Switzerland) you can watch it here:

If you want to follow us on twitch:
http://www.twitch.tv/germanpinballstreams

The next step is to optimize the quality using more lights in our basement. The USB cams loose quality if it is too dark in the room. Maybe we will also upgrade from USB cams to camcorders and capture cards.
I hope we can support the competitive aspect of pinball by streaming / recording
our local tournaments and maybe motivate other pinball players in Germany, Europe or around the world to also stream their sessions. The more pinball videos the better

Seconded

Our kickstarter for The Sanctum is near our 1st stretch goal to setup some streaming rigs. Our idea is two have two rigs. One over each bank of 15-20 games. We are thinking of hanging them from a rail that runs the length of the back of games. Easy to move back and forth over any game on the fly.

Right now we have a HP Firebird Deaktop (blackbird is the real powerful one right?) I believe for our basic tournament software needs. Is this computer powerful enough or should I leave this for our tournament computer and find a laptop with enough power to run this dedicated for the best price I can? Any recommendations?

Also how would one setup two rigs and be able to switch between camera setups with a click or two?

Amazons deal of the day are Intel laptops. How does either of these look? If we should grab one I’d like to do it today…

Lenovo S41 14-Inch Laptop (80JU000VUS) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WR287L8/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5pX0vbBP1QAKB

This ones only and i5 but is a touchscreen. Useable as a telestrator as well?

ASUS Flip TP500LA-AS53T 2-in-1 Convertible 15.6" FHD Touchscreen Laptop, Core i5, 1 TB, 8 GB RAM (Free Windows 10 Upgrade) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TIJLLY8/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_xrX0vbQ374EEE

I’ve now invested in xsplit, and while testing I’ve found that when I rotate my source the image is rotated correctly but the white input rectangle still stays the same (horizontal) so I can’t position the camera to the far right like I want. Did you experience this as well? If so, how have you solved it?

Also, what settings are you using in camera / xsplit to get the smoothest pincam image without any lag? 1080i? Any other camera settins worth noting in regards to camera / xsplit?

Thanks!

i7, or bust. Seriously. If you plan on using this rig for a while, go all-out. Don’t cheap out.

As far as the tournament rig, you probably want to keep that separate. Streaming can be finicky, and Xsplit isn’t the most reliable piece of software out there. What if you need a reboot on the streaming rig when you are in the middle of a tournament (crashes do happen)? I’d stick with keeping your tourney software on a separate machine for that reason.

I think I know what you are implying, but not 100%…

Right click the source image you are speaking of, and in one of the tabs deselect the “keep aspect ratio” button. Then you can resize it to where you want without having issues pushing it all the way to the far edge of the screen, if that’s what you want to do. You will also want to turn snapping off. I don’t remember where the option is, but it’s probably in one of the main dropdowns at the top of the application.

For smoothest image, ideally you want to be able to do 1080p at 60 frames per second. The question is whether your computer has the capability of handling that (is it even possible to do 1080p60 over USB 2.0? I do not know).

You will need to do some test streams to see how smooth you can get the framerate and picture. I’d start highest if possible, then go down from there. My laptop is pretty terrible so I have to have the playfield cam somewhere around 800x600, and my overall stream picture at 540p, 30fps. Not ideal, but it works.

I went with the i7. First batch of cameras, cords and hubs showed up today. Started messing with it all briefly. Update laptop to windows 10 when I opened it today first.

Proof of concept works with x split. Next batch shows up tomorrow. Once that stuff arrives I’ll see what the limits of this laptop are…

Thanks! I’ll try that. I didn’t try unclicking keep aspect ratio, because I assumed I wanted to keep aspect.

I think I was chasing ghosts with frame lag, I tried switching cables, settings, cameras and what not, and in the end (should’ve tried this first) I plugged the camera straight to the screen at 1080p at 60fps and that was pretty much the same thing that I saw in xsplit. So I think I’m good. I don’t run over USB at all. I have 3x AverMedia Live Gamer HD so I should be able to capture at best possible quality.

Ah, ok. I think what you are experiencing is normal lag–like you flip in the game, then a second or two later it happens on screen. If so, that’s normal for capture card recording in general.

We put together a post that outlines the technical side of getting a stream up and running. Computer, cameras, other hardware, software, etc:

(Updated link as of 2/20/18)

I have a pet peeve when it comes to watching a live streaming tournament. For some reason I feel it’s just not necessary to show the people commentating. West coast channels tend to be the frequent offenders. NWPC was decent and I would rather watch something than nothing (thank you @KCB) but I wish that third camera could’ve been set up to show either scores, or a closeup of whomever was on the machine. Most of the time I was having difficulty keeping track of scores, and who’s who.

I show commentators because I don’t have enough cameras to use for score cameras and would have a giant gaping hole in my layout without a 3rd active camera. Heck, I sent 5 cameras up to the NWPC guys so they could cover all their games and have an additional side shot. These setups for covering multiple games get very complex very quickly. Not a simple or cheap task.

Want to sponsor IEPinball so I can buy more cameras?

Not a pet peeve for me, but I heard this mentioned on the recent NW Championships broadcast. One possible alternative to the commentators screenshot could be to show the current standings. Maybe simulcast the DTM screens that rotate among current standings/games/etc that’s always used at tournaments?

Of course, I offer this comment with no experience of live streaming, so take that for what it’s worth. I’m from the software world and I have a feeling this comment may be similar to “can’t you just add a button to make it do that?”

But a huge thanks to all of the broadcasters who go through the time and trouble to do what they do. Always appreciated.

The answer is basically “yes you can”. Karl did it for CAX this year, and we definitely could if we had been better prepared and not panicking about our first time running NWPC.

One tip I’d like to pass along is that if you’re streaming in 60fps (and probably really in general), you might not want to bother with 1080p. Unless you’re a Twitch partner like me who gets their videos re-encoded at multiple quality options, the bitrate you’re going to need to stream at for 1080p will be prohibitive to people who watch on their phones / from places with not as great connections. I would stick to 720p.

If you had a kickstarter that included any work you do for your software or twitch, myself and i’m sure many others would support it. I’m just suggesting take the camera pointed at the announcers and turn it towards whoever is currently playing or the scores of a game.

Actually doing this with any quality is vastly more complicated than it might seem. Thanks Karl and Kevin and all the others who work on these streams.

For me it’s all or nothing with showing the DMDs/Scores. I’ll see what I can do come INDISC in January (PLUG: 15th-17th @ Arcade Expo) as I’m experimenting with another option for displaying DMDs in the broadcast. If only there was a good wireless camera that could be used.

first off I want to thank Karl for helping us out at NW champs. saved us with the software update in the middle of classics. I was the one in the Booth last night with Kevin for the final two games.
besides the issue of internet data…we tried out best. as for the camera on the announcers:
first off it is a money and resources issue. as was mentioned before in this thread.
another thing is most streamers on twitch have a camera on themselves and viewers like this kind of interaction. maybe some segway info,stats and standings…upcoming tourneys like PAPATV does… could add to the feed but I like have a cam on the announcers.

besides that what did you all think of the last two games of the stream? were we clear? did you enjoy our play by play? you know…I have four words on my mind right now…

Broadcasting yourself or a small group of friends playing a single game is one thing, but getting a flexible enough setup to do everything people want in a tournament setting is both complex and expensive.

Noticed the higher framerate/resolution/etc on the broadcast. VERY NICE!

I have to say, I’m super excited to see new names in this thread every time I hop in it.
Keep it up!!!

First, thank you to all who stream pinball! Woot! I do not stream and have not streamed, and got a mere taste for how complex it is from talking with Karl on the flight back from ReplayFX.

Second, I agree that if it’s easier or of equal difficulty/complexity/cost, I would prefer that a scoreboard be shown instead of camera shot of the commentators. The scoreboard that Karl has pulled off in a section of the screen for the Vegas tourneys and other Cali events was fantastic.

Something a little bit different, but might be interesting -

Eden Stamm took a run at the guinness world record for pinball marathon recently . I did the camera setup to provide the video proof to guinness.
Slightly different requirements to a livestreaming setup, as priority one was all cameras recording the entire time, recording for 40+ continuous hours.

Here’s the gear:

IMG_20150910_124750.jpg2428×1802 592 KB

The four cameras at the front right are HD IP security cameras - they get power and data off a single ethernet cable, which made wiring simple. The larger camera in the second row has a higher resolution and a fisheye lens - it was used to capture the playing area, the DMD, and the timer running on a TV to show that everything happened at once. Unlike using a normal handicam style device for streaming, each camera is doing it’s own encoding, so minimal load on the computer.

A number of different clamps and mounts were used to attach cameras to railings and stands.

The box under the keyboard is a combination ethernet switch (POE to power the cameras) and computer, with a couple TB of storage that the cameras where recorded to.

Here’s some setup shots:

IMG_20150908_205346.jpg2428×1802 508 KB

IMG_20150908_205354.jpg2428×1802 576 KB

Anyone have any luck running several webcams on a single powered USB hub? Having no luck here. Tried two different powered hubs and both act the same. Plug two in only one powers up. Unplug the powered up one and the other one kicks on. Powered USB 3.0 hub should work. Running a nice 4 port sabrent one currently.

I am running two mostly fine through a single powered HUB. I can’t control the settings of one of the cams when I do it this way, but they both come up separately in the software. I haven’t tried a third cam on it though. I am going through USB 2.0, so I can’t vouch for a 3.0 hub.

Ran three via a single 3.0 hub just the other night. 2 920s and one other cheapo Logitech. Now, it wouldn’t work via my Surface Pro 3 but it worked fine via my desktop.

Stupid Surface. I blame @hisokajp

whaaaa, you tried 4 with SP3, what about only 3 external ones? Maybe the mix that screw stuff up… Could also be 3 external cameras on the same USB4 bus that choke the machine… Obviously not as good as your beast of a desktop lol

I will try that one Karl. This is the last one I was trying
Sabrent 4-Port USB 3.0 Hub with Individual Power Switches and LEDs included 5V/2.5A power adapter (HB-UMP3) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TPMEOYM/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_OJa-vbAY1X4WF

Does anyone know what playfield camera was used on the recent limiFlip on CftbL stream? It was clearly 60fps to me. Something I can’t achieve with my C920s here (yet?)…

Any help or hint in the right direction is appreciated! I always prefer fps over perfect lighting conditions for the players

Btw, thank you for this thread, it was a great help to me to set up a rig and a complete plug and play system for our streams here… It helped vastly streaming the Austrian pinball open ( http://pinballvideos.com/?e=Austrian%20Pinball%20Open ) - it was a pita as the upload bandwidth there was 384kbs(!) only. But my codec knowledge I gathered in my job helped to get at least a smooth stream out, even at low res.

We broadcast every Friday from around 7pm CET - just casual playing, mostly on BoP2.0. On the weekend of 24th October I’ll stream my tournament, and Sunday 25th we will stream a 12 hour just for fun marathon play on various machines. (Oh link: www.twitch.tv/flippart)

Thanks,
Mario.

Go look for posts from @kdeangelo on his gear. It was his gear and setup at the Lake Alice LimiFLIP this past weekend.

The 60fps cameras were Panasonic v250s setup for 480p via HDMI into an Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD. Was easy to tell it was 60fps with the fan spinning around the flippers the entire time

Lighting was so poor at Lake Alice that I feel I need to look into adding light rigs into the equation. Anyone have recommendations in that area? @DEADFLIP What have you been using?

A single LED panel of decent quality should do the trick but you might want something that can adjust the color temp to match ambient lighting since just about anything you buy (that isn’t enormous) won’t to be able to overpower the lights in the room. A sheet of glare free glass is probably a good idea as well.

Something like this 12x12 seems to be decent value…
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/996877-REG/genaray_sp_e_360b_spectroled_essential_360_bi_color.html

The equivalent 12x6…
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/996876-REG/genaray_sp_e_240b_spectroled_essential_240_bi_color.html

These things don’t really get all that bright (at least not compared to real hot lights) so bigger might be better. If you want to experiment a little first, I can probably borrow one of our nice Dracast 12x12s from the office and bring it over on a weekend sometime.

Sure, that’d be great! No rush of course. I have zero lighting experience…

If all you want to do is brighten the playfield for streaming, these can do that easily at a very low cost.

http://www.amazon.com/NEEWER®-Dimmable-Digital-Camcorder-Panasonic/dp/B004TJ6JH6/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1444792716&sr=8-10&keywords=led+light

How does the Logitech c920 cam connect to the adjustable ball mount?

Cheers Dave

It screws on to the top of the ball mount. There is a hole on the back of the c920 for this purpose.

Ahh thanks yes. The old c920 I have one of the first types didn’t have that thred on it:)

So why not use the sound off one of the 3 webcams rather than buy a dedicated mike?

Regards David

Great reviews and cheap but they appear to be battery only which might not be a good solution for streaming all day. How long are they staying lit for you under continuous use?

The built-in webcam mic is pretty awful sounding compared to a dedicated mic. Very hollow sounding for the most part. That’s why streamers usually go the extra step and get a decent separate mic.

I’ve run them for several hours at a time. All-day? Probably not. The lights I have run off of double-a, so it probably wouldn’t be difficult to stack batteries with a custom battery holder and run them longer.

I’m giving this a shot since it’s so cheap, thanks. Figure I could modify the battery compartment into using an AC adapter should I need to.

Which mic do you recommend? Also which usb hub is up for the job or anyone?

Cheers Dave

The common mic a lot of us use is the Blue Snowball mic. It usually runs about $80 or $90, but if you are patient you can get them on sale cheaper (I think I’ve heard some getting them as low as $50). They pick up voice as well as the game audio pretty well.

For USB hubs, any powered USB hub will do. I picked up an Amazon four-port. I plug a few things into it, then I plug the mic directly into my laptop (it’s USB).

These are the lights I use. Love them.

Has anyone had any issues getting multiple webcams to show up (three or more)? I have a Logitech c920, a Logitech c920-C, and a Cisco IP cam. In OBS, I can’t seem to get the IP cam to display a picture. It shows up as an active device though. Likewise, if I try a Logitech c615 camera in the place of the Cisco cam, the same thing happens–software detects it, but no picture comes up.

Are the webcams distributed across multiple USB buses or all piled on a single one? There’s a limited supply of throughput there, and I’ve run into problems myself with more than 2 cameras on a single bus.

Just a thought.

Yeah, that definitely sounds like a possibility. I also wonder if any of the ports are tied to the same bus–it is a cheap laptop after all. I am going to have to dig into the manual and see.

I thought about trying three cams each in their own USB port anyway, but then I don’t have a slot open for a mic after that (it has reliability issues if I plug it into the powered HUB, so it needs to go into the computer). I should try it regardless just to see if the third will come up at that point.

I have managed to run 8 USB webcams simultaneously (see my post from July in this thread), but only by adding two USB 3.0 PCI cards to the computer (DELL desktop PC with Windows 7). Basically, I have 4 USB host controllers now and every controller can handle 2 webcams.

I have set up individual scenes in XSplit for each of the two pins with cams for playfield, dmd, player and tilt bob - 4 cams per scene, 8 cams in total.

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anybody other than Dead Flip also running a Mac setup? I am really struggling getting camtwist to work the way I want it to. It is so much more complicated than just firing up Xsplit and hitting the broadcast button I have tried using bootcamp to run windows 8 and xsplit, but I can’t seem to get it to run 3 cams without crashing.

Here’s my setup for when Timeshock! The ULTRA Edition releases:

Timeshock Setup.png1537×862 1.61 MB

Ok, doing some more testing now on my main streaming rig which I have used all along and now xSplit freezes when trying to add a 3rd logitech webcam. They are a 920, 910 and a 615 respectively. The first two (any order they are plugged in) work fine in xSplit. As soon as you add the 3rd webcam in xSplit, it freezes until you unplug one of them and it goes back to normal.

I am running Windows 10 now, I was running 7 back in the summer the last time I streamed. Is this a known issue?

Could be an issue with windows 10. When you open the Logitech control center from your tray, do all webcams show up and are selectable from the dropdown menu? If not, I think it is a driver / USB host problem. If all three cams are shown correctly and are selectable, they should also work in xSplit - if xSplit still freezes, it may be a problem with xSplit (bug, version, incompatibility, etc.).

I use 6 Logitech webcams (910,920, 2 x 525, 2 x 270) plus 2 noname cams all simulteanously in xSplit. It crashes sometimes, but most of the time works perfect. When I transport the equipment to different locations, sometimes the cams are not recognized in xSplit any more. Normally I can solve this by using different USB ports.

My initial thought was USB bandwidth, but it worked fine in the same configuration on 7, so it is a software thing somewhere. I will try to dig into it tonight. Looks like I have the same issue in windows 8 as well as 10.

I’m running Xsplit under windows 10 now with 3 Logitech cams and one snowball mic without issue. Like teedee if I disconnect and it doesn’t recognize the cameras on reconnect I just shuffle USB ports and it’s fine.

Close to finishing up our rig at the new Sanctum. 2 guide wires running 45’ stretching over 16 games.

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This is mounted on it with rods the fit the camera mounting points

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320’ of USB cable runs back to our laptop to broadcast from

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The rig glides nice and smoothly along the wires. Last thing we need to do is one more guide wire at the back wall with a pulley behind the heads up higher to keep the cables moving in a clear area and not get hung up.

dude this is awesome looking!

Very nice setup.

How have you been able to get around USB extention limitations. My understanding is that USB 2.0 can only go 5meters (16ft) before it needs to be repeated, and even then there is limitations on how many times it can be repeated.

I have just done a recording on the Australian championship series and was able to get 15 meters working okay but struggled with anything beyond that. Very interested to know

These active USB cables work great.

AGPtek 50ft USB2.0 Male to Female Active Extension Extender Repeater Cable Cord https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QQ5LSZE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_RRRBwbFRBVQ83

I have a 50’ and 30’ cable hooked together on each camera. No slowdown or lag that I’ve seen yet.

Oh thats good to know! I was unsure about those extender cables because in looking at their prices there was such a disparity of cost. Some 50ft cables are $100 and some are $25. It made me suspicious about their efficacy.

The setup I had on the weekend involved using hubs to repeat the signal with a 5meter extention between. I was having some frame dropping issues but overall It seems to work well. But now after doing a bit of learning and seeing what you have done I’m thinking that all my frame dropping issues are due to limitations of my usb bus and issues with ambient light.

Here is a link to the playlist of the event if anyone is interested in watching some Aussies play.

I should add, I know there are a lot of areas to be improved with the recording. Like, bad resolution on the score screen. I learnt after that I could have shapened the image which I think would have helped alot on the playfield camera. There was also no mic for game sounds. Next time it should be better.

What’s the best (economical too) camera to hook directly to a tv. No streaming. Just a playfiekd camera directly to a tv on the wall next to it. USB cameras won’t work.

I would look into using a GoPro or Chinese knock off equivalent - such as the SJCAM SJ5000. Basically you want a camera with HDMI output.

Like this?

http://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/161822480731

Says hdmi out but no tv support. Would it show on a tv via hdmi cable what’s actively on the screen. Don’t need any of it recorded.

Only problem with the GoPros/knockoffs is the wide angle. If you don’t mind that, I’ve found the Xiaomi Yi to be a great little camera. Used it for the flipper view in my WOZ video. Shop around and you should be able to find one for $60-70. Clean HDMI output, no overlays.

I bought a few more for INDISC when they were at $50 over black friday

yiArray.jpg4128×2322 1.82 MB

Wide Angie meaning fish eye lens correct?

I’ll look for one of those. Thanks Karl

Correct. There’s a setting in the latest firmware version on the Yi to reduce the fisheye, works good enough that I’m planning on using these for DMD cameras.

How bad would it be distorted for an overhead playfield cam do you think?

I have been successfully streaming for some time, but I have a side question that someone may be able to answer. I’m building out multiple USB streaming rigs for a project at work, and I would like to pick up some el-cheapo laptops to run each 3 cam cluster. Who here has a cheap laptop powering their setup, and what are you using? I use a beefy alienware laptop for my streams, but that doesn’t apply here. Hoping to find a laptop that can do the job for $300 - $500. Any thoughts?

Give me a day or two and I’ll take a few shots with one to show you.

Thanks.

Extra nonsense to reach minimum characters:)

This ran me 600$ on special from Amazon and seems like it’s been powerful enough for us so far.

ASUS F554LA 15.6 Inch Laptop (Intel Core i7, 8 GB, 1TB HDD, Black) - Free Upgrade to Windows 10 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YR6BN7W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_JDgCwbY8DAQ5Y

A few weeks back I bought a Sony Handycam CX-405. It has HDMI-out and allows for USB charging at the same time. 1080p at 60fps–doesn’t need to be recording to output to your monitor. Looks nice for the price, about $120.

*Edit:

Here’s an example video I recorded last week. It went through my capture card, that was converted to MP4, then I exported it out as a different format in my video editing software. Point is, the picture fed out to your monitor straight from the cam will look better. Low light compensation is good with this cam as well.

Video of how the setup works easily to switch from game to game. Guide wire added to the back with a pulley to keep cables behind the games for easy sliding.

I’ve been told that the problem with Gopros is that their live feed is not in HD. They record in HD but the signal they send out live is not HD. So if you are then going into a software video mixer you are only working with SD feeds.

I haven’t looked at it myself though so its hearsay at the moment.

I’m not sure about that. Can’t imagine they would output at a different resolution to what they capture, as it would seem extra processing grind to do that. The GoPro site explains it like this: https://gopro.com/support/articles/hero4-hdmi-output-information

The GoPro has three settings to adjust between very wide angle, through to a more normal capture angle. (Not sure about the Chinese cams). The only thing I should mention as a downside is that the GoPro 3+ I bought as a test has fairly poor low light output - quite grainy.

Logitech C615’s on sale for 33$ today at Amazon

Logitech HD Webcam C615 with Fold-and-Go Design and 360-Degree Swivel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YW7WCY/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_7KRCwbX12DQR6

Not sure we have enough screens yet

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Desktop running small monitor of general surfing and score keeping. Laptop running X split dedicated for broadcasting. Tv above computers extended monitor for desktop which is also mirrored around corner to projector to show livestream or tournament standings.

What is everyone’s thoughts on DMD sizes? I notice some have it large, some have it small. Some (like the example in the snapshot above) don’t crop it at all and leave it tiny.

I ran a stream test last night with some new hardware (new laptop, primarily) and I currently have the DMD cropped and large. I’m not satisfied with the look though–it’s muddy looking because the cropped image is blown up. The end result is something that feels cheap. I don’t want to make it small though because then I figure it will be hard to make out on mobile devices. I’m curious to know what other opinions are.

On a side note, my DMD is at 720p, then cropped, then blown up. I tried doing 1080p (Logitech C920, which I know is capable of it), but the picture came up black–it would only show up at 720p or lower, and 30fps. I’m guessing it wouldn’t look as bad if I could do 1080p, then crop the DMD from that higher quality picture.

That shot of ours is small like that because the same camera on the rig is also used for classic ballys and the like and the whole backglass needs to be displayd.

Ah, that makes sense.

I am not sure where the balance is on the DMD. I think having it on the smaller side is probably better for the reasons you stated. I tend to have mine on the larger side as well and the player cam on the smaller side. My reasoning being that people would probably rather see the DMD info larger on the screen than my fat ass Now if you are a rather dapper looking gentleman like Jack, then of course you need the player cam to be bigger

On the bandwidth note, I have a feeling that my USB hub is the source of my bandwidth issues. I can get all three cams to work but only if I have 2 cams plugged into the hub and one plugged directly into the computer on a different port. Kind of annoying as it seemed to work fine before my switch to Windows 10, so I wonder if it is some sort of driver issue with the hub.

Also, I really wish there were a MacOS version of Xsplit…

Had one of my Xmas presents show up today Nice little LED light for the playfield. I get much better framerates with the c920 in good light and this thing works great. The diffuser really softens the light as well and gives it a good color temp. Runs on 6 AA batteries but will also accept a 12v power adapter.

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So got my cameras tonight, and tried to have a bit of a makeshift setup to get some streaming in on twitch, even had a few viewers who were nice enough to help me out a bit. I was running OBS through a 2015 macbook pro, they said picture was great but that I had some audio delay…

any tips or advice? Thank you.

-Tommy Skinner

What kind of audio delay? Perhaps the sound from the machine isn’t matching up with what is happening?

Chances are you need to hit the sound settings icon in OBS and set a sound delay for your main microphone. I have to do that on my setup. Start with 1000 milliseconds and work your way down. Actually, 500ms might be a good starting point.

Are you using a USB mic?

@akm yes I’m using usb. Snowball. After watching it a bit today it’s the video lagging behind audio so I see now that the delay should match. Thanks for tip.

I streamed yesterday for the first time and had horrible buffering, tried today and it was worthless. What do I need bit wise to create a steady stream? I ran a test and I had … 54 Mbit/s

54 upload? If so then you should be fine no matter what. For 720p I usually stream at 3000kbps but then I’m a Twitch partner so I don’t have to worry about what viewers’ internet can handle as my videos get reencoded to 3 different quality options. I guess I would probably recommend 2000kbps for something where most of the screen is fairly static, like a pinball stream.

Hello again. Glad to see a lot of new setups going on. That Sanctum setup with the zip cords is amazing. I’ll have to check out those active usb extension cords.

As for settings, and bus management I have a few words of advice. If you are buying a laptop, the most important thing is whether or not it has integrated graphics or a dedicated graphics card. Even though the mobile graphics cards are crippled compared to their bigger brother, unloading encoding/cams/h264 to the gpu relieves a lot of CPU for the rest of the stream.

Per Dead_Flip’s advice, I recommend using a powered USB hub and have seen USB bus bandwidth improve. Something that will relieve CPU as well is having the less important cams at a lower resolutions. I have the playfield cam at 720p, and the rest are at 488p or lower.

As for bandwidth out, you can go down to as little as 1800kpbs, but optimal for the steam and your mobile viewers is around 2200kbps. If you want it crystal clear, push out 720p at 2800kbps. Anything above 720p 30fps if overkill.

Ok give me some tips on setup/hardware for commentating. Have some people lined up to commentate our state championship Saturday. We have a spare snowball mic. Headphones? How can we import the challonge.com live bracket into the stream?

The Challonge bracket can be implemented by simply having it up in a web browser and doing a window capture of that browser window.

For commentating, that’s a sticky situation… It depends. How close is the commentating setup going to be to the machines? If you are using Snowballs for both the machine and commentating, you might have overlap/echo issues.

USB mic headphone sets work well in X split? Better solution for commentators?

If you’re using multiple mics there’s no good solution apart from using a mixer, or at least none I’ve found. The problem with USB anything for audio is there will always be a delay, and multiple usb mics will never sync up properly. Best to stick to a single USB mic. The Yeti (Snowball’s bigger cousin) has worked fine for me for commentary with 2-3 people and no headphones, snowball should be fine.

I think there has been some reverb sort of sound coming from our streams when it’s loud. Not sure what it is. Will non USB mic’s/headsets work fine too? 1/8" phono Jack?

Listen to this video

Hmm. It’s cutting out the link… (http://youtu.be/POZkgq9-wUM)

At the next VRPA tournament we are hosting I would like to set up a video broadcast. Plans are to hook up three USB webcams per game. Total of 7 pins will initially be set up. The 3 USB feeds per game will go into a 3-1 powered USB hub. The 7 powered USB hubs will then go into a 8-1 USB port switcher. Software will be X-Split. All cameras will be the same Logitech model.

Does anyone see any technical issues with this setup?

I could see xsplit having an issue with 21 identical cameras running through 8 hubs into a single USB port. Won’t know what’s what.

I’m trying to get a stream put together with a friend. We have some gear but, after doing some research I’m not exactly sure what route is the best for our needs. Sorry ahead of time for noob questions. We know nothing about twitch except what I’ve learned(maybe) in the last few days.

We have:
A nice AKG condenser with omni and bidirectional patterns etc.
Mic stands
1 ball mount to adapt the mic clip thread to 1/4"
Decent laptop 8g 2.5ghz AMD quadcore USB 3.0 etc
Panasonic HC-V110 1080p (Might be the same guts as HC-V250)
I believe a max of 10Mb up from our regular location(6Mb confirmed over wi-fi)
I’ve never used OBS or Xsplit but, was thinking we would use OBS since its free.

I guess it comes down to we need more cameras and whether or not it will be worth it in the end to buy an external capture device in order to use the HC-V110 or buy C920’s. From what I understand, unless you’re a twitch partner you need to throttle your upload bw because users aren’t able to change the stream quality to accommodate a lower bw connection and wouldn’t be able to watch the stream without buffering issues. I don’t imagine this would be an problem unless a user was watching over mobile data maybe? I was thinking if we have to stream at lower resolutions due to this, plus the added complexity and additional hw needed for the HC-V110, it might not be worth it.

The other question I had was regarding the C920 vs other lesser webcams for the purposes of non-PF cams. Seems like quite a few people mentioned using three C920 in the thread above and I was wondering why. Is there a cheaper cam you would suggest using in situations where highest quality isn’t necessary? Is the C920 the go to because other cams lack disabling of auto-focus, 1/4" tripod mount, maybe something else I’m missing?

We’re looking forward to getting started. We’ve got a good mix of EM,SS and DMD at our main location, access to other collectors games and possibly on location streaming at Pinballz arcade and other locations in town.

I’m an absolute idiot when it comes to this stuff. I bought 3 C920s, 3 USB cables and use OBS. I bought some super cheap handle bar mounts for the cameras and made a stand out of PVC pipes. OBS is stupidly simple to use, my biggest issue is synching sound.

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I showed some streams that users have uploaded to youtube to a group of friends. I knew the cameras involved with each stream and asked them which video they thought had the best quality. The videos were bro do you even pinball (c920s), Karl’s latest woz video (assuming hc-v250 and the rig described above) and PAPA’s last circuit finals( Not sure the particular model but they are a higher grade panasonic prosumer model I believe). They all thought Karl’s video looked the best so I guess we are going with the capture card route. Only problem now is which one. I think I’ve narrowed it down to the avermedia GL710 usb2.0 or the avermedia CV710 usb3.0. Any suggestions as to which one would be better for our needs? I heard the CV710 might only take advantage of the 3.0 bus speed with certain chipsets so 3.0 might mean nothing in this comparison. All the options are driving me crazy!

This also brought up the question, why does the quality of PAPA’s stream seem less than Karl’s when PAPA’s cameras are higher quality hw? They all thought that PAPA’s stream was the lowest quality of the three. What gives?

video links for reference

PAPA

KARL

BRO

The stream I posted a pic of was pretty low quality as Twitch was having a difficult time with freezing up. I am not currently hard wired so I drop my upload rate to avoid clipping. The C920s give a great pic at $63

What powered hubs are you guys using? I figured any would do but, I started reading some reviews of cheaper hubs and found some scary comments. Some people mentioned the hub frying flash drives and peripherals plugged in. Others mentioned the hub not supplying enough power spread across all ports because the device PS is under rated to the point the ac adapter adapter became to hot to touch. I guess not all usb hubs are created equally. WTStandardization?!?

I ended up going with the following. Just wanted to share what I felt was the minimum needed to use a laptop with a HDMI camcorder after my research, minus 1x C920 unless you have a guy on the couch. Unfortunately, this is all theoretical until we have everything up and running. I will post our twitch results if everything works out.

3x C920 (Players, Scores, Guy on the couch cam)
1x Avermedia GL-310 LGP-lite for the HC-V110 PF cam (The CV710 can’t use 3.0 unless you have intel, renesas, and some other manufacture controller. Decided to get the GL-310 because its cheaper than the LGP and the LGP has features we wouldn’t use)
1x Vantec UGT-AH700U3 USB HUB (JD’s hub of choice just happened to be available at newegg.com. I’m thoroughly convinced that no matter what hub you buy you are rolling the dice on build quality)

Still going to need misc cables, mounts, powerstrips etc but, I think we have our bases covered. Looking forward to getting all this stuff in the mail! Thanks for the advice and help in this thread and to the people I bugged in PM for advice!

We were trying something 1/7th as complex as what you proposed and couldn’t get it to work. We had 3x Logitech 920s on a powered hub at the pinball end of a 50’ Active USB 2.0 cable. We’re using Win10, OBS, and a modern tower PC with a decent graphics card (sorry don’t have the specs here - but a proven configuration for streaming).

We could get things working when the webcams were attached directly to the PC, but getting all 3 cameras connected on the far side of a single cable/hub became incredible unreliable. Cameras just wouldn’t initialize or attach properly. You’d reboot, and something wouldn’t come up right without having to move cameras to different ports. The diagnostics available with detailed USB analyzers weren’t giving us any insight to the nature of the problem. It was sufficiently unreliable we’ve given up and are switching HDMI capture cards despite the cable management pains that individual HDMI runs will cause.

For us it didn’t look like we had bumped into theoretical limits of USB 2.0 bandwidth, but you need to do the math to figure if USB 2.0 can even carry 21 streams. Webcams all reserve a chunk of the USB bandwidth when initialized (whether the source is being broadcast or not) plus the baseline USB protocol consumes a chunk of the bandwidth for control messaging as well. In theory, the 920c seemed nice since it does on-board H.264 compression which could theoretically reduce the bandwidth requirements but we never got there.

I’d suggest starting small, and only expanding when you get it to work. Good luck!

Sorry to say this, but this will definitely not work! See my replys above in this thread what I tried (with quite an amount of time and every hardware available (active USB cables, hubs, etc. - all USB stuff I could get from amazon and send back after I tried) and what I achieved - I believe my setup is the maximum you can achieve with USB cams (regarding the number of cams).
If you somehow manage to get it up und running, please share your knowledge and experience here.

Fort Awesome stream?

Fort awesome and beyond hopefully.

C920’s on sale at Amazon for 49.99$ today

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B006JH8T3S/ref=br_prlt_slcty_pdt-1?ie=UTF8&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=mobile-hybrid-3&pf_rd_r=A2JNV6WQ4QB9AFN969F3&pf_rd_t=30901&pf_rd_p=94a5fa9f-45c2-4f6a-891d-eb57d593f76f&pf_rd_i=11605840011

@kdeangelo would you mind expanding on how to calculate how many HDMI switches one needs?

I think I figured it out. One switch per video view . So I got two. Here is the setup I ordered. I pretty much got everything Karl has, but made a few deviations.

Instead of Twisted Veins, I got these Aurum cables because they support 1080p whereas the Twisted Veins do not. http://www.amazon.com/Aurum-Cables-High-Speed-Cable/dp/B004Q72PEM?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

3 Of the Monoprice Lighting Stands
12 of the Chauvet Light Duty O-Clamp
12 Giotto Mini Ball Head Camera Mount (found them significantly cheaper on adorama) http://www.adorama.com/GTBHMI.html

9 Panasonic HC-V110. (Found a refurb deal on ebay where they were less than $100/pop)
1 Panasonic HC- X920 (already owned this one. will use for manual shots as needed)
2 Logitech C920 (Google actually gave me these two, not sure I’ll even use but I’ve got them)
2 Monoprice HDMI Switchers

2 AverMedia GC550 external capture cards (These use USB 3.0)

I have an HP 8570w EliteBook Workstation with an i7 vpro 3740QM @3.2 w/ 32 GB RAM and the high power docking station that was made for it. The docking station takes some of the load off the laptop part in respects to power, the USB, etc. Runs Windows 7.

1 Xsplit license.

Stuff starts arriving tomorrow and I hope to do my first stream this coming weekend. Just finished our brand logo, and currently working on the website.

@GarrettHays

How are you powering your V110 when you stream? I just got 9 of these things delivered and I don’t see a way to power it without the battery. My X920 has an ac port, but I don’t see anything like that on this one.

I used one a usb wall charger on the end of an extension cord plugged into the usb of the camera. I think it worked with no battery installed. I’d check to make sure you are delivering the correct voltage. Pretty sure they sell a usb charger somewhere if you aren’t feeling the ghetto rig

@GarrettHays
you are correct. I bought this refurb, and they came with an aftermarket charger. I got on chat with shop.panasonic.com and they told me there was no ac adapter. After further research I found and ordered these: http://www.bestbatt.com/Panasonic-VSK0784-AC-Adapter-p/bbvsk0784.htm

I just tested it with my samsung USB adapter which puts out 5v, and it worked without the battery like you said.

Thanks for helping confirm I just didn’t waste $900 :)grinning:

Ok good! When you said you bought 9 of them based on my recommendation I started to get nervous lol. I’ve never used the hdmi out and usb at the same time but I can’t imagine that would change anything. One thing I didn’t know until recently, you can remove all the status icons and junk from the hdmi out but, the output is 1080i not 1080p. Ive only done local recording to disk with our rig so far but it didn’t effect quality. Glad it worked out!

@GarrettHays

yeah i saw that it only does 1080i. My x920 does do 1080p. The reality is 1080p is a lot of bandwidth and resources. My only concern with 1080i is how the ball motion will look. That is the main reason I did not go the C920 route even though I already have 2 from work. If it’s not good, then I think I will get a scaler that converts it to 720p. They seem pretty cheap from the little bit of research I’ve done.

This is the only thing I’ve done with the rig so far, just to test things out. None of the camera mics are muted so the sound is crazy and I think I could have focused the PF camera a bit better but, the ball motion doesn’t seem to be an issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC8aQUUNWno

I just got some more gear coming in for the Pinvasion3 broadcast. Did some switching testing today.

IMG_4446.JPG3264×2448 1.16 MB

IMG_4445.JPG3264×2448 1.31 MB

IMG_4447.JPG3264×2448 1.29 MB

IMG_4448.JPG2448×3264 1.71 MB

I didn’t check the audio first but this is 4 HDMI cameras and 1 USB
It hasn’t finished processing but the 720p60 frames should show up soon

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_786105eZoM”

@pinballr that looks pretty nice. That is the v110 for the playfield or the c920? Yeah, you’re right about the sound. Not much you can do with the glass off and the acoustics of a garage.

@GApinball that looks great. For some reason it defaulted to 480p. I had to choose the 720 60fps. I hear my Whirlwind is potentially going to be used for Pinvasion III? My switches and stands get here Monday. I’m going to do a show about it if so. I can’t wait to get this going.

The only person streaming real pinball on Twitch right now is a guy that only owns a Solar Ride, and just said he has never played a pin with multi-ball. I find that disturbing and freaking awesome at the same time.

Yea thats the v110 on the pf and the others are c920s.

@GarrettHays and that’s on 1080i? Are you using any kind of scaler or are you using xsplit to send out the 720p? BTW that multi-ball control in your second game was really good.

@GApinball I like that camera stand. Can you share the make/model or post a link to where to buy one?

Same one Karl uses
http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=601800

Thanks!

That was 1080i 60fps from the HC-V110, to the Avermedia GL310, into xsplit. Sorry for the late reply. I just came back to this topic and saw that I never posted this reply

During our tests, I found the HC-V110 to excel in low light situations where the c920’s fall apart. The lighting at Fort Awesome is very dim and with the c920 auto light, exposure and white balance settings enabled the c920s were basically not usable. With the auto settings off and the exposure lowered manually I was able to get a reasonably smooth FPS from the c920s but, its still dark. @spraynard uses c920s on his stream and his place has a lot more ambient light. He has the auto settings enabled, I guess logitech doesn’t provide software for mac to change this, and it looks fantastic. Wish we had the budget to buy more Panasonic cams though.

@GarrettHays

Yes, I did figure out that Xsplit can scale it. One of my first videos didn’t look so hot because of the interlacing, but selecting “force de-interlacing” in the configure section of Xsplit solved that issue. Overall I’m very happy with the V110, and especially how the ball motion looks.

Here is a highlight showing fast ball motion on JM… https://www.twitch.tv/pinballr/v/59810613

and how a slower ball motion game like Mystic looks… https://www.twitch.tv/pinballr/v/59810613

The V110 might not be the best option out there, but it certainly provides a lot of bang for the buck.
FYI I am using C920 for player cam.

Hey all, I’m running 3 c920s for my rig and I’m perpetually having my camera’s “freeze”–the video just stops and locks on an image. Has anyone had this problem and found a solution? running on a macbook pro, OBS, and 2 powered USB hubs. Thanks!

Ive never had a usb cam lock up on me. Did you ever scale down the resolution to match the area the cam takes up on your layout?

Im having so many problems with the capture card and my new laptop I might have to switch to all usb cams. With the capture card/cam attached, OBS is showing 50+% cpu utilization and dropping frames

Get the app called “Webcam settings” it does the same thing on mac OSX as the logitech software on Windows.
I used to broadcast from OSX. Now I’m using Windows on my MBP with Xsplit.

I botched the audio this weekend as we got there late and everyone was practicing and standing around so I didn’t check the audio. I though it was on the c920 on top of the stand but sounded like both cameras mics.

Overall the new cameras look good at 60FPS. Youtube has been stuck processing this for over a day
youtube com/watch?v=oNZGYa5Wwro

@spraynard

I was recently experiencing this,and I found a solution. However, I’m on a PC, and the solution is relative to your hardware’s capabilities. I found that the freezing was from a bottleneck in the USB controller. The solution is to ensure each camera is on a different controller.

I don’t know macs at all, so I can’t tell you how to check for what you have. On a PC it’s an option in Device Manager.
My setup is a little different. I have multiple panasonic v110s going to 2 Avermedia LGXs in turn going USB 3.0 into computer. Crucial that each one be on a different controller, and not have any other devices on it… C920s aren’t as intensive. It may just be that you need to optimize the load on each controller assuming you have at least two.

This is very helpful, thanks. My hunch is it has something to do with my cheapo usb hubs, which very well could be creating he bottleneck you described. I will investigate.

Cheapo might not be a problem as long as they are powered. Try lowering the resolutions of some of the cams as well. Your rig will probably have problems doing three 1080p cams at once and they will exhibit the freezing issue you mention.

I’m almost tempted to do the same, but I don’t want to forfeit 60fps. My capture card has been so problematic in the last month and a half though, I might have to.

I hear Xsplit is finally going to introduce 60fps capabilities, so I might have to download the latest version of that and try. I seem to have far less trouble getting it to recognize my devices than OBS.

Xsplit has had 60fps capabilities as long as I’ve been using it. All depends on your hardware.

@akm I’ve been using 60fps on Xsplit since I got it.

Really? I’m going to have to try it again. No 60fps options pop up on my end (while they do in OBS).

OK, I just checked my email and it was their latest newsletter that mentioned 1440p 60fps streaming capabilities on YouTube. Sorry, I confused that for 60fps streaming in general, so yeah, apparently it’s been able to do it for a while. I need to dig deeper because OBS is being a pain in my ass.

@spraynard

The hubs themselves are not the issue, but rather the USB controllers in your macbook pro that they connect to. Their cost and whether or not they are powered is irrelevant when it comes to bandwidth issues.

For some reason I can’t even run xsplit. I start getting high cpu notifications and at some point xsplit crashes. I think under settings/video in OBS where you can change canvas size, output size and global FPS which defaults to 30.

We are working on a new solution that will cover all of our pinball camera needs! We hope to have at least one prototype done for bat city open. The cam will have hdmi out for pf monitors, rtmp over gige, rtmp over wireless, small enough to put nearly anywhere, 720@60fps 1080p@30fps and cost right around $100 to make. So far our tests are looking promising!

But your camera’s are not 60FPS pinballr. Running the app in 60FPS doesn’t make the camera shoot in it.
Just a FYI as I’ve noticed some people think they are

@GApinball

yes, they are: http://www.cnet.com/products/panasonic-hc-v110-camcorder-storage-flash-card/specs/

Unfortunately they will record in those format but what is coming out of the HDMI port to display is not 60FPS live. Trust me I ordered that model and tested and sent it back to B&H. They will not output 60FPS to the hdmi on the side.

You can record to an SD card at those formats. Sorry but your last couple broadcast are set at 60FPS but the camera is outputting 30FPS. I can see the difference with my eyes…

If you want to PM me I can tell more about the HCV110s. I have a scaler that you connect the HDMI to and it will tell you what the output is. The “display output” on that camera doesn’t have a setting to allow the adjustment of what is coming out of that port.

I even tested and reported that to Karl awhile back.

Our camera is looking pretty good so far! We’ve got a successful rtmp stream to a nginx server on the broadcast pc via wifi, while viewing the hdmi out on a monitor and streaming to youtube.

@GApinball

That’s really sad how petty you are being. Why does it have to be private and only shared with one person? Thought the point of this thread was a knowledge base for people wanting to stream.

Sorry was trying to help. Same thing I told Zen… take the information how you want.

I actually don’t use the scalers anymore since I changed setup from when I started. I’ll send you one so you can see what the actual camera is outputting on a HUD as part of the menu.

Nothing is private… I’m not on here much. Check my history… I contribute when I can

I don’t see it as being petty, I see it as him taking a conversation that is not necessarily of interest to the whole thread (extended comments about a very specific camera model) and saying “We don’t need to waste a ton of people’s time with this”. That’s not petty, that’s thoughtfulness. If more people are interested I’m sure @GApinball would be happy to have that conversation out in the open. Maybe just ask next time!

I’ve only been able to output 1080i@30fps from the HC-V110s. The HDMI output doesn’t support all of the resolution and fps shown in that article that I’m aware of. I think the results we’ve come up with at 30fps were more than adequate though.

@heyrocker

that’s because you’re not aware of all the facts here. He has never responded to me before, and then comes along a month later to point this out? Just so happens 45 minutes prior I had reached out to the people at SFGE about doing a non-tournament related broadcast where he happens to be doing the tournament. That’s not a coincidence, and his motivation for doing so is indeed petty.

I disagree that specific details on this camera are not of interest to the thread. Others have mentioned this camera more than once. If one discovers it doesn’t do what it advertises, that is thread worthy in my opinion.

You have never once contacted or replied to any messages I’ve sent you on FB (can screen cap). Where did you contact me? I’m not part of the SFGE team directly. I only run the tournament for them in the space they give me. I’ve planned since last year to broadcast this tournament so I’m not sure what you are referring to about broadcasting at SFGE. I have no ulterior motives I just come here to catch up some and spread what info I can where applicable.

Sorry I haven’t read all 202 post before noticing your camera choice… I’ve posted here and there. I tested and figured it out myself I will not apologize for that. This isn’t pinside for gods sake and I’m done with this.
Anyone that knows me knows I’m all about sharing and helping pinball \m/

Making assumptions about others’ timing or motivation isn’t appropriate for the discussion board, in my opinion. Can we keep posts relevant or useful to the discussion of streaming setups?

Does it really only output 1080i at 30fps? That is a very unconventional resolution; are you sure you’re not just not deinterlacing it and getting full field 30fps as a result?

My capture card sees it as 1080i 30fps. I think 480p and Auto are also options. Yea I dunno why 1080i is the hdmi port output resolution by default when the camera can record to flash at1080p@60. Its an old camera I suppose? I think we were able to do 720@60 with my friends elgato card using auto but, dont quote me on that. Here is the last vid we made with 3 c920s on the left and the hc-v110 into the elgato on the right. I’m pretty sure the hc-v110 was running 1/120 shutter. https://youtu.be/aJsB3BDqQb0?t=3h39m49s

A lot of handheld camcorders only display 1080i out of the side port. I have a JVC, Panny and 8 Gopro knock offs and they all do 1080i out. Mostly because that port is used for monitoring more than recording. Those GO Pros will record up to 4k but only output 1080i.

I tried the Sony’s I have now that I’m not sure anyone has tried but has a setting in the menu to change the output of the HDMI port. I can change resolution and frame rates on these. Most handhelds dont have that option at that price point.

Yeah I know they usually output 1080i, but actual 30fps would mean that you’re getting two 30fps fields which you almost certainly are not. What’s much more likely is that something along the line (capture card, streaming software, some retarded active switch that manages to mangle field information, etc) is doing a weave deinterlace resulting in full-frame 30fps video. A capture card usually won’t do any deinterlacing by default (and you’re lucky these days if it doesn’t mangle the interlaced video with forced weave deinterlacing so you can deinterlace it yourself) so you’ll need to deinterlace it to get back to 60fps (which I’m…more or less 100% sure is what’s actually being recorded). If you’re using a new version of OBS Studio you can actually deinterlace from within it, and you’ll want to use the Yadif algorithm or at worst linear (if OBS doesn’t support Yadif). Failing that you can always pump the output through AmarecTV which has a “For Action Game” deinterlacer that produces similar results to Yadif, but that’s fairly complicated and a topic I’ll only bother writing up on if anyone actually needs the info.

My Sony HandyCam will only do 1080i at 60fps, not 1080p. So I just stream at 720p60 instead.

Any tips for avoiding glare? I just started setting up a rig last night, and the glare on the playfield glass seems pretty bad. I’ll try moving lights around and playing more with the camera angle, but I’m curious to hear any general strategies for avoiding this.

@tjuchcin

getting a light with a diffuser would be your best option. Most video professionals use the kind with the white umbrella. I don’t have one yet, and it’s on the list. Thing is you only have so much room when you’re trying to do multiple tables in the same broadcast. We have adjustable can lights in our club. I found pointing them against the wall instead of directly at the pin has a similar effect.

@GApinball
I’m wrong, Please accept my apology.

I had mentioned you once or twice here w/ no response. I jumped to conclusions when you responded to a post where I did not mention you and had just made that inquiry. I know the SFGE tournament is your deal, which is why I made my inquiry specifically “non-tournament” related. I’m going to be competing and was just wanting to do a few quick broadcasts like we did at the WS auction. Not like I would broadcast when finals are going on or anything like that. I just wanted to be able to set up in advance because as you know it’s such a cumbersome process.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always been complimentary of the SFGE tournament. In PAPA surveys for other tournaments, I’ve always stated they don’t meet the high bar set by the way things are run at SFGE. As for your Facebook messages, I was not seeing them. Pat can vouch for me, I let him in my account. It’s not in an obvious place, and it’s like 6px font at 50% opacity. I did not get the normal notifications due to privacy settings.

Moving forward I have found that the V110 does not capture at 60fps at all. I didn’t base my confidence on that CNET article, and something @GarrettHays said jogged my memory. Xsplit does not give stats on incoming video, but the software for my capture cards, RECentral does. I ran it again to see that the HDMI out for the V110 is 1920x1080 60i.

That’s where all the confusion has come from. 60i = 60 fields per second (actually 59.94.) 2 fields = 1 frame. So 1920x1080 60i is running at 29.97 frames per second. I broadcast last night at 29.97, and it looked the same, if not better.

@KCB touched on something that I think I brought up earlier, but he provided a lot more detail. With the V110, I did indeed have to select “Force De-Interlacing” to make the picture look good. Now I understand why.

From learning all this, I doubt any camera running at 1080i is capturing at 60 frames per second. So I need to reassess the V110. It is not 60fps, but still good bang for the buck compared to the c920 in my opinion. You can find refurbs for less that $100.

It was a case of bad coincidence it seemed. I had no idea you contacted SFGE and I was just popping in on this topic and posted. It was just that I wanted the correct information out about the HDMI output of those model so more people weren’t misinformed about that model. Nothing wrong with 30fps anyways as many streamers are still 30… I think PAPA is.

I was just at that junction where I was about to buy cameras when Karl’s coverage at Vegas this year came out and I realized I wanted 60 over the PF. Once again thanks to you all you will get it for 8 games next weekend

All water under the bridge sir

We’ve got access to a huge professional photo light on a boom stand with a diffuser and we couldn’t figure out how to get rid of the glare either. I think you need multiple lights from several different angles to have a chance. The easiest/cheapest solution I’ve found are these cheap clip on work lights $6.99 at Walmart. I got better results with one clipped on each side of the back box and angled across the playfield from either side not shining down on to the glass.You can also use clothes pins to clip on your own “gels” or opaque material to get some diffusion. Ghetto fabulous!!!

Disclaimer: I know nothing about video recording. If this was still photography I’d put a polarizing filter on the camera to reduce glare. Do these work for video as well?

Glare is caused by the angle of light compared to the angle of the camera. This is a very similar problem to photographing art in a glass frame—there’s some decent discussion (and some diagrams) here.

When dealing with fixed interior lighting, one solution is to adjust the angle of the camera so that it’s not perpendicular to the glass, but for pinball, this probably isn’t practical since you’ll want to fill the frame with the machine. One could also try moving the machine around. If that doesn’t work, moving the lighting, and probably also some gobo-ing (a gobo is a light blocking element) to change how the light hits the camera lens may help. Unfortunately this may also be impractical depending on what’s being set up for. For example, a tournament bank of 12 games isn’t likely to be lit with two lights, with softboxes, at a low angle and placed 10’ away.

As haugstrup suggests, a circular polarizer may help some, and is probably worth a shot, but that will cost at least 1 full stop of light (it’s kind of like putting sunglasses over the lens) so the camera will have to adjust its gain or shutter speed to compensate which is likely to decrease video quality by some (x) amount depending on how nice the camera is (y) and/or how well lit the scene is already (z).

Otherwise, a sheet of Invisiglass, while quite expensive, could be moved around if there’s not an entire bank of games being filmed. It seems to work pretty well in these cases but isn’t perfect.

Invisiglass will help with glare a lot as well. You still need to be smart with lighting, but if you plan on streaming a lot I highly recommend having at least a single sheet of it.

Just found out something that might be interesting to some of you, so thought it would be worth sharing here. I’ve been using a T-Mobile hotspot for most of my streams. When you get their 22 GB/month plan for $95, you get a feature called “Binge On” which lets you stream for free. It does not mention Twitch in the list, but it is included. I streamed for a bit yesterday, and as you can see in the picture I’ve used 5.68 GB, but have only been charged 1.39 GB out of my 22. I also have 20 GB in my “data stash” because all the streaming I did last month was not counted, so I got the maximum rollover.

Considering it’s mobile Internet, I’ve been pretty happy with its performance. I usually get 10-15 up with it. I like setting up at different locations, and having this for Internet makes that a lot easier.

Hey All,

I am doing some stress tests on my system and experimenting with some new equipment. I kinda do livestreaming as part of my job so I have a decent level of experience if you wanna join and talk livestream setups, watch me play some pinball with psychedelic effects, learn how I configure my setup, etc. I’m also looking for someone to skype in and try live commentary via skype as a test to its feasibility. See you in the chat!

https://www.twitch.tv/tablecam

Compliments of @GarrettHays and others, we’ll try to stream Bat City Open this weekend wall to wall throughout qualifying and finals, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: https://www.twitch.tv/batcitypinballclub
https://www.facebook.com/events/952096551553777/

I kept seeing the c930e for a price that seemed too good to be true on this sketchy-looking online store “Wirelessoemshop”. I finally gave in and ordered one, figuring I could do a chargeback if I got ripped off. I got it today, and it looks to be legit. I haven’t actually gotten a chance to try it yet, but this seems very promising. It’s $70 now; I got it for $65 + $6 shipping, but it’s still cheaper than $109 on Amazon.

Did you find that the 930e provided any significant improvement over 920s?

I haven’t compared them side-by-side yet, or even on the same game. I will when I can and report back. The one thing that’s clearly different is that the 930e has a wider angle view.

Yeah, I was curious about the 930s specifically due to their wide-angle capabilities. I was hoping the angle is wide enough and quality is high enough to place the cam on a high stand between the two machines pointing straight down. It would be great if you could capture two machines at once using this method. You could then clone the 930 feed in your encoder, crop accordingly, and have two machines from one cam.

@DEADFLIP you mentioned in your Domino’s thread you have upgraded hardware. Want to share what and why?

We’ve upgraded our Play-field camera to a Camcorder setup for optical zoom and true 60fps.
We’re still running all this off a Laptop to keep everything mobile and it’s been a bit of a battle.
Still doing lots of testing, and I told my chat as well as you folks, once it’s nailed down, I’ll spill the beans.
I don’t want people buying stuff they cant get to work right. (I’ve been there) WE’RE CLOSE THOUGH!

Current Broadcast Gear

17" 2014 Macbook Pro running Win7 using Xsplit
2x Thunderbolt cables
2x Black Magic UltraStudio Mini adapters
8x Sony HDR-CX405 @ 720p 60FPS
6x XiaoMi Yi A7LS Action Camera
1x JVC GZEX210BUS
1x Panasonic HDC-TM15 (rarely used at events)
1x Logitech C920 USB Webcam
1x Snowball USB Microphone
2x 8X1 Enhanced Powered HDMI Switcher
4x Lighting Stands by Monoprice
1000ft HDMI cable in various lengths

We do a fair amount of streaming at work and offer the service to business looking to stream seminars and the like. So I was talking to my boss about some stuff and a lot of the research I’ve done for Pinball streaming carried into work and vice versa.

We’re looking at getting a Verizon pay as you go setup for when internet goes down or is flakey. I’m really impressed with the speeds and options. You can get a lot for $60!

If someone could raise just $60 a stream you could basically stream anywhere or less if you did it consistently a few times a month!!

Seeing this binge option really catches my interest!

On my quest for a proper 60fps setup, I’ve been wondering if action cameras are the way to go. You’re using the Sonys on the playfields, right? I’ve been trying to find the Panasonic equivalent of those CX405s, and I have found it in the V180… I think. I can confirm the HDMI out does do a proper 60fps. I’ve just always preferred Panasonic for some reason. Problem is you can’t find them anywhere. I sourced one overseas, and they sent me the PAL version so it only does 50fps. #facepalm

My laptop has about had it, so I am building a new rig. Water-cooled Xeon E5 2680 v4 that has 14 cores for encoding. 64 GB Ram, and GTX 970 graphics card. My avermedia cards are acting up, and I’m about sick of them. Do those Black Magics work well? I was looking at the Elgato HD60pro because I have the room for them on my motherboard.

rig.jpg960×720 153 KB

about the Binge On option: it still works last time I checked , but I haven’t streamed in awhile so not still certain about that.

The last stream I did was 45 days ago, and ended up using the location’s Internet because T-Mobile was being spotty. I was having issues with it at Pinburgh. Called support and they confirmed a tower was down. Got into a conversation about Pinball and streaming with the tech, and he was surprised Binge On worked for Twitch. He stated it was a partner they were looking into, but hadn’t been made official.

I suspect the reason it works is because Amazon streaming is a partner, and Amazon owns Twitch. I’m guessing the streaming traffic looks the same to an ISP.

I have a month to month plan, and if it stops, I of course will be cancelling. I’d be weary about committing to a contract without Twitch being on the official list.

I have one HD60pro along with 3 Avermedia Game Broadcaster HDs. Drivers aren’t the best on the HD60pro and I do get random blackouts on that card only where I have to power cycle to get it to take an input again.

The beauty of the Sony HDR-CX405 @GApinball is using is they can be set to 720p60 OR 1080p60. The Avermedia cards will take a 720p60 input which has plenty of resolution for a vertical-oriented playfield cam. I’ve been all about Panasonic camcorders (last one I bought was a v180) until now as 2 of my v250s have died [out of 7] within two years. Future purchases will be the CX405 or equivalent as the low light performance is just as good, if not better, than the Panasonics.

I appreciate you sharing that. I will admit my Panasonic vs Sony bias is from 15 years ago or so when I had a DVX100 and my friend had the VX2000. The low light difference on those two were night and day. Believe me, the thought about giving in and just getting CX405 has crossed my mind more than once. Probably will go ahead and do it now, but the action cameras still intrigue me. With these camcorders, I’m paying for a lot of features I’ll never use.

Thanks for the tip on the Elgato. The avermedia cards I have are the external LGX GC550. I don’t really like them. I’ve been looking for a PCIe alternative. I know the C985 Liver Gamer HD will not do 60fps. I’m surprised to learn the Game Broadcaster does considering it’s half the price. I take it you like those?

I’m with you on 720p because that’s what I prefer to broadcast at anyways. 1080p is just too much for most people to be able to watch smoothly.

If you want to see actual footage, on my last Hobbit video the playfield cam was the Panasonic v250 and the flipper cam was the Sony CX405.

The Game Broadcaster HD cards have been completely problem-free, only wish they did 1080p60 of course. Wonderful card otherwise and they can be had for very good prices on ebay occasionally.

The Sony CX405 are work horses I leave them on 24/7 during events. PV3 they stayed on 4 days non stop and this weekend I ran them 3 days non stop and no issues at all. They do well in low light as you can see from this past weekends broadcast from St. Augustine’s Ancient City Rumble. I wish they passed audio but thats not a big issue to me.

@pinballr My black magic adapters work great every now and then I have to reboot but thats just windows LOL

Trying to build a mobile setup… what do people do to deal with WiFi issues and low bandwidth? I had to limit my stream to 2000 kbps on Sunday which wasn’t bad but not optimal. Yesterday though I had a lot of trouble connecting to the WiFi and getting any sort of stable connection where I was. It’s possible that the issue was related to the router but if I’m doing location streams that’s not easy to control.

Does everyone rely on WiFi to stream?

I stream 100% off wireless. My MBP doesn’t have an ethernet port. I only have issues when I have poor wifi signal. I was on a guest shared account this weekend and when more people got on I had to drop to 1000 kbps but it still looked decent.

We never stream on WiFi. Hardwired connection with 5 meg upload minimum is what we’ve found works best.

We ended up with hardwire at 2Mbps for NWPC this year and it was just enough, HQ will be later on Youtube

@kdeangelo

Agreed, it does look better. I’ll admit I have been happy with my v110s except for the fact they did not do 60fps.

I think I got really lucky. There were 3 GB HDs on ebay, and I scooped them all up for an average of $57.33 a piece, and that included shipping. That’s just a little over the cost of one of my external LGXs. Two of them were brand new. All 3 are installed now, and they work just fine. Looking forward to giving them a test on a stream. Thanks for the reco.

Considering how much bandwidth it takes for 1080p60, I’m totally fine with 720 for now.

@GApinball

That’s good to know. I have decided that’s the way I’m going to go now. The market seems to be flooded with them. I literally just got a used one off ebay for $139 shipped. History shows they’ve recently been let go for as low as $115! Looking forward to testing this one out. 60fps makes such a difference!

By the way there’s an amazon flash sale today on the Logitech c920 and c615 webcams today. Thanks @JSwain for the heads up!

New Logitech c922 webcam is out which has 720p60 support.

The C920 cannot do that?

Nope, the c920 can only do 30fps.

Ahh. Okay thanks for the info.

EDIT: can I run a C922 and a couple C920s together?

I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

This seems an appropriate thread to give a quick recommendation to check out Tim/Strobey’s stream https://www.twitch.tv/pinball_live

He’s only got a handful of broadcasts under his belt, but they are all outstanding quality. Tim uses a mixing desk hooked directly into the machine’s audio, a DrPinball HDMI display extender (http://www.drpinball.co.uk/dmdextender.htm) for crystal clear DMD image, and just generally puts on a great show

His regular broadcast slot is Wednesday evening (UK time, which is probably around 3pm EST)

Earlier this year when I was buying gear to start streaming, a DrPin HDMI card was high on the list, because I was surprised that no-one was using it for this purpose. I’d guess that once people see this kind of stream more will be encouraged to try it

Yes! I was pointed to that stream recently and his technical presentation is outstanding. Freaking LOVED the Hook audio with the direct sound input. I’ll have to do that on future streams, but it’s oh so much equipment!

I’ve had the DMD Extender but hadn’t used it until my last stream https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GIktDu1E0Ns. Would love to get a bunch to hook them up to all the machines in a tournament bank.

Are you getting the video output directly from the Raspberry Pi to xsplit/obs/whatever, or are you doing Raspberry Pi → HDMI → HDMI capture card?

Wow, that’s the coolest technical advancement I’ve seen in pinball streams in a long time. You know how when you’re playing, your eyes naturally flick up to the DMD every so often, and you don’t even notice, until you play something like Full Throttle, where there’s nothing to see?

I just realized that this is what I’ve been missing in every pinball video I’ve ever seen. For some reason, in any pinball footage my eyes don’t go up to the DMD nearly as often as they do when I’m actually playing a game myself, even when there’s a separate DMD cam, so I’m just missing a lot of stuff.

I don’t know exactly what it is with the extender vs a DMD cam, but with the extender I’m able to follow the game a whole lot better. Looking forward to watching a tournament that has one of those.

Raspberry Pi HDMI Output -> HDMI Capture Card.

more $$$ spent

Eating up an extra HDMI capture port seems expensive.

I haven’t messed with a DMD extender yet, but I think the RPi 2/3 are both capable of encoding h264 high in hardware. I wonder if it would be possible to just ship the video from the Pi to the broadcast workstation over IP.

For me it’s one less camera to setup and worry about. Already using the HDMI capture port anyways.

After a full day run yesterday I can highly recommend this wireless HDMI setup from Monoprice (wait for sales/coupons of course). Ran like a champ all day yesterday during PATL on the main tournament bank games and will be using it today for the finals game coverage - twitch.tv/iepinball

did you set that up between your row of machine and the PC station? does that mean you would need the HDMI switcher at the bank location so you don’t need 6 HDMI wireless?

Thanks. I’ll be grabbing one of these

No room to setup multiple cameras where we were so I had this mounted on the same tripod as the camera. Only had to plug in power each time I moved it. Next step is to grab a large power pack/battery backup to see how long I can run the setup on battery power for.

Don’t see why it wouldn’t work between the hdmi switches though, could make for some easier setups. Will have to test that out.

Will this work between my camera and my projector or do I need a PC on the other end? It isn’t clear from the Monoprice product description.

I think that’s actually kind of what these are for. It basically replaces a HDMI cable. So anything you need a cable for this replaces it.

I’m about to order a couple to play around with

Neat. Even at $160 that’s a reasonable price. Any idea how many pairs can operate in a given area before they start stepping on each other?

I have what might be a driver issue or something? Maybe someone can help me out here.

When I use 3 c920s at the same time in Xsplit and all 3 are connected it seems like I can only control 1 camera at a time from the Logitech control thing (where I can turn off all the rightlight junk and stuff.) I’ve “fixed” this by plugging in 1 camera at a time and adjusting the settings in a way I wanted but I can’t tell (except for the eyetest) if all my settings take when all 3 cameras are plugged in. Is there a way to uniquely identify the cameras or something so that you can control individual white balance levels while all are plugged in? Are there driver updates I can get which fix this? Am I doing something wrong?

I think there is a piece of software available for purchase out there somewhere that solves this problem. At the BCO I think we had 6 c920’s and it was a NIGHTMARE getting all of them setup.

If you have multiples of the same model, the software doesn’t know what to do and as a result you can typically only adjust one. If you don’t want to have to deal with external software to deal with this like it was suggested in the post above, it’s better to have different models (for instance, I run a 920, then a 920-C and both are recognized fine without conflict).

oh whoa, didn’t catch that, you only had one camera/tripod being moved between each game? still it looked great We could do that for Classic next year, I assume you need good amount of space in the back of the game to move the Monoprice tripod then? May need your new style of clamp instead of aluminum bar with all the swinging too

I was using this stand from Monoprice instead of the giant speaker stand. Much easier to move around. Also, most of the ball mounts I own already had the proper threading to go directly on the mount.

Feel like I should be getting paid by Monoprice for all this advertisement Helps that their will call is just 10 minutes from my house.

whoa, that small stand was high enough to get over the top of a pinball backbox? we could use a more mobile one to capture classic finals next year with one mobile camera Any chance you got pics of your setup with that stand?

You should ask them to provide you a code and get % commission

This is the point where it all falls apart but I started streaming a few weeks back. Just got my new internet set up. Streaming LOTR and Woz for the next week weeks back and forth then rotating amongst a myriad of games I have and some location stuff at aracde super awesome . Always open to pointers. Working on some more graphics. Animations. Etc. I want to run it like a 2 hr tv show. Try to have a purpose each episode and also to chat.

Twitch.tv/boomgo_pinball

Archive at: tinyurl.com/boomgopinball

I just got my two in today. Here is what is stated in the manual.

A maximum of 10 receivers can be supported in the same room.
A maximum of 16 transmitters can be supported in the same room.

I’m going to see if I can it to work through some walls this evening.

hey @kdeangelo, I was thinking about that again, did you have some picture of the setup using the smaller stand?

Ah yes, completely forgot. Downside is you can’t raise the playfield.

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nice, looks pretty good, may pick up one of those. Where are you getting those new clamps again?

You’ll have to add your own ball joint to these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008Z63ZBC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Alternate are these with a gooseneck attached: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NIBQXGS/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

bought a couple, will try them out with that stand four our next “casual” streaming

not bad as a setup but that micro stand isn’t too stable except when feet are all flat on the ground which by then it is a bit short… I guess the Monoprice one maybe be better/higher than the Amazon.

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Testing getting direct audio from the game. Also I changed the Kiss song to tributes. I got sick of the originals

Hell yeah, Mighty Mighty Boss Tones! I’ve got that CD called Kiss My Ass. Good stuff.

Any recommendations for lighting and how to position it. Whenever I have set up for streaming, I can’t seem to get the lighting correct. I have some LED lights but they cause a lot of glare. I also adjust the camera settings, but it never looks quite right. What are other people doing for lighting up the pf?

I haven’t messed around with proper lighting rigs but, I use the cheapo clip on work lights and a couple of CFL bulbs in the daylight color range. All I did was clip two of the work lights onto the back box of the games next to the game I was filming so the light source is off camera and at pretty extreme angle to the playfield glass that it was easy to avoid glare. Pretty sure this is the vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBJe2TF50k

I never see anyone use a headset mic. Is there a reason? I’d guess that would get better sound out of the vocals, and encourage more talking (vs leaning over into something suspended in the air somewhere).

Headset mics are not ideal. I started on varying models and found the frequency ranges to be severely lacking, and they pick up the mechanics of the machine you are playing as faint “thud” sounds. Far from ideal. There may be decent headset mics with high quality audio, but they are probably stupid expensive.

Hey Guys,
I haven’t checked in here in a while. I thought I would give my two cents about the two new 60fps USB cams, the Razor Stargazer, and the Logitech c922. Which one is the winner? Both have faults.

Razor Stargazer: The razor stargazer is a USB3 720p 60fps RealSense camera. It supports uncompressed YUY2 720p 60fps, as well as lower resolutions and fps. As a playfield camera is performs rather well, but tends to drop frames when low lighting occurs (blackouts with flashers). Adding an auxiliary PF light helps. I recently added this one, per Buffalo’s recommendation https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BZE2HBE/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . If you plan on doing anything other than pinball streaming with this camera, if you have a 6th gen or new i5/i7, you can use it’s built in RealSense tech to have a virtual green screen with any background (with faults).

Logitech c922: This is the “upgrade” to the c920 workhorse that got me into streaming. The camera does support 60fps, but at a cost. To get above 30fps on this camera you have to set the resolution to 720p. Once set at 720p - 40fps, 48fps, and 60fps is available. The major flaw with this camera is if you go past 720p 40fpps (IE 48fps, 60fps), the cam looses A LOT of clarity. You can combat this by increasing sharpness, and by adding a PF light, but it still is not really acceptable in my book. If you lower the resolution to 40fps, the clarity is regained, and you get a pretty fluid ball movement. The camera at 720p only offers MJPEG as its encoding out. This I believe is because the device is only USB2. YUY2 is available at 480/488p, but this is only at 30fps, as I mentioned above you have to go 720p to unlock faster than 30fps. So what’s good about the c922? It’s low light performance is a lot better. Especially at 30/40fps. Is it worth upgrading from the c920 if you only plan to do 30fps? Probably not.

In conclusion: Which camera is better for the PF? I currently use the Stargazer as my PF at 540p 60fps. I use the c922 at 720p 40fps for the player cam, and a c920 at 240p for the DMD. If I could go back in time I would probably just go with a Sony HDR-CX405 with a simple USB3/USB-C dongle for the PF, and use c920s for everything else. I think we will more USB3 cams come forth that have better performance than both of these cams. We just have to wait for the industry to catch up.

I forgot to add some comparisons:

60fps stargazer PF, 48fps logitech player, c920 dmd:

60fps c922 PF:

30fps c920 PF:

I also forgot to talk about encodering going out. If your CPU can handle it, use x264. If not, you can unload the encoding of the stream to Quick Sync/NVENC if your hardware supports it. Doing so will result in no CPU spike, but stream quality bitrate needs to be a lot higher to compensate.

Do you mean a HDMI to USB dongle for the Sony HDMI camera?

Same observations about C922 here. Couldn’t use 60fps for streaming at all, but lowering the frame rate to 40fps corrected the focusing issues and then the quality was pretty good.

Some side by side comparison between C920@30fps and C922@40fps can be seen in our K15 Open qualifying stream coverage uploaded to YouTube. The playfield cam on Kiss is C920 and the cam on TWD is C922:

I’ll post more details of our current stream setup later.

Yes, a simple HDMI capture that does the processing of the video and passes on uncompressed YUY2.

Something like this: (not specifically recommending these)

I don’t usually follow this thread, but big props to Ollie for that game of TWD. I particularly liked the huge shots during Barn Mode, and bringing in that 2nd Blood Bath during the grace period of Prison MB. Nice job!

Heh, thanks for the feedback Chris!

I was pretty happy with that entry after finishing the previous one with 7M score.

It’s funny to watch all the bricked multiplied mode shots and all the luck I’m having during the run (the Blood Bath grace period add a ball after a bricked target shot and a super lucky bounce around 4:07 being the most ridiculous example). Somehow that is a big part why I love TWD. And I don’t even try to explain the 19.5M + 21M barn shots, since I’d probably get something wrong explaining that. Someone else want to elaborate what happens there?

I can try to explain the 19.5 and 21m Barn shots, but there does appear to be something not quite right. So you hit a 5.5m Barn shot. The next one should be 6m but it appears to somehow go to 6.5. You then hit the ramp and came down through the inlaneX which was apparently at 3X. The ball traveled around the playfield without hitting a switch. Then trap on the left, post pass to the right and hit the Barn shot for 6.5 x 3 = 19.5M. But wait! Apparently the inlane X applies for some short length of time, rather than just for one switch closure, because you did a quick backhand of the Barn shot and it was still multiplied from your inlaneX, so 7 X 3 = 21M.

The next one is 6.5m due to the ramp shot, which says ‘500,000 added to all barn shots’ along with some other small text…

Well, that’s good to know. So when I miss my orbit so badly that I hit the ramp instead I get a reward. I like it! Thanks for the reply. For all you streamers, sorry for the thread jack.

New the the streaming game and starting off with a Logitech c922. I am using it with xSplit. It is glitching on me pretty bad. Wondering if anyone else is using one and if there are some specific settings I should be looking at using. I have tried turning off all of the Auto Logitech settings and have gotten it a little better, but it still does it very sporadically. I don’t think it is laptop hardware (newer i7 CPU, 16GB RAM.) Stream is here if you want to see what I am talking about. https://www.twitch.tv/comopinball/videos/all

I don’t think the issue is a “glitch” with XSplit. Even though you have a nice CPU and enough ram, the issue could potentially be a bottleneck with the USB. That’s a potential cause of the flickering. I’d go into control panel and look at how many USB controllers you have, and then try put each camera on a different one.

Besides that, what are your actual settings in Xsplit? Besides the flickering, your playfield cam looks way off. You’re broadcasting at 30 fps, but it could be that your cameras are capturing at a different rate? That can make things look weird.

Your broadcast resolution is also low. It’s 960x540, and the bit rate is like 1100. That’s pretty low end. Are you doing that on purpose because of a limited upstream?

Lastly, can you share what kind of video card your laptop has? Xsplit requires a certain level of performance in that aspect to run correctly.

Just using one USB camera at the moment, the other is the integrated web cam on my laptop. As far as the bcast resolution goes, no I was not doing that on purpose. I think I have things working better now after tweaking resolutions and frame rates. I also converted to OBS and have been having much better luck so far. Thanks for the suggestions!

For VR, but would work as an easy webcam mount https://www.amazon.com/Hyperkin-Vive-Oculus-Rift-Clamp-Mount/dp/B01MG4D3O5/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1478992256&sr=8-21&keywords=htc+vive&linkCode=sl1&tag=coolwearable-20&linkId=e17ca5f9d4acd9b2d607e4e5d6b0478a

Brian just pointed me to a better deal. For $4 more you get a gooseneck and separable ball-mount https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NIBQXGS?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

Jumping in to ask for help. I’m trying to get a smooth shot of the playfield and the ball always seems to lag. I am running a C920, using OBS on an iMac and have Webcam settings installed.

I am increasing my internet speed and am hard wired to my computer so I at least feel like I should be able to get everything out of this set up as I can. I have 3 cams total but my main goal is to have the playfield cam as smooth as possible.

If you want to check out my recent GB play to give you an idea I go by Richmondpinball on Twitch. If you want to contact me directly as to not muddle up this thread I can be reached at richmondpinball@gmail.com

Thanks- Taylor

your stream rate is fine. The lag you are talking about is most likely due to that camera not pulling a full 30 fps. This could be simply due to a setting in OBS (I use xsplit so can’t really help you there) or could be a bottleneck with your USB. I’m a PC person so I’m not sure how this relates to Mac, but I have found that too many USB cameras on the same USB controller can cause issues. On a PC, you can go into device manager to see how many USB controllers you have, and which USB ports are assigned to which ones. If you have 2 controllers, I’d try to isolate the playfield one and have the other two cameras share one.

If you can confirm that the camera is capturing at 30 fps, I would test it with one camera on the playfield and see how that comes out. I watched part of your latest video, and it was most obvious when you opened up the glass and showed the broken rubber. Your hand movement was very choppy. It’s as if that camera is only putting out 15 fps or so.

You may also want to try playing with the resolution for each camera you are using. I believe their default is 1920x1080. If it is a USB bandwidth issue, taking down the score cam to 1280x720 or even 720x480 could solve your issue.

I wanted to check if my internet is sufficient to start streaming along with the computer I plan to use. I apologize if some of this information is not needed.

Internet is 300 down and 20 up

Computer is PC running windows 7 professional
Intel core i5-3320M CPU @2.60ghz
16.0 RAM

HD space is like 164 gigs if that matters.

Just wanted to make sure this is good before I buy the equipment.

Thanks!

That all looks pretty good or at least meets the minimum standard. I think your processor is going to be the limiting factor. It’s a dual core Ivy Bridge, which is almost outdated. For a stable stream, I think you’ll find that you’ll be limited to 720p @ 30 fps. Even at that level, you might find it difficult to stream for extended time periods. You’re definitely going to have to set your encoding compression on the lower end.

I take it you are using USB cameras? You might find running more than two cameras will prove difficult. I’m basing this assumption on the limitations of the chipset associated with that processor. Considering the fact that your processor only supports 1 PCIe lane, I doubt you’ll have more than 2 USB controllers.

Another consideration that you did not mention is the GPU. The software needed to run a stream will have a minimum requirement in that regard.

If you do consider upgrading your PC, you should know that clock speed doesn’t really matter. For streaming it’s all about how many cores your processor has. They do make i5s with 4 cores, and you can find some i7s with 6 or 8 cores. The more cores a processor has, the easier it can encode the video you are streaming.

Just to be sure what’s a GPU and what would I need to be safe for most software?

GPU is your graphics card. If you go into Device Manager, and double click on “Display Adapters” it will tell you what you have.

Xsplit is going to be a little bit more restrictive in that regard. I believe it requires GeForce/Radeon Class. OBS will probably work with an integrated Intel, which I’m guessing is what you have. If you do have that, it means your processor is having to do all the graphics work ,and encode your video.

Xsplit lets you try it for free, and OBS is free, so you can go ahead and download them to test it out. Even if you don’t have cameras yet, you can stream your computer monitor or a youtube video to see how well it works.

Get a camcorder and a capture card. You want 60fps and a C920 won’t give you that.

Another solution is a C922 which will do 60FPS, but you need solid lighting for it to work smoothly consistently.

Your internet is more than sufficient.

Thanks for the info. Will look into picking up a C922

I tried the C922 and I was underwhelmed. As soon as you switch to 60fps the image quality becomes very poor. As mentioned above, you’ll need lots of light to get the C922 to work on 60fps.
I bought a Sony CX405 and a Blackmagic Ultrastudio mini recorder. Getting much better results with 60fps now. BTW I’m on a mac using OBS.

@akm what I don’t understand is that some of my early WOz streams had great quality on the playfield cam. I just watched one in archives and the ball is easily seen without any jerkiness which leads me to believe I can achieve the same look with that same set up.

Those Sony’s are the best! Glad I got 8 for my playfields. USB setups are cheaper but you just can’t get the same quality as the camcorders imo.

a difference I notice between them is that your WOZ broadcasts are 1280x720, and these new Ghostbusters ones are 1920x1080.

You definitely made me a believer in CX-405. I agree they are the best. They are better than those Panasonics I was using. The hardwired USB cable is an excellent feature,and the UI of the setup screen makes it so settings can be changed with your thumb. Panasonic is cumbersome to say the least, and it requires two hands. This is a huge factor to consider when doing tournaments. And like JRE and others have said,it looks great.

If you’re considering one, don’t think you have to get brand new for $200. I’ve gotten both mine off Ebay for right at $100 each. The market is flooded with them, you just have to keep an eye out. Check out the recent sales history for them. Many have gone for <$100. All you need is the camera and the power cable, so people will sell them cheap if they lost the battery, card, etc.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_nkw=cx405&_sop=15

SHHHHHHH, I’m still trying to get a few more before INDISC to swap out Pannys.

Also, they require the battery to work but 3rd party replacements are cheap on Amazon.

I’m bidding on a couple… I hope we aren’t stepping on each other on eBay

you’re right. Just realized I’ve never even opened the battery compartment on these. I just assumed because the panasonics don’t need batteries.

thanks for pointing that out. Not sure why it switched to that but I will mess with those settings more.

i got a few cheap ones myself, my main pain is that those use micro-hdmi instead of mini-hdmi for the panasonic

I use the CX-405 as well. I am really happy with it for the reasons you state. I do want to eventually upgrade further so I can do 1080p/60 on the video-out/preview instead of 720p/60, but for the price it’s a no-brainer.

Checking Amazon now, it’s strange to see it at about $210 NIB. I got both of mine NIB for $130 shipped each from Amazon last year. I’m not really sure why the price has gone up. But yeah, eBay looks like a better alternative.

There could be several factors. How powerful is your computer? What other software have you installed on it since you started? Are you plugging the hardware into the same ports every time you stream? Have you raised the resolutions on the cams without realizing it? Are you using more stream overlays now or embedded chat apps (all these eat into your computer’s resources/memory)? How many times have you updated the PC since (Windows particularly if that’s what you use)? Lots of things can affect the performance over time, especially if your computer wasn’t fully up to snuff to begin with.

Case in point, when I first got into pinball streaming, I used a cheap laptop that was barely suitable for the task, and while the stream was passable at first, it become unwatchable as time went on despite using the exact same hardware and only installing the usual Windows updates to it. I still had the computer running about as lean as it could and it wasn’t used for anything other than streaming.

*Edit: I checked out your stream. I’d try lowering the resolution on the playfield camera a bit. It looks really sharp which makes me think you’ve got it fairly high. Take it down to 1280 x 720, and lower if that’s not working, then see how your performance works from there. You can get away with a lower resolution on the playfield cam because it’s not taking up the whole screen. Also, 1080p feeds from the cam can bog down the USB bus pretty quickly. Another troubleshooting method is to switch the cams around on your USB ports. Also, is that a Mac, or a PC? I couldn’t tell in the background.

As an aside, make sure you have auto-focus disabled, I noticed that kicking in a couple of times. That probably won’t effect the smoothness of the performance, but it will make things blurry randomly as it thinks it needs to re-adjust.

The CX-405 does both. You can choose either in the HDMI out part of the settings.

I will have to double check. I am pretty sure mine just gives me 720p or 1080i for 60fps. I could be misremembering though since when I originally bought it I didn’t have a capture card that could do 1080p/60.

oh i’ve definitely confused some things here and there. It’s a lot to keep up with.
Pretty certain about this because I recently had to set it up that way when streaming the Flippers tournament. I had to mix CX-405s and Pany v110, on the same switch, and the only way to get that to work smoothly was to set it to 1080 because the Panasonics can only do 1080i or 480p, and they are only 30fps. The change in frame rate didn’t seem to matter to Xsplit, just the resolution.

I never saw a way to change FPS. Just select resolution 1080p, 1080i, or 720p. Yeah, there aren’t too many cards that can do a proper 1080p60fps. At least affordable ones. The internal ones I have only do 720p @60fps. The Avermedia LGX I have can do the 1080p @60fp, but its USB and it can act real quirky.

IMac

This is a hell of a deal if it’s suitable for streaming. I don’t know anything about graphics cards, but the other specs of this seem good.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i3-6gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5606100.p?ref=199&loc=TnL5HPStwNw&acampID=1&siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-x6QEyyAzrgwX5WiK2NhBOw

I’d probably stay away from it. Streaming well needs a lot of juice, and the i3 probably won’t be fit for the job. Better to spend a few hundred dollars more on an i5 or better. If you are going to do it, you may as well do it right the first time. (I made the mistake of buying a similarly priced laptop and ended up having to buy a new one later that year, the stream suffered so badly).

Noted. Thanks.

Depends on your setup imo. I have a i5 and it can run a couple c920’s without breaking a sweat. I tried for some time to make a usb capture card work with an hdmi cam and in the end it couldn’t handle it. I spent around200 more than that HP about 8 months ago.

Starting a (hopefully) weekly streaming series from Arcade Super Awesome Thurs. Jan 19th. Mind voting on which game we should start with:

#world-cup-soccer #demolition-man #elvira-and-the-party-monsters #guns-n-roses

Fill out the survey:

A quick question, I purcased at Logitec web cam 922 and having problems because it keeps altering focus during the recording of the playfield. Any way to stop this?

you need to go into the software and uncheck auto-focus:

Thanks. will do and try and join the community - if Australias internet speed wasn’t snail pace would help too…

Things are looking good with the setup now. Purchased a snowball mic, but the sound is very distant and soft. I’m using x split software the Logitech C920 and a smaller cam for the DMD. For the sound input I’m not sure if I’m selecting the mic properly- just on each screen right clicking and selecting snowball mic-is that correct?

Worked it out-just had to turn off all the “sources” from the various cameras and better volume with no echo. Looking forward to posting some stuff on YouTube with my daughter.

@dendoc

That is certainly good practice, but you need to make sure you are setting your snowball as the microphone being used. There is a good chance that a default mic in your computer (built in webcam etc.) is being used. Click the gear that’s to the left of the transition selector. That will bring up general settings. Click the audio tab and go to the microphone dropdown option. If your snowball is plugged in, you should see it as an option. It’s either going to be labeled snowball or USB mic with some port number associated with it.

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With a bonus coming in from work, a pin on the way, and a hopeful YouTube series coming, I think it’s about time to get a streaming kit. Computer is a solid PC and has Thunderbolt ports if needed. Windows 10 has been the spawn of Devils Dare with multiple USBs, and I hope someone found a fix so I can run multiple filler USBs or even a playfield one if there’s a good one out there. I would like to keep the rig somewhat portable if possible sans the desktop is going off of.

That’s my stipulations, what do you have to recommend? I’ve read the thread and wanted to see if anything changed before committing.

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with these settings my stream continually froze up. No idea what I am doing.

I would lower your resolution and see what happens. Streaming at over 1080p at 60 fps is taxing for even the most robust systems.

3500 is the absolute max bitrate you can use without violating the twitch ToS… but it is not even too helpful with the huge 2880x1800 output resolution you’re using…

Check out this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/2dz7ru/bitrates_resolutions_and_quality/

Based on what he’s saying… your image fidelity will be extremly low with 0.01bits per pixel because of the limitations of Twitch’s ingest cap. He recommends at least 0.1.

I use 60fps, 1280x720 output resolution, and 2200 bitrate (max I can do on location) and my “bits per pixel” is 0.04… so 4x better quality with far “worse” settings. You double your video quality by dropping to 30fps… but I find the 60fps playfield cam to be more important… and i hope that the video compression with so much static layout stuff helps me make up the deficit.

thanks. I’m not sure why my settings were set as they were. I went back to the computer I use to stream from and replicated those settings and everything worked fine.

Enjoyed the Aerosmith stream btw, thanks for doing it.

Do any of you have recommendations for video editing software? Preference is Windows, Mac, Linux, in that order, with free/cheap being preferred as well. Here’s what I’m looking for, which probably is pretty basic:

• Slice and dice segments of video to pull out particular games from a long stream, remove downtime between balls, etc.
• Crop video e.g. just use the playfield cam part of a larger layout I had when streaming.
• Add voice-overs
• Add fancy arrows and maybe even replays like those PAPA videos.

It would also be cool if I could annotate and look up segments of video like “5:20 to 13:45 is a game of Metallica.” Not sure what this is called or if it would be done in editing software.

If cropping/rotation and image overlay/transformation/rotation is necessary, I’d suggest the consumer versions of Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas.

Been messing around the past couple nights with OBS. I seem to be getting the hang of it, but had a couple questions. Can someone look over this recording I did last night with my Firepower and give me their thoughts? I used 720 at 60 fps for most of the recording but then switched to 1080 at 30 fps at the 25 min mark. The resolution is way better obviously, but i lose the brighter picture I had with 720 at 60.

Is this a situation of just adding some auxillary lighting to help brighten the playfield when running at 1080?

I am only using one C922 right now and the crappy cam on my laptop for the scoring display camera. Gonna get more gear, but I wanted to get the hang of this process first.

thanks!

I don’t stream, but IMO from a viewer’s perspective I would rather see 720p60 than 1080p30. 60 fps makes the viewing experience much more fluid and the resolution bump to 1080 isn’t as noticeable.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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/

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.

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…

Maybe I’m the only one here with this combo, but as a heads up the Elgato HD60 Pro will not work in a Ryzen-based system at this time unless plugged into a PCIe x16 slot. Supposedly they have a firmware fix but the replacement card I received with the updated firmware doesn’t work in my system AT ALL! Waiting for more tech support on it.

In other news, the Elgato Stream Deck is an awesome little device, particularly when combined with AutoHotKey. Will be so useful during large-scale events.

@kdeangelo I recall you saying you had issues with Elgato HD60 pro in the past. Have they been resolved? Are you still using the Avermedia ones?

It was a great card with the latest drivers until I changed over to Ryzen. I wanted to grab a 2nd to use but am waiting until my current firmware issue is resolved.

Yes, I’m still using the Avermedia ones (Game Broadcaster HD), 3 in the system along with the HD60 Pro. Easily the best/easiest cards I’ve used.

I also recently tried the Avermedia Live Gamer HD 2 (HD60 Pro competitor) but had nothing but problems with it. Constant stuttering in the capture. Drivers seem very early too, despite it having been out for a bit.

What are the top 5 things I need to examine to fix my FPS problem on twitch? Last night I was down to 15 fps and it was unwatchable.

I’ve found that if my CPU is taxed much more than 50% it starts to have skips or freezes on the stream every so often. Also if I had too many USB devices plugged in.

Shout outs to the awesome efforts of @haugstrup for MatchPlay! I’m now using the MatchPlay API to grab player names and scores/strike count and display them live on the stream. Really makes it nice for viewers to follow along with no effort on my side.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/147391441?t=2h13m30s

I’m going to start making the slow trek of swapping out webcams for the handycams. Does anyone have any experience with programmable/controllable HDMI switchers? I’d like to control the switch from the PC so that when I swap a scene in OBS, the input will change on the switch.

That’s super cool @mwelsh

Really nice stream with commentary etc.

For BCO we are hoping to stream main qualifying, classics finals and main finals. All of the cameras I have will be dedicated to the main bank and we were hoping to use some wireless cameras to cover the classics finals on a portable rig. Anyone have any suggestions? We’ll be using a laptop for the portable rig.

I’m looking into replacing my usb webcams with hdmi cams. I already use the sony CX-405’s for the playfields. Now I’m looking for some inexpensive hdmi cams for score/player.
I already tried one these:

Although it has hdmi output, it isn’t capable to live throughput the signal.

Anyone have some suggestions?

If you don’t want to give up on the camera you’ve purchased, you might check for an alternate firmware on the GoPrawn Forums. I wouldn’t be surprised if you find one to enable live output on the hdmi port.

Going waaay off on a tangent, because I have a few of these on my project shelf:
There are a few dozen variants of this camera manufactured by a handful of Shenzhen OEMs, all with the same basic design, swapping out the SoC and image sensor. They’re dirt cheap, but most of the time they lie about recording capabilities, up-sampling a 720p capable sensor to 1080p, or 1080p to 4k.

Interestingly a number of them run Android under the hood (despite the gui looking nothing like Android), and offer up a root shell if you connect to them with ADB.

Even more interestingly, (at least on the Allwinner V3 variants I have) a v4l2 video interface is available once you have a shell, meaning you can inject a statically built copy of ffmpeg. Since many of the variants (even in the sub-$30 range) have WiFi, it’s then possible to not only stream out the hdmi interface, but ship an RTMP stream directly from the camera to a streaming service or broadcast workstation.

I’ve been eyeing these thinking something like this is possible. Is what you describe relatively easy? Could you walk a novice through it in a step-by-step guide?

Right now the process is fairly straightforward, but incredibly flaky because I’m introducing/taking advantage of a race condition to grab /dev/video0 before the Android media service can, as well as patching the camera driver config to stop the up-sampling nonsense. I’ll see if I can hammer my notes into some usable instructions, but can make no promises.

I use DB Power from Amazon for the backboxes. With different firmware to remove all the info/HUD coming out of the HDMI in monitoring mode. The green I don’t use anymore since I can only have the same exact output device on the same switch stack (limitation of my capture devices I assume) One is 59.94 and one is 60 and I can’t put them on the same switch…

IMG_6392.JPG4032×3024 2.57 MB

They were used on games like Blackout, Alien Star and Paragon.

I’m running 3-4 logitech cameras (922 and 615s - could be my first mistake), but I can only get my Logitech software to turn off auto-focus on one. Any way around this? OBS doesn’t give me camera options for whatever reason on my Mac.

At least in windows you can only adjust the last one in your devices list. So you unplug the cameras in reverse order, adjust the camera, and then plug them one at a time to get the specific control panel for the webcam. this should only be a problem for multiple of the same camera type

But in OBS on my computer you can just go into properties, and turns off the auto focus. It’s a check box ok the second tab within properties.

Thats good info Tim. i’ve struggled with that on my setup for a long time. my solution was to use an assortment of cams.

For some reason, I don’t have those properties in my OBS. I agree it should. @timballs this is what I experienced as well. Re-connecting provides mixed results.

My bad. Just noticed you’re Mac.

In windows land I solved this problem by connecting all the cameras figuring out which one my cameras I could control and numbering it. If you have four cameras the first label would be camera 4. Keep doing this until you get to 1 camera plugged in. Now plug them in in order and adjust the settings of each as you plug them in. You only get one shot at adjusting the cameras because, once you have them all plugged in you will only be able to adjust camera 4. Good luck!

Now I’m using a Monoprice 8x1 HDMI switch, and I wrote a little app to control it from my PC over serial cable. It lets you bind each input to a hotkey, so I can switch both my OBS scene and the HDMI input using a single key and no remote controls. Here’s the app on the off chance that it’s useful to anyone else:

Monoprice 8x1 HDMI Controller App on GitHub

Any USB-to-RS232 cable should work fine. I use this one, no problem even with a long USB extension cable.
UGREEN USB to RS232

No clue if it works with any of the other models of HDMI switch.

Found Rubbermaid Fasttracks at Home Depot today. I think this is going to make streaming multiple games at my house much easier. This system attaches perfectly to the bottom of the floor joists and the attachment slides easily along the track. Now I just need to get the perfect setup of attaching the cameras to it for the dmd andthe player so all of them can move from game to game easy. For now I have a monopod attached that serves well for the playfield cam.

IMG_6108.JPG4032×3024 2.11 MB

IMG_6109.PNG750×1334 1.07 MB

Rubbermaid FastTrack Garage Storage System Rail, 84", 5G77 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000LX5WYU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_MNdxzbNNQG68X

Linking @GarrettHays dissertation on his streaming setup here (it’s a separate thread)

Nice! At INDISC I made batch files to control the 4 Monoprice switches I use. This should make life easier, thanks!

Ok. I bought this camera just to test the limits of cheap webcams. https://www.amazon.com/480P-Camera-Built-Plug-Play/dp/B01N42B62R/ It’s not great but I think it would be ok as an extra player cam or DMD cam. HOWEVER I can’t seem to disable autofocus. The section in xsplit is all greyed out. I can change the exposure and stuff. But not the focus like I can on my logitech cams. Are there alternative drivers or firmware that could fix this? Or some type of cam control software? Probably not worth the time if the fix isn’t fairly simple.

For those of you that stream games with LCDs, how do you capture the LCD without it being all washed out and contrasty? For some reason I can not find good settings for that. I’m using a c920 on the Star Wars LCD and it just looks terribly washed out.

I’ve had a really hard time on WOZ, Aerosmith and Lexy Lightspeed. The best I could do was to lower the exposure a ton until everything else except the LCD was really dark and mess with the white balance until the colors looked ok. It never looked good but you could at least see player scores.

I use c920’s for everything but the playfield.
For Star was or any LCD screen, you gotta drop the crap out of the exposure, up the gain only a touch, and work your white balance to get it right.
Don’t mess with brightness or contrast.

If you haven’t already sorted your camera settings, I use a Mac and the Webcam Settings application. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/webcam-settings/id533696630?mt=12

You don’t have to unplug/adjust/replug cameras like some of the PC users have lamented. In the app, there’s a drop down menu where you can select which cam you’d like to adjust, listed as: Logitech c920 #1, #2, #3, when dealing with the same model.

Purchased! I’ll report back once there’s new Batman code to stream, or after the Wing Pingolf Classic 2 on Saturday when I give this a try.

We did our first live streams from noisy venues this week. The audio was… frustrating. There was the noise from the machines being played, the venue’s music (which we did have them turn down a bit) and then bar goers whose conversations became louder the later the night and greater the alcohol.

How do you mix the audio in these situations? I run a Mac, OBS, Audio Hijack and use a Blue Snowball. I suppose this question is meant for Mac users like @DEADFLIP @BrewinBombers @TaylorVA

Also, for the first time in a long while the audio was out of sync for the initial part of our stream. After dialing in those settings and being consistent with which USB hubs and cables were dedicated to each device, what causes this to happen?

We’re still very new at this and appreciate such a supportive community.

We have this problem at our venue as well. I think getting closer to the mic and lowering the gain on the mic would help. We use nice pro headsets with built in mics. I think this helps - but it’s still very noisy. But for the most part you can hear what the commentator is saying. Here is an example of our stream. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/159201023 We are VERY new at this. This was our first tourney stream. Lots of plans for future streams. Multiple games on cam or a movable rig is high on the list. I believe these are the headsets we are using. https://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-BPHS1-Broadcast-Headset-Dynamic/dp/B003D87JI2 The mics are XLR and we have them going into an audio mixer.

I think you’re right. Getting closer to the mic would definitely be better and I will fiddle with gain as well.

The headset mics do a world of good from what I was hearing, though I can’t imagine trying to play while wearing one (in our situation). Thanks for the advice!

I think misary is on the right track. I use a snowball on my Mac but I only stream out of my game room so not much of an issue. The headset mic seems like a decent solution and something I’ve kicked around but I know I’d jerk it off my head almost every game played.

What sort of accessories would I need in order to receive the camera’s HDMI output into my computer? Would something like this work? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4SM7H6/ref=asc_df_B01N4SM7H65090603/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=395033&creativeASIN=B01N4SM7H6&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167141218295&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=12391253262716994923&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033253&hvtargid=pla-308935532565

Would it just be as simple as plugging it in, and now you can select it as a source on OBS?

Yes you need something like that. But most people seem to use capture devices from Elgato or AverMedia or blackmagic. $99 isn’t much cheaper than the other solutions and they all seem to have some bugs/quirks so I’d stick with one of the bigger brands for now. What camera are you planning on using? Some are better than others. Lots of good info on capture devices and HDMI cams in this thread.

I’ve been struggling with clip style stand mounts I saw suggested here for my cameras for awhile and finally gave up. I found these suckers on Amazon, and I’m in love. The entire system works well with the “Amazon Basics” mic stands I’m using to hold the cameras.

These clamps are aluminum and still light enough to mount 3 922/602s on one boom arm without additional weight on the feet. My setup and tweak time just dropped by half. I can now get a 3 cam setup in a clear space in under 10 minutes. With these buggers, I can also have two games with two cams in under 20.

Non-Affiliate Amazon Links Below

SmallRig Cool Ballhead Arm Super Clamp Mount Multi-function Double Ball Adapter with Bottom Clamp

SmallRig Clamp Mount V1 w/ Ball Head Mount Hot Shoe Adapter and Cool Clamp

There are tons of other great items that could be useful from this company and similar companies.

Nice find! I searched forever for some metal clamps and couldn’t find them. These look much nicer than the plastic once I bought!

Anyone try the Yi 4k+ action camera? It supports 4k60fpd, 1080p120fps, and 720p240fps* and it looks like it either does or eventually will work as an RTMP server over wifi, which would be nice. I’ll probably give it a go if I don’t hear anything bad.

*I think 240fps could be really cool for recording flipper techniques, including what I’m doing wrong when I fail.

High speed close up replay shots of flipper saves is probably the #1 thing I want to see in pinball broadcasting. INDISC and PAPA (anyone else?) have slow mo instant replays now which is awesome. But they look zoomed/cropped and at most 60fps. I would love to see this at 240+ fps. Even if they they couldn’t do it live and just inserted it in the archived broadcast I’d be pretty excited.

Also cheap reliable RMTP cams over wifi would be a game changer, but am not holding my breath on that one.

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?)

Re: Webcam Settings Application for the Mac:

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!

Feel free to look at the edit, but I’ll be formatting a nicer posting for all this info. <3

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?

@chuckwurt

Google quotes this site: http://www.yourcablestore.com/USB-Cable-Length-Limitations-And-How-To-Break-Them_ep_42-1.html

I’ve done 20 ft no problem with a powered hub on a C920 which is 2.0.

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.

How many cameras do you have? I use these with a passive cable at the end to get somewhere around 40’ These things are awesome and cheap.

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.

Didn’t see your 60-70 foot requirement. I have no experience with this but you can do usb over ethernet. They claim 200’ on this site

https://sewelldirect.com/ul-link-ul10-by-sewell?stm_type=ppc&stm_source=adwords&stm_SKU=sw-30224&campaignid=767598408&adgroupid=38586783977&creative=209824429154&targetid=kwd-369407227&feeditemid=&keyword=usb%20over%20cat5&matchtype=b&gclid=CjsKDwjw5arMBRDz9cK2uen9ORIkAAqmJewStjwVAknTra9PIKI4igktK0llCuCP2hFXvi-_8teMGgJtJ_D_BwE

Holy expensive. Thanks though. I’m gonna try the cheaper USB only route first then might have to get one of these and try this. Thanks again!

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.

OBS 20.0 just released with a few nice features:

• 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.

At a minimum subscribe to papatv on youtube, you will get notifications when they go live.

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.

Do you think it’s possible that three cams and a mic plugged into this system might be too much for it to handle?

Depends on what resolution the cameras will be at. I’d definitely do a bunch of testing before buying one of those and I’d keep my fingers crossed

Yeah not sure I can do testing without buying it. Haha. Seems in the reviews I’ve read people are joking two cameras to it. Haven’t seen three. Maybe if I stick to a lower res cheaper cam for the third one I’ll get away with it. Don’t worry I’ll jump on this grenade and report back so others can stay away if need be! I refuse to concede that I can’t have the computer far away from my rig!! Haha

Yea, 3 cams and a mic will probably be too much for one hub. You can try the following steps in OBS to try to get all 3 working:

• Add each camera to your scene as a Video Capture Source.
• For each source, right click and go to Properties.
• Press Deactivate. Also make sure “Deactivate when not showing” is checked.
• Change the Resolution/FPS type to Custom.
• Set Resolution to something like 640x360. Set FPS to 30 or 40.
• Try to Activate each camera one by one. If a camera refuses to activate, deactivate it, lower the resolution, and try again.
• For the best quality on C92x cameras, set FPS <=40, go to Configure Video and disable Auto-Focus and Low Light Compensation.

I also tried to do all USB at first, but it’s so finicky, has worse quality, and isn’t that much cheaper when you include all of the USB hubs and extensions you need. You’ll be happier with a proper camera with HDMI capture for the playfield. The two popular brands of capture devices are Avermedia and Elgato. They’ll take in HDMI and connect to your computer via USB.

Thanks so much for the help. Now if I go with 2 web cams and one hdmi with a capture device, what do you recommend for extending that hdmi signal up to 75ft?

Tim, did you ever bit the bullet and give this a try?

Any HDMI cable will do, you can get them in long runs for much cheaper than USB. Just be aware that most cameras have Micro HDMI inputs, so you’ll need an HDMI->Micro HDMI adapter if you get a standard cable.

With the Sony HDR-CX405, I have occasionally had issues with signal degradation when using some >50’ HDMI cables from the camera to the capture card. This showed up as sparkly red pixels on the output. Switching to a nicer HDMI cable solved the problem, or you can lower the res to 720p. You could also probably use a powered HDMI repeater if need be.

Thanks! I’m gonna try all USB one last time. The company that makes that expensive hub says I should be fine. 90 day return policy if not. I’ll report back.

I did. It seemed to work okay for high FPS videos recorded from a small magnetic-footed tripod stuck to the lockdown bar. It didn’t seem too good for a general playfield cam; picked up a lot of glare and the fisheye effect was still somewhat present even when disabled in the menu. I hoped to use RTMP for streaming and then the full res full FPS version in the recording, but the only way I could get an (unsupported) RTMP stream was in direct mode rather than wifi client mode.

Given that it is not that suitable for live streaming, especially the whole playfield, which is at least half of my use case, I decided to return it. If I do find a need for one in the future, I would get the significantly cheaper Yi 4K rather than the 4K+. I think the main difference is that the + supports 60fps at 4K rather than just 30fps. But I believe both support 240fps at 720p, and I think there might be a hack to get the non-plus to function as a wifi client, so it might have more potential at a lower price.

I’m currently toying around with a Panasonic camcorder instead. I’ve only pointed it at a playfield and looked at the on-camera display, but it looks great on there and I’ll try streaming with it soon.

Has anyone tried avoiding all this “Long USB” cable talk, keeping the streaming rig underneath the pins somewhere and controlling it with another desktop sharing app?

Another idea is to have a single HDMI out of the main compuer to another streaming computer (a lot of the PC game streamers do it this way) that is running OBS and doing the actual broadcasting. Again, this gets you down to one long cable cable vs many long cables / USB issues.

I’m a little out of my depth on this topic, but it seems like there should be some other approaches.

Good suggestions and I have no idea what the setup is other than there’s a long cable involved haha.

Agreed. But for my purposes, since I will have a rig sliding across the ceiling upwards of 30 feet, I will kind of be back where I started. If I can get this Ethernet extension to work, I will only need one long Ethernet cable. Pretty cheap outside of the hub/extender.

Very interested in this solution.

I recently captured direct audio from a table while streaming, and it’s pretty easy with OBS, so I thought I’d share:

Connect a 3.5mm audio cable from the game to the Mic or Line In input on your PC. Then you can add an “Audio Input Capture” source to your scene in OBS and set it to the appropriate input. You can adjust the volume by tweaking the mixer for the source in the Mixer list.

The audio will capture only in scenes with that Audio Input source. This is nice if you are streaming multiple games so the game audio only plays on the appropriate scene. We did this for our SW launch party.

Has anyone tried using this cam? Sony HDRPJ275/B
https://www.amazon.com/Sony-HDRPJ275-2-7-Inch-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B00HNJWVO4/

Seems to have an HDMI out, but no idea about on screen menus and if it will shut down after so long. Also isn’t there a google doc with a few camera models listed and notes about if they are suited for streaming? Can’t seem to find it.

Here is my first attempt with the sewell direct Ethernet extender hub. I have 100’ of Ethernet between the stream rig and my computer.

You can see all the camera settings on the stream screen via the link below.

What’s not shown is that I also have a snowball mic hooked into the hub. So all four USB ports in the hub are being used. They are all 2.0 ports.

My goal is to have this setup for a tournament where I can move my overhead rig from game to game in seconds. If these settings can hold for an extended period of time, I may be in business.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/179288768

Suggestions for microphone settings at an extremely loud bar? See the video below for what I was working with today. I use a snowball mic. Super hard to hear the players and just so much background noise. Would like to go back and stream again but the noise makes it tough right now.

The snowball might still work in a loud environment if you put it in front of your face so you are talking directly into it. I can’t even see it in the feed. Something else to try is a dedicated headset.

You will definitely need to experiment a bit.

The story of a pinball streamer’s life. Haha. Thanks for the help.

Just figured out how to setup two scenes in OBS that will allow the commentators to switch from the standings and groupings of a matchplay event for up to 40 players.

Once setup, just simply save these scenes and you don’t need to redo them for each new tournament. Just change the URL in the settings and the scenes will update correctly to the new tournament.

Need to use the URL for standings and matches from the matchplay live screen that the players see.

If you are using OBS try using an EQ VST plugin. I used one when I streamed Silverball showdown and it worked really well. I was using the snowball too and you could hear a constant low pitch rumble from the arcade. I was able to get rid of a lot of that with the EQ.

lowering the mic gain in your computer works too. If you’re using a PC, it’s in the Sound settings. When I’m in a loud bar, I have to take mine down to like 7/100.

C920 for under $50 on newegg with coupon code. Deal probably won’t last long. https://slickdeals.net/f/10659268-logitech-c920-hd-1080p-pro-webcam-46-79-ac-free-shipping-via-newegg

K15 Open 2017 qualification streaming currently live at http://tv.k15.fi (which redirects to K15pinball twitch channel)

Our crew managed to implement some pretty neat features combining our live scoring system to live stream, adding automatically some interesting information about the players and standings to the stream. In my opinion this helps greatly to produce interesting stream content without having live commentators always available.

If I find some extra time I try to write a little more about the setup.

–
Olli-Mikko

Really interested in this info. The stream was phenomenal and the live updates added a very nice touch.

Hi all, just come across this thread - thanks @WWJ for the headsup.

I streamed the recent event at Play Expo (Manchester, UK) this year… the live stream is still up and I plan to put an edited version together for YouTube, but it’s pretty watchable as-is. Just a small pause in the action at one stage.

pt.1
https://go.twitch.tv/videos/182417080
pt.2
https://go.twitch.tv/videos/182433964

Appreciate your comments!

I would echo peoples thoughts about long USB, HDMI is much more forgiving especially at 720p30. For this event I had to use some converters and then run SDI coax back to the commentary booth as one particular run was 30m / 100ft.

CX405 cams all the way for me!

I’m planning to do a stream this evening (8pm GMT / 2pm CT) so happy to answer any questions “in person”, but I’ll keep an eye on this excellent thread from now on.

Cheers,

Tim

Do you have any sample video from this setup? Is this what your Twitch channel is currently using for DMD?

if anyone wants to come watch me stream for SDTM pinball tomorrow night we are going to be messing around with a stream rig I made to hopefully be used in the future for the tournaments I host.

If working right, should be able to go from game to game with ease and stream up to 15 pinball machines with only one set of cameras. The streaming booth will be around 75ft away from the cameras too. Game switching should take seconds.

We shall see. Would love other streamers to tune in and give your thoughts.

8 pm eastern. Www.twitch.tv/sdtmpinball

Most of my setups are wired w/ Logitech C922s for the DMDs, but I have a single wireless setup where I use the Git2 for the DMD capture along with a wireless HDMI transmitter + CX405 for the playfield. I can move this setup around easily, which is nice when there are more games than cameras.

Here’s a sample with the wireless setup from yesterday:

You can notice the ~1s latency on the score cam, but it’s not so bad. Works decent enough for a DMD game, but the newer LCD games are a little unreadable with it. This is only a single setup too; I’m not sure how it’d work with multiple wireless cams in the same room.

Interesting. Might try the HDMI wireless transmitter on my setup when I upgrade to the cx405. It’s that or run a 50ft hdmi. Haha

Would love to know everyone’s thoughts on tonight’s stream. We did a dry run of how I would stream a tournament in my basement. Was able to move the rig from game to game in seconds. Also this rig uses the usb hub that runs an Ethernet cable from a hub to hub and connects to the stream computer 100’ away.

I had the PF at 30 fps, and the player and dmd at 15 fps. I may be able to push the player and dmd to 20 fps, but probably not. I think it turned out pretty good and think that a tournament could be more than watchable this way.

I will be streaming a tournament on dec 2. Qualifying and finals. Hopefully I can convince Greg and Zach to do the commentary.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/201835642

YouTube link:

Can you post a few pics of your rig? I’m interested on how you set your cameras and able to switch so quickly.

A9336BF5-4834-48DA-892B-3F81E006855C.jpeg4032×3024 1.99 MB

993821A4-A1CD-4456-9233-C5AC29D4B145.jpeg4032×3024 2.17 MB

20D85ED1-69E0-4C00-BB87-F25AC2039E17.jpeg4032×3024 2.38 MB

C1431171-2E67-4E99-9458-5DB8A47DD775.jpeg4032×3024 2.08 MB

1A537508-3A2D-40D0-A61C-58292FEF3C18.jpeg4032×3024 2.4 MB

26611A5B-90BB-4924-8F5C-72A6EC8D8374.jpeg4032×3024 2.33 MB

Tried to get some good ones. If you have any other specific questions, let me know. I can post a punch list of stuff you need to make this rig too.

That’s Excellent. What are you using for a track to move the cameras?

Massive post incoming!! Haha:

First you need some Rubbermaid Fasttrack hanging tracks. They are for garage walls to hang bikes and tools on. I put these across the studs in my ceiling:

https://www.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-FastTrack-Garage-Storage-1784416/dp/B000LX5WYU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1510839268&sr=8-4&keywords=rubbermaid+fasttrack

Then you will need this attachment for the fasttrack system. This is the part that will have all your gear attached to it:

https://www.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-FastTrack-Storage-Multi-Purpose-1784458/dp/B0009JQRYA/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1510839268&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=rubbermaid+fasttrack&psc=1

Then you will need a ton of strong zip ties. I say go to home depot and get a big back of long fairly thick zip ties.

Then you will need one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XN1P9QI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Two of these, one for the player cam and one for the DMD cam:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MWNYGUS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also bought one of these to attach to the monopod for the playfield cam as it gives you easier adjustments for the camera than the one mounted on the monopod just attach it to the end of the monopod:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012FTXOW4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Last piece and most important is this. it is a part from a lighting stand. go to the link and order part #94352 complete side arm assembly from the order form at the bottom ($20):

So the theory behind this is you put the track across your ceiling above the part of the play field you want the PF cam to sit above. the PF cam will sit back off the track about 3", and will be pointed straight down via the monopod.

the attachment you put on the track has a clip on it that makes it easy to dettach and reattach, but it can also be slid up and down the track. it has two prongs on it. the monopod will be attached with zip ties on the inside of one of the prongs and point straight down to the playfield. that is your playfield cam mount.

Next is mounting the lighting stand part you ordered to the fast track bracket. this piece goes between the monopod and the other prong of the fast track attachment. this takes some fine tuning with the zip ties you have, but what you want is this pole to be pointed at a 45 degree angle towards the DMD. secure the pole to the fast track attachment via xip ties and the holes that are in the pole.

Next use the goose neck clamps and put one on the very end of the pole (closest to the backglass) and position it so that the camera on that will shoot the player.

Next use the other goose neck clamp just above the other one on the light stand pole. this is your DMD cam. you should be able to position it so that you get a perfect straight on view to the DMD. beauty of this is that even if you move to a EM or SS game, you can take that goose neck clamp, move it all the way up the pole as far as it will go (right next to the track system), then you can adjust the camera to get it back far enough to see all four score displays of the backglass. When you do this it will be very close to the playfield cam, but shouldn’t affect anything.

the tracks come in 7’ and 4’ lengths. if 7’ is too short, get two and line them up.

Then the last thing I use is the Ethernet extended USB hub I’ve mentioned earlier in this thread and run the cables along the ceiling behind the rig using some J channel cable management stuff

Thanks. For some reason the links just go to the amazon home page for me but I get the general idea. Truly awesome setup.

Links fixed.

Great. Thanks

Can someone help me with what I will need to get direct video and audio from my GOT? Is that possible for that game?

@Pinball_LIVE was able to get live audio from any machine which had it. Not sure exactly how he did it but it was only a matter of crocodile clips, and could be changed from machine to machine in seconds.

Hopefully he’ll see this and give a direct answer. Or ask him in person - he usually live streams every Wed night (8pm GMT / 2pm CT)

Heads Up: The Elgato Cam Link (USB 3.0 HDMI Capture Device) is on sale today for $99.99 at Amazon. Great device for adding a camcorder to a laptop.

Thank you for posting this. The only other one’s I’ve seen were $150 or $300 and were huge. I’m hoping the price will continue to come down.

On an unrelated note, we just finished the commentary on our A-Division finals. This is the first time we have attempted commentary on any of our league streams.

That deal was just for black friday/cyber monday. Price is back up to $130 (at least on amazon) I picked one up and haven’t used it much but it seems to work good with w10. But I haven’t used any of the other capture devices.

I noticed that it went back up, but typically these deals are cyclical. I can keep an eye on it and I’ll grab one when the price goes back down. Right now I’m running a C922X but am having the blur issues others are having at 1080p/60fps. It works fine, but it’s just not the quality I was hoping for and I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about it.

I really like how @kdeangelo’s setup is right now. The TNA stream looked great and should be regarded as the gold standard.

Agreed. Need a hd cam and capture device to do the playfield right.

C922 is great for player and dmd though.

It’ll be a couple weeks before I have one on hand to test out (and it’ll be up to somebody else to play with in the context of pinball), but this seems like a deal folks here might be interested in:

Manual focus 1080p30 camera that outputs an H.265 RTSP stream over Ethernet for $32 shipped.

I just ordered a couple, but was too cheap to shell out for DHL.

Hi Everyone
,
I’ve made a pretty important discovery that I wanted to share. I know the main theme as of late are inexpensive rigs, which is awesome, but I need to switch gears on you. For the last 1.5 years or so, I’ve been on a quest to build a rig for tournaments that can cover multiple tables at once, and stream for extended periods of time without issues.

I was attracted to the X99 chipset because there were generally more cores and more PCIe lanes. Started with a 14 core Xeon running at 2.3, and there were always hiccups. Freezes, stutters etc. I thought it might be the motherboard, so I tried a different one. No change. I thought the issue might be my processors low clock speed. Got a much faster i7 with less cores. Nchange. Different capture card? Tried it, same issue in some form or another. An external USB capture card that works flawlessly on my laptop has problems on this technically superior desktop rig.

I finally learned the issue is not with any of the above, but the entire X99 chipset in general. Here are some interesting items that point to this conclusion.

1. Funny German guy who also tried different card, boards, etc. Video diary playlist over the course of two years of him trying to solve the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuZN4Yy8d_c&list=PL4G4YvB2E5U-_-qltn0IvTxUf8qlLwFrf

2. Vmix forum post from their admin acknowledging that the X99 chipset has problems. (Vmix is pro level software and what PAPA TV has been using as of late) https://forums.vmix.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=8456

3. Avermedia admitting to me on Twitter that their latest PCIe card has issues with X99. https://twitter.com/AVerMediaGZ/status/935458048880996352

4. Magewell issuing a recall on their capture cards due to issues with X99. (horizontal tearing is one of the issues I have with my Avermedias) http://www.magewell.com/3927.html

I’m rather frustrated with the stupid amount of time and money I’ve spent trying to solve this only to discover the problem was a very broad one, and a solution most likely does not exist. Magewell infers they have fixed the issue, but I’m hesitant to spend more money only to find out that’s not the case. (If anyone has a magewell pro hdmi and willing and willing to loan temporarily for testing purposes, I’d be most appreciative!)

If you’re planning on building a desktop rig, stay away from the X99 chipset altogether!

tl;dr: X99 chipset has issues with video capture. Avoid!

I’ve been running a ASRock X99 Taichi board for the last few months, including on the Heads-Up vegas stream, and thankfully haven’t run into any issues myself yet that I’ve noticed. Running 2 Magewell Quad HDMI cards, will have to check the version numbers. Crossing my fingers.

I had worse luck, as I’ve said here before I believe, with the Ryzen chipset. Never was able to run a single successful stream with that setup.

I missed you saying that Ryzen went south on you. Glad to know that. Also thanks for confirming that those Magewell quads are working for you. That’s one I’ve been looking at. What CPU are using if you don’t mind me asking? My current CPU is an i7-6800k. My current motherboard is an MSI X99 Xpower Titanium.

Also, have you tried plugging in one of your C127s into your X99 setup? Curious to see if you experience what I have been. Mostly for me it’s an FPS stutter, but there is also horizontal tearing, and from time to time there is serious flicker like the German guy I shared. It’s not consistent though. I had a successful stream almost a year ago, and for the life of me can’t figure out why it didn’t have issues then.
Here is a sample of that stream. Went for over 12 hours straight, no issues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmDXfAEpQII

This setup had 3 C127s, and a USB. 1 had a 60fps switch (playfield cams) and then the other two had 30fps cams. (crowd and score cam switch) I now have the stutter issue consistently with just one C127 doing 60fps. My GC550 which is USB doesn’t stutter but does have slight horizontal tearing. The fps stutter is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but considering the time and effort I’ve put into this, I find it very annoying. Here is a link that goes to a portion where the fps stutter is very apparent in the ball motion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAjpjnOL16M&t=1089s
Perfect ball motion is what I seek.

Tell me about it. Haha

i7-6800k like you.

I did notice some odd tearing occasionally with the c127s, almost looks like a glitch. I have one still in the system and in Vegas I was using two of them I believe for the player/room cameras.

When slo-mo replays are the norm we will all want 240 fps cams or better!

I bought a Sony CX440 cam off eBay and it seems to work the same as the CX405. The only difference in the cameras that I can tell is the cx440 has 8GB of internal storage. I’ve been using it with the elgato cam link. My tests have gone pretty smooth. I tried with xsplit and obs at 720p60. Quality seems similar. xsplit looks slightly better but it might have just been more light that day or something. My DMD cam is a logitech c922 and the player cam is a b910. Both those I believe were set at “default” resolution. I know the OBS stream was 3500kbps not sure about the xsplit stream.

OBS
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/208454430

Xsplit
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/208138260

@mizary

your Xsplit stream was also 3500. I’ve mainly always used Xsplit. I tested OBS once and didn’t like it. The image seemed to have a “haze” to it. This was almost a year ago. I know Xsplit allows you choose between CPU or GPU in respect to what is processing the video.

The CX440 is pretty much the same camera specification wise. The only other difference besides the one you already mentioned is that it has the Bionz X image processor, where the CX405 has the regular Bionz. No clue how much of a difference there is between the two.

I’ve added a cx405 to my setup. I’ve also got a camlink capture device. I cannot get the camera to come up in OBS. I can select the camlink from the video source, but nothing comes up after I do that.

Are there specific settings I need to make sure I have on the Sony cam to get this to work?

I have the camera powered via the power adapter included, and also I have the stock mini HDMI to HDMI plugged into the camera and the other end plugged into the camlink usb capture device.

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

Check in the El Gato Game Capture HD software to see if it works there. That will tend to give you a better error message when something is wrong. My guess is that the Cam Link is plugged into a USB 2.0 port instead of a USB 3.0 port. It requires a USB 3.0 port. Try different USB ports on your PC.

That was it! Thank you.

those using Mac - what are you using as HDMI capture device? Fed up running bootcamp on the Mac and either apple or MS hosing the device drives. Im using OBS but my HDMI from aver media doesn’t support Mac OS so I need to get a couple of new HDMI capture devices, looking for one that does 1080p/60. Ideally compact.

Cheers,
Neil.

Whoops

got direct stream DMD working on MMR and AFMR.

Screen Shot 2017-12-28 at 18.10.43.jpg2880×1800 1.25 MB

Thanks for all the amazing information in this thread. For anyone using Karl’s brilliant wireless HDMI setup, how is the delay? Is it suitable for live commentary? I suppose the commentators would be in sync with the action, but is it a noticeable lag from the actual action.

What is the wireless hdmi solution? Haven’t seen this yet and very interested.

The lag is imperceptible for what we use it for.

@chuckwurt https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=16049
The only unfortunate bit is I’ve only been able to get 2 working at the same time despite the manual claiming 16 transmitters/10 receivers are possible.

Thanks! So you will need one set of these for each hdmi camera, and can only use two sets at once? Did you use some sort of switch to have all the setups going at indisc?

Yes, one set for each hdmi camera.

INDISC was all hardwired. I had planned on using the wireless to stream Classics but had enough on my plate as it was.

Gotcha makes sense. Thanks for sharing. Being the stream nerd I am, I just wanted to be at indisc to see the setup alone!

slacker! could have got our killer classic finals on stream

OBS 21.0 is out with some huge new features:

• Scripting support via Lua or Python!! This should make it way easier to do fancier things (included is a script for instant replay, for example).
• Set transition settings per-scene. For example, my HDMI switch takes a few seconds whenever I switch the signal, so I use a ~5 seconds stringer transition to hide the change, but I want to use a quicker transition when going to something like MatchPlay standings.

Since I have a lot of the equipment now, might start streaming a little every once in a while for the hell of it. Let me know if you have any recommendations or alterations I should make, here is a test clip.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/222643430

Going to work on the overlay some, but just put something together quickly. Also, I am aware there is no audio, I didnt feel like hooking up the mic, but I should be covered there(Blue Snowball).

Looks great! I would just suggest to show the ball in play somewhere too. Helps viewers know where the game stands.

Yeah I am not sure how I did not even think of that, thanks.

I always forget. Especially when switching from a dmd game to SS mid stream.

How do you guys decide on resolution and bitrate for streaming?

Bitrate for me is all on the type of internet connection you have. At home I do 2500, at a bar near me I had to lower it to 1500 to not get choppy frames.

Resolution is all on the cameras being used and whether they are plugged right into the computer, whether hubs are used, extension cables, etc.

I’ve also experienced lag with certain cameras if you go too high on resolution. C922 at 1080 for example.

Cool thanks.

to add on, resolution and frame rate correlates to bit rate. The higher the resolution and frame rate, the more data there is.

There are guidelines for bitrate on twitch. https://stream.twitch.tv/encoding/

For many people bitrate depends on their internet connection. If you have a 2Mbps upload speed you obviously can’t stream at 3500kbps.

Most people who stream pinball stream it at 720p (1280x720) resolution. One reason is it allows you to stream at 60 frames per second. If you have a camera(s) that is capable. If none of your cams will capture 60fps then streaming at 60fps would be a big waste. If you don’t have any cams capable of 60fps but you have good upload speeds then 1080p and 30fps might be a good option.

And if you do only have a 2Mbps upload speed then even 720p30 might be a stretch. Twitch guidelines for 720p30 is 2500-4000 kbps. But I think you can get away with lower bitrates than their guidelines for pinball since there isn’t as much stuff moving on screen at once. A talking head is easier to compress than something like a panning shot of a crowd.

You can also run a test stream on twitch to test your bandwidth w/o going live. You just add “?bandwidthtest” to the end of your twitch key and start the stream. Then you can use twitch inspector https://inspector.twitch.tv/ to monitor the stream and see if your computer/connection is keeping up.

Your computer is also a factor in determining the best resolution/frame rate. It takes more CPU/GPU power to set your cameras at high resolutions and stream in high res. If you are streaming on an older computer you might not be able to do 720p60 or 1080p. But I’ve seen streams around 540p and 480p that look ok… especially on a mobile device.

Also there used to be a max upload rate of 3500 kbps for twitch. That is gone. I’m not sure what the actual new limit is… but people seem to think it’s 6000 kbps which is the highest of their recommended settings. In the past it was good advice for smaller streamers to stick to lower bitrates like 2000-3000 kbps. This is because in the past you had to be partnered to have access to transcodes. Transcodes allow users to watch a lower bitrate version of your stream. Some people don’t have 3Mbps+ download speeds. So they would be unable to watch anything over 3000 kbps, even 2500 might be tough. So if you were a smaller streamer w/o access to transcode options then everyone has to watch your stream at the native bitrate listed as “source”. This also sucks for people watching on mobile with limited data that don’t want to watch a 6000 kbps 1080p stream on their phone. I often drop down to 320p when I watch on my phone if I am not on wifi. HOWEVER. These transcode options are available to everyone at this point. HOWEVER not all the time - it depends on the server load. If there are a ton of people streaming on a Sat night the lower tier streamers might not have transcode options. Partners always have transcode/quality options. Then affiliates, then everyone else starting with streamers with better average viewer counts and stuff. But if you are streaming at 6am on a wed pretty much everyone will have the transcode/quality options. So that can also influence the bitrate you choose.

but if you compress more there is less but you need more CPU.

True, but it’s still always going to be relative to the resolution and fps chosen.

Need some help! I’m putting together a streaming computer. It needs to handle 6 C920’s, only 2 active at a time (3 games will be camera’d up, only 1 active at a time). What do you think the minimum specs are for CPU/RAM/etc. ?Thanks for your help!

I’d recommend not to use 6 c920s but if no choice you need something with lots of USB or lots of ports that can become USB, I tried 6 920s with a Macbook Pro and two thunderbolt docking stations that can power 3 c920’s. It worked but managing the 920’s is painful trying to change their settings.

Cheers,
Neil.

How are you pulling this off? Have a PC with a thunderbolt port, would love to see it maybe get use.

I’m using one of these with my macbook:

Works great. This usb3 device works great too. If you want to capture 2 hdmi devices on your macbook:

http://www.magewell.com/usb-capture-hdmi

Thanks! Since I can get my hands on a few USB cameras to start I might go that route, but:

USB bandwidth distribution on my streaming comp isn’t great, so I’m limited to 2 cameras.

Using the Thunderbolt port could fix the bandwidth issue, but Thunderbolt 1/2 USB hubs were mostly for Mac docks (expensive) and Thunderbolt 3 USB hubs need conversion.

Is there any other bandwidth mitigation strategy/ product that I’m missing?

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/Dock/OWC/Thunderbolt2-Dock/

This works with windows 10 as I run my mac in bootcamp mode with windows 10.

I’ve not yet tested the newer thunderbolt 3 version.

how do you capture two HDMI devices with the magewell one it only has one input?

Neil.

If it works great, that’s fine with me! Hopefully I can get the configuration set up and finally justify the 2 Thunderbolts on my mobo.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear on that. I’m using the magewell and blackmagic simultaneously. So 1 hdmi port on each device.

has anyone tried the Logitech Brio as a playfield cam? any feedback? i know USB cams are falling out of favor but HDMI won’t work for my setup.

I’m getting one but won’t be able to try it until after the Louisville show. I’ll report back as soon as I know.

Pitaven was hanging in our chat last night. He said he streams with the Brio. Looks like a step up from the 922 but not quite Camcorder quality. Here’s a past broadcast: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/230533566

thanks - looks more than adequate for what I’m doing.

yes I use it, its very good but takes up a lot of USB bandwidth downside on it also is that it needs a bracket it has no movable mech like the 922- See my most recent videos on youtube/neilmcrae1 where I’m streaming AFMR - i’m using the brio as the martian topper cam.

Played with the brio, it is a nicer cam but a huge bandwidth hog I found.

Hi there, Owlnonymous, Karl from IEPinball and Jack from DeadFlip have inspired me to try start a pinball stream but wanted to make sure that the quality of the stream makes up for our average play…

My goal => Have good quality 1080p @ 60fps stream on a mix of Bally Williams, Stern, Chicago Gamming and TNA machines…… have fun and learn something new while doing it.

Below is a what I think my setup may look like:
Cameras/ Video Feeds:
Playfield => HDMI Video Camera for the playfield
Player Cam => Webcam
Tilt Bob Cam => Webcam
Flipper Close up Cam => Web Cam
DMD / Score => Direct DMD or LCD to HDMI if possible else Webcam if direct feed not possible

Audio:
Game Audio feed => Direct feed from machine
Player Audio => USB Mic

Other Equipment
Lighting => 2 sets of dimmable LED Studio Lights with soft boxes
Software => Been playing with OBS but will happy for other suggestions, I would like to work out how to display chat feed and possibly live comp scores eventually
Computer => Dell Desktop with Intel Xeon E5-1620 v3 @ 3.50GHz with 16Megs of Ram running Windows 7

What I have bought thus far:
• 4 X Stands (combination of mic stands and lighting stands)
• 4 X Grips/Clamp/Mounts
• Set of lights with soft boxes
• 3 X Logitech c920 (player & tilt bob plus flipper closeup)
• DMD Extender with Raspberry Pi for direct feed for DMD
• 2 X of HDMI splitters
• Several USB and HDMI cords and extenders
• Snowball mic

Still to get / work out:

1. Main playfield camera probably Sony CX405
2. HDMI Capture card(s)
3. Whatever is needed for setting up a direct Audio from the machine

My questions:

1. What HDMI capture cards would you recommend which balance quality, ease of use, reliability and cost?

2. Would you recommend any other camera for the playfield other than the Sony CX-405…seems to be consensus that this is the one but wanted to check.

3. I have not thought about the direct audio from the machine yet but was thinking this is simply connecting a couple crocodile clips to the game speakers…

• Is there more to it than this?
• Can you take the Audio link into the Raspberry Pi if it is being used with DMD extender so it could just feed down the HDMI cable with the DMD output?

Anything else I should think or be warned about?

Thanks a lot

Pinball Evangelist

Highly recommend the elgato camlink

USB extension cables or hubs will give you fits. Try to avoid them at all costs (in my experience). If you have to use them you’ll have to dumb down resolution and frame rates big time to get them to play nice. Trying to go 1080 at 60 you’ll definitely want that camera plugged directly into the computer.

This is usb only though. I haven’t had issues with extended hdmi upwards of 50 feet. There’s also wireless hmdi extenders Karl has used that I haven’t tried yet.

@chuckwurt thanks for the pointers…

Any thoughts on the direct Audio feed? Is it as simple as couple crocodile clips on the speaker terminals or is there more to it?

Haven’t done direct audio. Pinball_live on twitch does and told me this:

audio i just use croc-clips on to the speaker terminals and a sounddesk. Behringer X1204USB is a good choice.

I use the internal Elgato HD60 Pro for my playfield cams. I also use the external Elgato HD60 S for my score cams. I’m sure the CamLink works just as well. Others use AverMedia. They should all work without much issue. You might consider an internal capture card so that you can spare some USB bandwidth for your webcams.

Lots of advice relating to the C920 earlier in this thread: mainly to turn off Auto-Focus and Low Light Compensation (especially if you are getting extra lighting). You may or may not want to set them to 60FPS – they unfortunately have lower quality at 60FPS, but for something like a tilt bob cam it won’t be noticeable and the extra FPS would be cool.

I use the CX-405, they work nicely but I’m also on the lookout for other options. Note that the camera uses Micro HDMI, so you may want to scope out a longer Micro-HDMI cord or an HDMI->Micro adapter to have on hand. Also, you’ll want to plug the camera into the wall for long sessions. It comes with a power adapter, but I use a USB power pack veclro’d to the camera stand.

I don’t have any experience with the DMD Extenders, but TNA outputs both video and audio over its HDMI signal, and you’ll need an extra camera there for the score displays.

If you can get the audio from the croc clips to a 3.5mm jack, you can just plug it into the Line-In on your PC and add this as a Microphone Device or Audio Input Source to your OBS scene. You may or may not have some issue mixing the USB and analog sources (USB will be delayed slightly, so there might be echo). I usually settle for this when I stream on location. But if you want to get a littler fancier, you could get a mixer and an XLR mic instead of the Snowball. The Behringer Xenyx USB mixers that @chuckwurt mentioned are all nice and relatively cheap.

Always nice to see new pinball streamers, good luck!

Maybe I am short sighted but I cant see myself needing more than a couple of audio inputs so think I might get the cheaper Behringer Xenyx Q502USB which is only ~$60 +Shipping from Amazon ==> Amazon.com

Probably fine. I haven’t looked into this at all and I have a Q802 anyway.

This is great advice as in the thread and others I have seen many fretting over USB hubs so was going to add a 4 Ports PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card (http://a.co/79aqIaW)

Thanks for this… but it looks like its cheaper to add the number of USB 3 Ports with a PCI to USB 3.0 Expansion Card (link above)

Thanks I missed this…

On the Audio question :
Great info on the TNA Audio via HDMI… Do you know if the AFMr with LCD’s are the same?

I am going to buy an entry level mixer Behringer Xenyx Q502USB and see how I go.

This is what my setup does. I have like 8 3.0 ports on my machine. No issues with bandwidth so far.

I’m going to be moving some of my older broadcast equipment if anyone here is interested in any of it. This is just the start, more to come I’m sure. These are pinball-people prices and include shipping. Trying to avoid ebay if at all possible.

Last call for equipment is on Thursday, March 29. It goes on Ebay on the 30th. Moved to ebay…

Karl, I ended up buying 2 X Elgato Cam Links HDMI capture cards… and was thinking of getting one of your Avermedia Game Broadcaster HD PCI-E cards and wanted to know if thought they would “play nice” with the Elgato Cam Links?

Does it matter to mix manufacturers?

What do you think is the main advantages of the Avermedia ‘Livegame HD 2’ vs the ‘Game Broadcaster HD’ to justify the price differential?

Same question really for Elgato ‘HD60 Pro’ vs ‘Cam Links’ ?

Thanks…

I’ve mixed plenty of times. The only one I had trouble mixing with was the HD60 Pro while on a Ryzen-based system. Elgato’s drivers suck.

The Avermedia Livegamer HD 2 will capture 1080p60 whereas the Game Broadcaster HD (c127) only does 1080p30 maximum.

Elgato HD60 Pro and Cam Links both do 1080p60. Personally I prefer to use the internal cards where at all possible. Have plenty of other stuff running off of USB.

Heads up: Stream Deck for $99.99 on Amazon, today only for 15 more hours after this post. This thing was well worth the money for me and has helped tremendously in making my setup more user friendly. Allows me to give a quick 1-2 minute rundown on how to operate everything.

Ooh nice! Any idea how to get that to work with an HDMI switcher with a serial port? Can you tie the scenes to both switch the OBS scene and send a signal to the box?

I create batch files to switch my Monoprice 8x1 switcher (via serial) then use the stream deck to execute those files. Two button presses for me, one for the hdmi switch and the other for the scene. Don’t know how OBS handles things but I wouldn’t think you’d want to switch to the scene immediately anyways since the hdmi handshake process can take a few moments.

I wrote a little app here that lets me switch signals with a hotkey:

MonopriceHdmiController

I set the hotkeys in the app to match my scene hotkeys in OBS. I use a video stinger transition in OBS to hide the signal switch (press stream deck button, video fades in, HDMI signal changes, video covers screen for a few seconds, video fades out).

Has anyone put in serious experiments into working with IP (network based) cameras instead of HDMI? Seems like the main issue would be playfield camera, but a cheaper version (without having surveillance in mind) of Axis Q1615 Mk II (check out the “live profile” in their demo video) could be perfect.

@mwelsh mentioned he used GIT2 Pro, which sorta does it (but over wifi which has less bandwidth and not salable), anyone else?

Edit: Also, has anyone attempted to mount the setup (dmd, playfield cameras) on an active gimbal stabilizer attached directly to the machine?

This has been on my to-do list for a while.

I have a few of these guys collecting dust on my bench right now: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1280-720P-1-0MP-mini-IP-Camera-ONVIF-2-0-2-8-12mm-manual-varifocal-zoom/2019281843.html

I have both a 1080p and 720p, but have only really messed with the 720p so far, and while it works well, the firmware is a little shady. I’ll wander over to the shop this weekend and see if I can put together some sample video (unfortunately no pins on hand to demo with).

A friend tried using a raspberry pi with the v2 camera module. It worked but, the image was to dark to be usable in a real environment. I think that IP cameras would be ideal for a tournament setup but we, couldn’t find any for a reasonable price. You can add a usb cam to a raspberry pi but that wasn’t cost effective for what we were doing.