Experienced video streamers please help me with my software/hardware setup

[iusedtoberich]

I made the post below at Black Magic Design's forum website (as I'm using their hardware). Can one of you awesome streamers also lend me some direction on what I need to complete my setup? I'm on my 3rd camera, 2nd computer, and ready to pull my hair out trying to record my banger-self play pool Thank you!





Hello, new to video user here hoping to get a software recommendation.... I'm an avid billiards player (pool) and would like to record my practice sessions on my home pool table.

The camera is mounted on the ceiling, and I'm trying to control the setup completely from my computer, so I won't have to climb up and down a ladder all the time.

I want to do 2 things with the recordings:
1. Archive them to my HD
2. Share some of them on Youtube or Vimeo.
a. I want the recorded files youtube ready, I don't want to have to re-encode them
b. I don't intend to do any live streaming

I do NOT want huge video files. I'd love to be able to record directly from the camera to my HD at 1080P, and maybe 1 to 3 Mbps in H.264 MP4 format. Pool is such a game that the video is almost always the same picture, with just one or two balls moving. So the pixels from frame to frame are almost identical. This way, the file will be relatively small to store many hours on my HD, and I'd also be able to upload the file directly to Youtube, without encoding it. The lowest setting on my Panasonic HV 720 camcorder when recording to the SD card is 1080P at 5Mbs AVCHD. This is actually way more video quality than I need.

My hardware setup to achieve the above is:

Panasonic HV 720 camcorder mounted to wall bracket
HDMI cable 15'
BMD Ultrastudio Mini Recorder
Thunderbolt cable (Apple brand, 6')
MacBook Air (late 2011)

I'm looking for software that will allow me to take the HDMI feed and encode it on the fly to my hard drive.

I've tried BMD Media Express. That works great, but it only has huge file size video editing qualities that are like 100 Mbs. It does not offer any H.264 encoding options.

VLC seems to have a built in capture setting, but thus far I haven't been able to get it to see my camera.
QT also has a built in capture setting, but same problem as the VLC, it won't see my camera connected to the Mini Recorder.

Does anyone know what will work with what I'm trying to do? Preferably freeware? I would be willing to buy something also, but want to be sure it would work first.

Thank you greatly.

 

[Goldy]

I made the post below at Black Magic Design's forum website (as I'm using their hardware). Can one of you awesome streamers also lend me some direction on what I need to complete my setup? I'm on my 3rd camera, 2nd computer, and ready to pull my hair out trying to record my banger-self play pool Thank you!

Lots of trade secrets you're asking for...

All I can really say is you're going about it kinda wrong. When you pipe over the HDMI feed from the Panasonic into your Thunderbolt Shuttle/USB 3.0, you aren't going to get 1080p, but 480p/1080i at best.

I have no recommendations for broadcasting software on the Mac/Apple. Sorry.

Good luck in your venture.

 

[Dopc]

Had to edit this post as I noticed after posting this you're on Apple, I just assumed PC and thus this info is useless for you.....sorry

I do not currently stream but have a long history with streaming video. I do not have an answer for all of your issues, but wanted to pass along a project I have been involved with for quite some time. It is not fully mature as of yet but it has some of the things your looking for.
I use it while practicing on my home table to capture multiple views from multiple sources to record and encode in real-time to a local file in mp4 at whatever desired bitrate etc etc. It is an opensource project (meaning free), its goal is to be an open and free alternative to the pricey streaming/live production software ( Wirecast or Xsplit for a few examples) currently available. It is not perfect and as mentioned is growing and improving with every new release which is often. It is used by many for various purposes (it's a big hit with the streaming gamers). If you're creative with it, it can do quite a lot. It also supports many of the popular web streaming services. check it out and play with it, the latest beta release is one of the best yet. Good luck.

http://obsproject.com/

Dopc.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Lots of trade secrets you're asking for...

All I can really say is you're going about it kinda wrong. When you pipe over the HDMI feed from the Panasonic into your Thunderbolt Shuttle/USB 3.0, you aren't going to get 1080p, but 480p/1080i at best.

I have no recommendations for broadcasting software on the Mac/Apple. Sorry.

Good luck in your venture.

It comes in from my camera at 1080i59.94. Feel free to PM me any trade secrets I don't want to stream, just save locally to my HD and be able to upload to youtube without waiting overnight to encode a few hours of recordings.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Had to edit this post as I noticed after posting this you're on Apple, I just assumed PC and thus this info is useless for you.....sorry

I do not currently stream but have a long history with streaming video. I do not have an answer for all of your issues, but wanted to pass along a project I have been involved with for quite some time. It is not fully mature as of yet but it has some of the things your looking for.
I use it while practicing on my home table to capture multiple views from multiple sources to record and encode in real-time to a local file in mp4 at whatever desired bitrate etc etc. It is an opensource project (meaning free), its goal is to be an open and free alternative to the pricey streaming/live production software ( Wirecast or Xsplit for a few examples) currently available. It is not perfect and as mentioned is growing and improving with every new release which is often. It is used by many for various purposes (it's a big hit with the streaming gamers). If you're creative with it, it can do quite a lot. It also supports many of the popular web streaming services. check it out and play with it, the latest beta release is one of the best yet. Good luck.

http://obsproject.com/

Dopc.

Hi. Thank you for the information. I'm not opposed to getting a new machine for this venture. I would have a computer dedicated full time to the camera...

 

[Goldy]

I use it while practicing on my home table to capture multiple views from multiple sources to record and encode in real-time to a local file in mp4 at whatever desired bitrate etc etc. It is an opensource project (meaning free), its goal is to be an open and free alternative to the pricey streaming/live production software ( Wirecast or Xsplit for a few examples) currently available. It is not perfect and as mentioned is growing and improving with every new release which is often. It is used by many for various purposes (it's a big hit with the streaming gamers). If you're creative with it, it can do quite a lot. It also supports many of the popular web streaming services. check it out and play with it, the latest beta release is one of the best yet. Good luck.

http://obsproject.com/

Dopc.

Yes.. the Xsplit 1.3 Beta is quite stable and has fixed a large number of issues. It is just as good, if not better than Wirecast 4.4 Pro. Wirecast $~1000. Xsplit $~60/yr

 

[Dopc]

Hi. Thank you for the information. I'm not opposed to getting a new machine for this venture. I would have a computer dedicated full time to the camera...

Cool....... I would highly recommend a quad core CPU at the minimum. I'm currently using an i5 laptop and while it will do it, it's taxing the cpu at 70-80% while recording. I have a dedicated desktop for this, I just haven't moved it to the pool room yet due to the room not being finished yet (just installed plank flooring this weekend).

Yes.. the Xsplit 1.3 Beta is quite stable and has fixed a large number of issues. It is just as good, if not better than Wirecast 4.4 Pro. Wirecast $~1000. Xsplit $~60/yr

Hey Mike, you've probably figured out who I am by now . Yupp Xsplit has matured. I was a beta tester of Xsplit from the first public release. I was also a Hylemoff Labs user (what Xsplit is built on) for years prior to Xsplit acquiring the Russian developer Hylemoff project. Since Xsplit has gone to release, I have moved on to OBS (linked above) which is a completely different project altogether. I'm a big open source advocate and have really high hopes for this current project maturing to a widely used standard, but thats a ways down the road from where it's at now. Take care and see you around your stream.

Dopc.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Update:

I booted my Mac into Windows 7, and tried the freeware you guys mentioned above. I couldn't get the computer to see the Ultra Studio Mini Recorder, so there was no video coming in. I have a work Windows 7 computer, but it doesn't have a way to hook up the Mini Recorder, so I can't try that. I'm sure its a driver issue, but its probably a dead end unless I get a new Windows machine that has either USB3 or Thunderbolt inputs, or a tower that accepts an internal HDMI capture card.

I downloaded a trial version of Wirecast 4.3.0 from their website. I've been fooling around with this for about two weeks, here and there. It seems to do what I want it to. It sees my camera, and I can set it to many different encoding formats, resolutions, and bit rates.

It seems I'm processor limited, as I can get an 853x480 recording to work at 30fps, but a 1280x720 recording will only work at 30 fps at a very low bit rate, and a 1920x1080 doesn't get anywhere near 30 fps, no matter the bitrate.

My computer is running an i7 at 1.8 GHz from 2011.

Anyway, it looks like I've reached a dead end. Wirecast is 500 to buy (the trial version has watermarks all over it), and I'd need a more powerful machine as well, probably another 1000 for a new machine (whether Win or Mac). I'm not prepared to fork over 1500 yet

 

[JCIN]

Have you tried just using Flash Media Encoder?

Run the camera in to the computer. Start FME select the camera as the source. Set your bit rate, resolution, audio source, type and quality then instead of streaming to a publishing point just save it to a file.

Click start to start recording. Do your thing. When finished click stop and you will have a .f4v file ready for upload to YouTube and playable with VLC. You do not get the versatility of playback on different devices that a .mp4 has but it sounds like it will give you what you are looking for regarding not having to reencode something to get it online.

I have a mac mini with i5 and it does 1280x720 6000kbps at 30 fps no problem.

FME is free as well.

This is how I usually get the web version of our podcasts. I run the stream out of a tricaster into the mac mini via a BlackMagic box that converts the component video signal from the tricaster into Thunderbolt for the mac. When the podcast is over I just click stop on the mini and upload to YouTube.

It worls great for me. Except on the SVB podcast but that was my fault not the set up.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Thank you JCIN. I didn't even know of this software. I just downloaded it, and am giving it a try. It looks to have all the settings options I'm after. Its having trouble brining in the video from my camera, but I'm probably messing up a setting somewhere. Thanks greatly for the recommendation.