the C920 webcams are on sale today only. http://amzn.com/B006JH8T3S
2 Likes
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 Iām 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-V110ās from ebay and didnāt 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? Iāve always wanted to try streaming but, figure my 5Mb up isnāt going to cut it.
1 Like
We stream at 720p with 5MB upload speed.
2 Likes
That is a great price!
1 Like
I posted a few vids with the HC-V250. They look pretty good. Iām still getting a hang of the settings but the timelapse is wayfun.
2 Likes
Weāre doing a special Saturday stream on Americaās 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
5 Likes
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?
1 Like
Done and done and done (I only did one thing but I needed 10 characters)
2 Likes
Here is my streaming setup:
Monoprice Lighting Stand
Logitech c920 Cameras x 3
Tri-pod for DMD Cam
USB Blue Snowball Room Mic
Powered USB hub x 1
OPTIONAL
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
2 Likes
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 doesnāt help. :-/
1 Like
I do pinball broadcasts as well, but only digital versions. I use OBS to capture footage.
2 Likes
For those that donāt want to use their web browsers for the IRC chat, you can use a Java applet called āChattyā. Or, at least, thatās 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 thatās the one thatās been working well for me.
1 Like
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.
1 Like
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 ācheapā 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 didnāt 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 
5 Likes
Seconded 
1 Like
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?
1 Like
Amazons deal of the day are Intel laptops. How does either of these look? If we should grab one Iād like to do it todayā¦
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
1 Like
Iāve now invested in xsplit, and while testing Iāve found that when I rotate my source the image is rotated correctly but the white input rectangle still stays the same (horizontal) so I canāt 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!
1 Like
i7, or bust. Seriously. If you plan on using this rig for a while, go all-out. Donāt cheap out.
As far as the tournament rig, you probably want to keep that separate. Streaming can be finicky, and Xsplit isnāt 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)? Iād stick with keeping your tourney software on a separate machine for that reason.
1 Like
I think I know what you are implying, but not 100%ā¦
Right click the source image you are speaking of, and in one of the tabs deselect the ākeep aspect ratioā 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 thatās what you want to do. You will also want to turn snapping off. I donāt remember where the option is, but itās 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. Iād 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.
2 Likes