Thanks for the reply! I’m very new to pinball, started over the summer. When I got my Godzilla, your pinmonk fan install video convinced me that I could handle a mod like that on my own! And I used your powerpoint slides as a guide to understanding the basics of a streaming rig.
I’ve played around with bitrates for the locally recorded videos. There’s definitely a loss of detail, noticeable when trying to read inserts zoomed in. But to my eyes, it’s a passable. I think the 6000 kbps limit from Twitch is ultimately what hampers quality more instead of issues locally?
Also, I appreciate the numbers about 3Gbit/s per port for local capture vs 6-8Mbit/s via wireless. I was wondering about the bandwidth in from capture cards, in terms of what a single 40Gbps thunderbolt 4 port can handle. With only having 1 true camera so far, I feel like my next purchases would be a 2nd and 3rd camera, before a thunderbolt enclosure for a pcie capture card, or wireless transmitters/receivers.
I’ve experimented for fun with the a6700, running 4k120. Those videos are at a monster 200-280 Mbps bitrate. I have a 1 minute test video that is 2gb!! So I do appreciate quality, but so much is lost with taking a vertical video of the pinball machine and squeezing it in to 1/3 of a landscape frame. I’ll post a link to it in my google drive once it’s done uploading.
That looks good. I ran a similar config for my portable setup for a while. What saves you a lot of hassle here is that the MBP camera is very efficient (read: compressed and still looks good) and the HDMI from the Geekworm is not full 1080p60.
The 6000Kbit/s straw that we need to push through means that every tiny bit of issue we have locally gets exacerbated by the low bitrate. Like if you have already compressed video that again gets compressed.
The dumb idea I have with 120 FPS is that you can have very clean instant replays with silky smooth slow motion. It’s science fiction for now.
I understand what you’re saying about the twitch compression exacerbating any local quality issues. I do see a range of quality in recorded streams or uploads and I’m sure it boils down to the quality of what is going in from the start as you’ve mentioned.
I have noticed that the Macbook cam comes through remarkably clear. It’s significantly cropped in OBS, yet it still looks good.
I don’t like the lack of detail in my playfield cam. I think it’s not very sharp for a 1080p feed. And I’m sure that’s from compression from the capture device. I’ve wondered if getting a 4k60 feed would improve the end result, given that the camera is capable of streaming that resolution over HDMI. I’ve looked into an Elgato 4K X since it’s capable of up to 4k 144 hz (but compressed, and not in HDR).
I did pick up a used zv-1 today, so it’ll be interesting to see how it affects the streaming setup if I use it to replace the MacBook cam.
What I would love to see is a 4 port HDMI card capable of 2160p per port. Right now it feels hard to justify the price of a $500 capture card with an enclosure when it’s 1080p limited. To less discerning eyes, the cheap capture cards provide an okay amount of detail. I feel like since I’m setting up something small, an intermediate end result for me may be an elgato 4k x for 2160p for the playfield, with 2 cheap capture cards for player and game display.
Here’s a google drive link to the sample 4k120 video I took. It’s zoomed in on the playfield because of a large sensor crop. The a6700 downsizes from 6k to produce the 4k video.
Well, the scaling here adds to the fuzziness. Play around with the different scale filters (right click on the video in the scene). Bilinear and bicubic are the cheapest ones and lanczos costs a lot if you have a lot elements in your scene. It’s mostly helpful for static bitmap graphics but remove jaggies in video too.
That 4K still needs to be scaled down to 607x1080. Unless the camera uses more surface of its sensor in 4K it’s pretty pointless. When I was on PC with NVENC I used a 4K canvas in OBS and used lanczos scaling on everything including the final 2160 → 1080. It looks glorious but the Mac can’t handle it once you start connecting a bunch of external displays and decklinks (that you need for tournament streaming) as displays are on the same budget as the video encoding. I read somewhere that the M4’s have a dedicated display pipeline and doesn’t account against your GPU, but I’ll skip M4 and get the M5 next year. My goal is to go back to a 4K canvas.
I have a 4KX in my arcade setup. It’s an excellent capture card but support has swayed with different Mac updates that makes it incompatible with 10Gbit/s bus speed (it falls back to USB 3.0 == 5Gbit/s). A 4K60 signal is 12Gbit/s and the compression is negligible when run at full speed. I’m on Sonoma right now, which works, and not interested to deal with any potential breakage in Seqoia. The upside with the 4KX or the HD60X (or S) is the line-in.
This one allows you to capture quad 2160p60 on the spec sheet: DeckLink – Tech Specs | Blackmagic Design I don’t have any experience with this card but I have a ton of other BMD gear and they’re pretty solid.
I reason that you don’t need 4 x 4K at all times but having 4K in certain situations is surely helpful. I did a demo of RigC a while back which I’m sure you’ve already seen but this runs through a single 4K capture card with a multiviewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLqVQgK3UIY
Will definitely check out the scale filters. I noticed jaggies pretty bad when I tried out the zv-1 scaled down.
Are you running an M3? That’s disappointing that the Mac can’t manage a 4K canvas (with the extras).
Good to know about the 4KX regarding compression quality for 4K60. I’m on Sequoia currently, would be disappointing to run into issues with the 4KX. Would have to check Reddit first for how it’s been working out for people.
Thanks for pointing out the blackmagic capture card! I think I wrote it off due to requiring an enclosure and misremembered its specs. I see now why that’s the default wired setup recommendation.
The RigC demo video is awesome. The quality on the full scale cropped shot of the flippers is impressive. I think that’s something I’d want to take advantage of if I switched to 4k60 capture. I’ve seen you link to the RigC GitHub, but haven’t taken a look at it yet. Will have to.
There are definitely people who stream with the computer mounted on the rig! IMHO, this works best for hangout style streams where the player is talking while playing – for tournament streams with off-camera commentators, having the computer easily accessible is relatively important from a production standpoint, as things inevitably need to be controlled on the fly, scene layout needs tweaked, cables need reseated, etc. and I wouldn’t trust a basic wireless keyboard+mouse to work at distance in a crowded bar Instead I would prefer using the multiviewer method that @dri suggested if I wanted to save $ on transmitters. YMMV based on your streaming environment, of course.
This post gives a rundown of how to do a basic instant replay using the built-in OBS Replay Buffer feature!
Thanks for the reply! I’m realizing that streaming on location or at a tournament has very different requirements and potential complications than at home. I like having my laptop out at home to see what the feed looks like and to have immediate access to the trackpad and keyboard. But I see that this may not work well on location if machines are close together and a laptop hanging off the rig may overlap with the neighboring machine.
Thanks for link to your very helpful post on setting on instant replays. Will try it out!
I will say if the computer is on the rig, the players will hate it. Others have tried them for tournaments and it’s no bueno. You get grumbles for the rig regardless, but if a computer is hanging off it, they really hate it. Haha
I just make sure than none of the camera sources are cropped in OBS so if the image is in frame at the rig, I know it is on the stream.
I got my Cam Link Pro in today and was able to do a few tests. It didn’t fix the stuttering issue I’m experiencing, which I’m now convinced is something transmitter related. However, I still feel it was a worthwhile purchase because it significantly reduces headaches and setup/breakdown time. Plug in the HDMI and go. No fuss with HDMI to capture card then having to worry about overloading the USB bus. Swapping the OBS profile and assets over took this afternoon into evening, but I think I’ll be much happier in the long run using the desktop. Quite pleased with the purchase. Would recommend. FWIW, I got it on eBay used for $160 plus shipping in perfect working order.
I believe the transmitter issue is cross talk when trying to run 3 pairs - even on different groups. I’m just not sure the frequency range is broad enough to avoid it entirely. I notice it in other streams too. I’ll try to get more scientific about this soon and see if it still exists when only using one pair, then two, then three. If that’s the case, the solution may be to use separate brands that operate on completely different frequencies. For example, using two Accsoons and one Hollyland. It just drives me nuts.
On the first ball, I noticed it twice when the ball reaches the upper lanes at 17:13, again around the time it reaches the flippers, and again when it arcs across the playfield after hitting the top of the lane guide. This all takes place in a span of about 8 seconds.
Just randomly clicking into the video, it happens at 1:18:39 when the ball reaches the flippers through the inlane, again a couple of seconds later after it bounces off the upper rubber.
There are others, but these stand out to me immediately. Am I just going nuts? I see them regardless of where I’m watching the video - phone, TV, computer.
Both my computers have relatively good video cards, certainly capable of decoding 4 1080p streams. The fact that I see it everywhere means the issue isn’t exclusive to just my rig.
Don’t get me wrong! The production quality on your stream is fantastic. I’m just nitpicking because that’s what we do here. I’ll do more scientific research and see what I can come up with.
Talking about where we started, check this video out from 7 years ago on my old channel. We thought we were something using a webcam to hit 60fps! Looks like garbage now haha. Shortly after this I started doing commentary over the recording because I didn’t have capability to do live sound at the time. No mobile rig at the time, so only one game per night. I was using a microphone stand to hold the whole thing together. The community has come a long, long way. It’s painful to watch haha.
Ok I promised more scientific research on the frame skip issue, so here it is.
I tested two playfield cameras side-by-side to see if they were skipping at the same time. The results are posted below. To my eye, it looked like they were indeed pausing briefly at the same time. You can see this easily at 0:38 when the ball hops over the flippers.
You can see it again when the ball reaches its apex around 0:47.
That led me to turn off all the transmitters but one. In direct line of sight, I was still getting skips, albeit less noticeable and less frequent. I thought about testing with my WiFi turned off to see if that was the source of the interference, but what would be the point of that? Anywhere you stream is going to have some kind of WiFi in place. I guess these transmitters just skip frames occasionally.
Does anyone with deep pockets want to take one for the team and pick up a Cineview Master 4K? It would be unnecessary overkill to have 3 of them. It doesn’t bother me if the player and display cams skip a frame every now and again. However, the playfield is where the action is. If the Cineview Master 4K can provide a smooth signal every single time with no frame drops, I think it would be an enhancement for the viewers and possibly worth picking one up. I was watching some streams last night and now I can’t unsee it!
Yep I’m seeing it on the INDISC streams. I just randomly picked a spot in the recording and there’s lots of skipping happening around 18:13.
I think you may be correct when it comes to a practical (pinball budget) solution for wireless transmission. It’s obviously possible with professional equipment. I always think of sideline cameras at football games in this regard. We’re also using these Accsoon units somewhat outside the bounds of their purpose as they’re really meant for monitoring while on a film set.
NDI + multiviewer is a good compromise (check for stutters here if you like). If you really-really hate stutters, SRT is your friend but then you have to live with a full second of lag glass to glass and that can become a bit of a problem with distracting echoes if your broadcasters are close to the games being streamed.
This looks very distracting and I can’t remember the CineView HE being this bad. I wouldn’t rule out encoder lag and all the levers you can pull there. Is the encoder tuned for what you’re trying to do?
I’m good with my current setup. If that can be adjusted to eliminate these stutters, I’m down. Definitely not throwing lots more money in a hole though. Haha
