Around a few months ago, I attempted to get into livestreaming so I downloaded Xsplit, Upon configuring a few settings, it was soon very clear that I needed a decent internet connection in order to livestream.
Now, I would make this a rant at my ISP but they've hardly given me a disgraceful service and I am hardly on the highest tier (which is "Fibre Optic" broadband) by any means but this is a summary of what my internet connection is like.
Download speed: 7 - 9 mbps
Upload speed: 0.4 - 0.6 mbps
Now basically, streaming at a bitrate which won't cause virtually total latency issues for me would require me to set xsplit to around 320x240 and set my bitrate to around 350 - 400kbps.
And I'm not kidding here, if you've ever tried to watch a video on youtube at 240p, you'll see exactly what's wrong with this. Plus this is being attempted through Xsplit, which makes your output lossy as fuck. Hell, even to a level that YouTube commenters have dubbed Minecraft p
I guess the reality is... British ISP upload speeds are tripe. When I've seen broadband deals from other ISPs with faster upload speeds like say... 1.5mbps or even 2.5mbps, they often have huge monthly costs and/or monthly caps (I'm talking like..... 20gb/40gb bandwidth usage a month.) Also, I noticed that it's very hard to find an advertised upload speed for most ISPs because most ads just contain advertised download speeds.
A few weeks ago:
I semi-recently got into YouTube videos, and so far, I am limited at uploading videos at 480p which surprisingly takes quite a bit of time. For example, this video here was 235mb when I uploaded it, and took me about 1 hour and 30 minutes to upload to YouTube. That's right, a 235mb file.
Then again, isn't that filesize pretty high for a 640x480 video? Well maybe but then again, the automatic configuration for Windows Live Movie Maker sets all Standard Definition videos at a bitrate of around 4500kbps, which is a bit excessive.
I reduced it down to around 1750 - 2000 and got some pretty competitive results. For example, my last LP video here was only 133MB and was around two minutes longer.
I have also tried toying around with HD content. I set this video at around 2500kbps bitrate (the typical 720p video encoded with Windows Live Movie Maker on typical settings is around 8500kbps bitrate.) The file in the end was 10mb which isn't bad for a 21 sec video. However, is it just me or for a 720p video, does this look very lossy to you all? I haven't asked anybody for feedback on this specific video yet mind you.
Lessons to learn from all this:
Well enough of me plugging my videos.... I guess the point I was trying to make is that there are two lessons which one can learn from my story, and that is:
1. Before you try streaming, make sure you have the right PC specs and an adequate internet connection. If you're not sure how good (or shit) your upload speed is, you can check here.
2. If you ever produce video content for YouTube and encode your videos after recording them and compiling the footage, check the fucking bitrate You can probably reduce filesizes significantly without necessarily compromising on video quality and your viewers would usually be none the wiser.
Anyway, what is everyone else's internet connections like? And what comparable experiences have you all had with streaming or producing youtube videos?
I see UK on your thing so... I'm on BT unlimited. I can stream at fairly good quality.
I'm not compressing it or anything, screen size (1080p) at 700kbps and it looks nice enough. Maybe see to trying to get BT? I think it's 35 or 40 a month. Or if that's too expensive then I don't know really. I'm one of those people that will pay internet first and everything else last.
My youtube videos aren't half bad. Camtasia is pretty good at just using whichever bitrate you set it to use. PS. Why on earth would you ever use Windows products other than Windows itself?
On February 02 2012 10:34 AyameStarcraft wrote: I see UK on your thing so... I'm on BT unlimited. I can stream at fairly good quality.
I'm not compressing it or anything, screen size (1080p) at 700kbps and it looks nice enough. Maybe see to trying to get BT? I think it's 35 or 40 a month. Or if that's too expensive then I don't know really. I'm one of those people that will pay internet first and everything else last.
My youtube videos aren't half bad. Camtasia is pretty good at just using whichever bitrate you set it to use. PS. Why on earth would you ever use Windows products other than Windows itself?
Camtasia's very expensive though :-O
BT's seemed like a fairly good alternative compared to other ISPs I have looked at.
Windows Live Movie Maker isn't bad for anything that isn't too flashy. I mean if you want to chroma-key for instance or better synch up the video sorta like what SaladUK does with his dubstep remixes, you will need something like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas. I just use WLMM because it's free and I don't really want flashy effects. It works for me.
Besides, not all Microsoft products are terrible. Look at Windows Live Messenger for instance. When you link it to your Facebook account, suddenly it performs 25,000,000% more reliably than Facebook Chat on its own.
Although I factor cost in when I look at programs.
Fraps is $37, but only records raw footage that can easily fill a HDD after a while. The free version gives you a watermark and lets you record for 30 seconds with no sound. I haven't personally tried it.
Bandicam's full version is $39 or around £25 according to today's exchange rates. It can record either uncompressed or compressed video footage. Apparently people have said it's better than Fraps and actually blows it out of the water. The free version contains a watermark and lets you record for 10 minutes at a time with sound.
I think Camtasia Studio is around $500. There are free trials of course. I've heard good things about the program though. After all, it better be good for THAT price.
Sony Vegas varies based on what version you get but I think the £30 or £80 options are probably quite limited.
CamStudio is free but has bollocks resolution support. Plus from my experience, it lags. A LOT.
WeGame is free.... unless you actually want to record footage in a decent resolution then you have to pay a subscription. Plus the Motion JPEG format is a bad choice based on how few programs support it.
Xfire is free but has limited game support, only lets you record at full size or half size, crippling if your native resolution is 1920x1080 unless you literally have a PC with a Core i7 and 8 gigs or more of RAM. Also, video files are fraps-sized.
Taksi is free but holy shit.... It is bugged as hell for a video recording app. Literally tried to record something and half the time it would record absolutely nothing and the other half of the time it would just crash whatever game I was trying to record. Furthermore, if you're going to use the DivX codec with it now, you have to pay to use a HD codec apparently :-(
Adobe Audition is like every Adobe program, fucking expensive.
VirtualDub is free but is quite annoying to use, only works with avi files and has the worst user interface known to man. I mean this literally makes an typical Visual Basic 6 program's UI look good.
GameCam is slightly cheaper than Fraps. I haven't tried it personally but a friend told me it was very mediocre. Also, the free version has hefty recording restrictions and a big-ass watermark.
I can stream at very horrible quality. 170 kbps for VBuffer if i recall it right at 7xx x 4xx. It appears viewable but still like shit. Before streaming, I was also involved with FPVODs so i have some experience with recording as well.
I use Camtasia for SC BW long time ago. Fraps for SC2. For SC2, I use Any Video Converter (Yeah, thats the name and its relatively good for free) to convert into mkv at 4k bit rate. It will take a long time for conversion and also uploading but that was what I had before starting streaming.
On February 02 2012 13:42 Marksman wrote: I use Camtasia for SC BW long time ago. Fraps for SC2. For SC2, I use Any Video Converter (Yeah, thats the name and its relatively good for free) to convert into mkv at 4k bit rate. It will take a long time for conversion and also uploading but that was what I had before starting streaming.
What resolution were the VODs when you encoded them?
EPT
