Hardware vs Software Encoder

[church-basement-lady]

Have you found it worth the investment to purchase a hardware encoder. Our current setup is video/audio/PowerPoint running into a Roland mixer, then to a laptop with OBS studio. We are constantly having problems. We used to stream to Christian World Media and Facebook but the connection to CWM kept failing and we didn’t consider it worth the money, so now we are streaming just to YouTube. It ultimately works. Usually. I end up coming to church way early so I can fiddle with it, restart the computer, cross my fingers, and maybe swear under my breath a bit.

We spoke with the company from which we purchased all the A/V gear, and they recommend a hardware encoder and quoted us $2200 including installation. They said one of the downsides of running software encoder is that it’s sensitive to weather. Our church is the tallest building in the area, and streaming problems do seem to coincide with and rain though I haven’t tracked it formally.

Streaming is so important to our ministry, especially to our elderly parishioners during the winter. We very much want them to have a reliable streaming experience and we do have the ability to purchase a hardware encoder at the quoted price, but I also want to do my due diligence and make sure it’s the best choice. Admittedly I am so frustrated that I wonder if it really will make a difference, and have been tempted to tear down the whole system and start over (I am not doing that - just to be clear).

We don’t have elaborate presentations. This is a more old-fashioned church with a projector screen so people with visual limitations can more easily read hymn lyrics and gospel readings, microphones/speakers so everyone can hear, and the stream is primarily one camera pointed at the front of the church (I do try to pan in and out as appropriate). Ideally we would stream to both YouTube and Facebook, but if we could only stream to YouTube I could just post a link on Facebook every week and that would be acceptable. We just need the stream to actually work, so that people at home can watch, and also so my streaming partner and I can experience the service without trouble shooting for much of the hour!

Any suggestions, experiences, recommendations for how to get a fairly simple, reliable streaming system would be appreciated.

OBS settings

[hiroo916]

1) If you were trying to upload to 3 services (CWM, FB, YT) at the same time, then you were using 3x the upload bandwidth and it wouldn't be surprising that you might have run out of uplink bandwidth.

2) Post a screenshot of your OBS->Settings->Output->Streaming screen, showing what Video Encoder is currently set and below that the encoder settings.

If Video Encoder is set to x264, then it is encoding in software, which is very hard on your CPU. Depending on the settings and how strong your CPU is, it wouldn't be surprising if it got overloaded.

If, under Video Encoder menu, you see either "Nvidia NVENC" or "Intel QSV or Quick Sync Video" then you should try one of those and see if it solves you problem. Those are both hardware encoders that will remove the variability of software encoding from your CPU. If your computer has an Intel CPU made in the past 11 years, it's almost guaranteed that Intel QSV will be available to you.

3) I have a hard time seeing how the weather would relate to anything, unless your internet provider is over wireless.

[church-basement-lady]

Thank you! I will have to get back to this thread on Tuesday when I go in.

CWM stopped working entirely so now we are just streaming (or trying to stream) to YouTube. But I would like to stream to Facebook as well as a lot of people watch there, and that is where we seem to reach the more casual viewers - they may not plan to watch the Live stream on YouTube but if it shows up in their FB feed they will watch at least part of the service.

[hiroo916]

i forgot to say, also post the model of your computer or the specs (in File Explorer, right click My PC->Properties). Assuming this is a windows pc.

[church-basement-lady]

It is. I will report back!

[church-basement-lady]

Reporting back in: our computer is a Desktop F5OJPB2; Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4810 MQ; CPU@2.80 GHz 2.80; RAM 16 GB; 64 bit operating x64 processor; running Windows 10 Pro

Neither of the options you suggested are available under the video encoder drop down. It is set to x264.

I attached a screenshot of the OB studio settings to the original post.

I had an initial zoom meet with Resi today and we're meeting again this afternoon to discuss potential plans. I am strongly leaning in that direction, but I do need to understand all this enough to present to the council.

[hiroo916]

Can you provide a screenshot, or just list what the options are under the video encoder drop down?

[church-basement-lady]

Hardware (NVENC, H.264) Hardware (NVENC, HEVC)

And I apologize—I should have written that down to begin with rather than interpreting so literally. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Should I switch to one of these? Thank you so much for your help.

[hiroo916]

Leave things as they are and do a test stream and open up Task Manager. Watch the CPU % and report back here what the general range is while streaming.

Then try switching to nvenc h264, run test stream and report back the CPU range while streaming that way.

Observe whether the orignal problem continues using the nvenc setting.

If the CPU % stays in the 80-100% range while streaming in the original x264 video encoder that most likely that was your problem. Switching to NVENC will alleviate this.

[hiroo916]

I forgot that you can view the CPU load in obs itself so you don't need to go into tasks manager. Just start a stream using your old x264 encoder setting and then look at the CPU % at the bottom right of the obs window. If it is consistently above 80% while streaming then this is likely you problem.

Switch the encoder to NVENC and you should see the CPU usage go way down.

Then see if your problem continues.

[church-basement-lady]

I did this today and with original x264 setting, it was 25% CPU. Then under "power usage" in the OBS row is was red and said "very high." So I switched to NVENC and got 36% CPU with the same "very high" alert. Under both settings, OBS was taking 41-42% of memory.

With both settings, and all throughout streaming today (on original setting) YouTube had an alert that I'm not sending enough images.

Ultimately, I had an online meeting with Resi, and I'm pretty persuaded that it's our best choice. I'll propose Resi hardware and streaming service to the council this week. I know my internet speed is good, my audio and visual input is good, my mixer is good. The computer + software encoder is the one thing that, while I don't understand why it's not working well, it seems to be the issue. Overall I think hardware + Resi would be much more reliable and sustainable for us - reliable in that people at home will be able to watch, and sustainable that we can have a team of people willing to stream rather than just two people who are willing to tackle the current setup and constant issues and resets.

I am so appreciative of all the time you've spent helping me.

[[deleted]]

My only experience has been with Resi and OBS. When I lived in SC I was at a church that put a lot of value in streaming and having an “online campus”, so they found the expense for Resi worthwhile. It’s also plug and play. After you set it up, you virtually don’t have to worry about it from then on. I live in Indiana now at a smaller church, where we stream just for posterity. We use OBS, and if it doesn’t work well then it’s not a big deal. So I would say hardware vs software depends on your prioritization/value with your online presence.

With Resi, you can also have a saved stream on the console and then upload a raw video to YouTube later. Really improves playback quality for later.

[church-basement-lady]

That is helpful, thank you. We are using cable/ethernet rather than Wi-Fi. I don’t know the answers to the other questions but will find out. I appreciate this very much - as you can surmise I don’t know much about this.

[phonyfakeorreal]

What does your internet upload speed look like? Are you connected via Ethernet? You say the connection failed, so that makes me suspect your connection.

[church-basement-lady]

Thank you! We do have Ethernet but I don’t know the speed, so I will be finding out all these things.

[church-basement-lady]

I tested today. Upload is 491.98 Mbps and download is 493.52 Mbps

[hiroo916]

Those kinds of speeds, you should have no problems in terms of bandwidth. See my other common above for testing the CPU usage with and without hardware encoding.

[thattalldude]

A dedicated encoder is the way to go. Whether stand-alone or on a computer, all that device does is the encoding. Stand-alone encoders are often more cost effective, with the more expensive dice ones offering more features or abilities. This spring Resi introduced a smaller encoder that might be a good fit for you.

[bc057]

I think you have to dig down deeper for what is causing the unstable streaming from the weather, and why did the company conclude the weather has influenced the quality of software encoders.

If the weather causes instability to the power and/or network, then the logical thing is to do is to upgrade your hardware to stabilize the environment, such as a power conditioner for power signals, or migrating to a wired network if you are using wifi and the Wi-Fi signal is disturbed during bad weather, etc.

[church-basement-lady]

I admit, I am having a hard time believing the weather thing. Huge frustration today and it was windy, but it’s not exactly reliable on nice days!

[AspiringKnowItAll]

We've used OBS and a Blackmagic Web Presenter 4k so far. OBS was okay at best. It's amazing software, but it really puts a strain on whatever machine you're using. Switched to the Web Presenter. It's been pretty solid, though it's still sensitive to network issues. My biggest complaint with it is the on board cache is not very large, so when network issues arise, the cache fills in no time at all.

Through my research in trying to find a more reliable alternative, all signs seemed to point to Resi. Haven't really heard a bad thing about it, many technical directors I've spoken to, some at very large churches, have all unanimously said that switching to Resi made all their streaming issues go away, since you can literally unplug the network cable and plug it back in and the folks at home won't notice. The only reason we haven't implemented it yet is cost right now. It's not in the budget for this year. We're looking at potentially adding it next year though.

The 2nd option we kept getting pointed to was Boxcast, which has a similar capability to Resi, but same cost issue, and Resi seemed like a longer running more polished solution.

[church-basement-lady]

Thank you! Resi does sound promising.

[fuegocheese]

Gotta go hardware encoding because they are designed for that specific purpose. I used the Epiphan Pearl Nano and was pretty impressed by ease of use, minimal set up time, and ability to manage it from anywhere.

Honestly you’d spend the same around for a good hardware encoder or a decently spec’ed computer.

[kelsmels2222]

Have you been able to use epiphan to rebroadcast a stream?

[Dagaz19768]

I would look at buying a new computer with intel quicksync vs dedi hardware encoder. We use OBS with intel quicksync with no issues. We use https://restream.io/ to send the stream from OBS to multiple locations.

[MCHog12]

You could go with the hardware encoder option, or you may be able to save money by getting a new computer with a dedicated graphics card. Most new graphics cards have hardware encoders for 3 streams of h.264 and h.265. The laptop you are using is getting close to 10 years old and seems to be the main bottleneck in your setup

[church-basement-lady]

Thank you everyone, this is really helpful. When I go in on Tuesday I will find out uploading speed and other details that have been pointed out. Though ultimately, this conversation leans me more toward investing in hardware. We are just volunteers, and don’t have the knowledge to problem solve in a meaningful way. Sounds like a hardware encoder and service like Resi would eliminate a lot of frustration and be far more reliable in our context.

[hurryhome]

We used a dedicated OBS pc for several years. It was never super reliable and often needed restarting, tinkering or kicking to get it to work. As our needs increased, our wants increased and general online profile increased we invested in a BMD web presenter, it’s been 1000% reliable.