Ask Slashdot: How Do You Stream/Capture Video?

datavirtue writes: I am starting to look at capturing and streaming video, specifically video games in 4K at 60 frames per second. I have a Windows 10 box with a 6GB GTX 1060 GPU and a modern AMD octa-core CPU recording with Nvidia ShadowPlay. This works flawlessly, even in 4K at 60 fps. ShadowPlay produces MP4 files which play nice locally but seem to take a long time to upload to YouTube -- a 15-minute 4K 60fps video took almost three hours. Which tools are you fellow Slashdotters using to create, edit, and upload video in the most efficient manner?

Comments

Um, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that 4k at 60fps is equivalent to 8 1080P HD streams?

Itâ(TM)s going to take a while to upload.

Re:Um, duh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even for Slashdot, this is extremely stupid.

-- 4k 60fps video files are very large (unless they are absolute worst shit quality)

-- ISPs severely throttle uploads

-- This results in long upload times.

What part of this do you not understand?

Re:Um, duh.

[PIBM]

At least you had the part about using a lower resolution right. You should just have cut off the second paragraph.

Re: Um, duh.

[TheRaven64]

No, the GP was (almost) correct. 3840x2160 is four times the number of pixels per frame of 1920x1080 and 60fps is double the frame rate of a standard 30fps 1080p stream. Four times as many pixels and double the frame rate gives 8 times as much raw data. That said, it also includes a lot more redundant data (changes between frames will be smaller if they're closer together, lots of areas in the larger image can be interpolated from the smaller one) and so the encoded size should be a lot less than 8 times the size of the same stream at 1080p, 30fps.

Re:Um, duh.

[AmiMoJo]

The questioner seems to understand that, they are asking what tools can be used to edit the video down rather than just throwing the raw 4k60 stream up there.

For a start they could re-encode it in H.265 to make it about 1/4 the original size. But that has the down side that it probably takes as long to encode as it would to upload anyway. So a better option is to drop down to 1080p60 or 720p60. Depending on the game maybe go to 30 fps as well.

Downmixing sound to stereo might help a bit too.

For editing Shotcut and OpenShot are both free and decent.

Re:Um, duh.

[UnknownSoldier]

Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (GIFT)
On a more serious note Portrait of a Troll: Q&A with Dr. Erin Buckels

The problem is the OP didn't show he actually researched the problem and thus sounds completely clueless. This site jumps on people who can't even take 2 seconds to actually "Think, McFly!" about what they are asking.

If he had prefaced his sub-text with something like -- "I just started learning about video streaming and it seems complicated to me" -- then more people would be willing to give them some slack.

The fact that he took the time to post his question on /. BUT couldn't be arsed to spend the time to learn about:

* Mbps (Mega bits-per-second) and
* File Size

shows that he isn't actually using his brain.

There is a reason RTFM exists, or the modern vernacular: LMGTFY.

OBS Studio. Done.

[jvp]

There's a bunch to your "simple" question. :-) Starting from the end of your post: your uploads are taking so long because of the fill size. If you're recording 4K/60 and you haven't changed any of the default ShadowPlay settings, you're likely recording at 50Mbit/sec. A 15 minute 50Mbit/sec file, even a compressed MP4, is gonna be a bit large. There's no way around that. And you *want* that bitrate given the 4K resolution that you're recording; lowering that will make your raw recordings lose some details.

If you're happy with ShadowPlay, keep using it. The "accepted" software solution that most use is OBS Studio, and it has access to the same NVENC encoder that ShadowPlay uses. But it's vastly more configurable and way more flexible. ShadowPlay is literally made so that anyone can fire it up, hit a button, and go. OBS takes a bit of tinkering with at first, just to get everything configured the way you want it. But once you learn how flexible it is, you'll never go back. It'll produce the same h.264 files ShadowPlay can with the same "no load on the system". IOW: it won't affect your gaming.

This is a YOOOGE topic, however. And it can go in so many different directions depending on what your final goal is. Some folks record and stream using a single PC. Others (such as myself) record one one machine and stream with another. There's lots of flexibility available with this, it just depends on what you're after, what you're willing to run, and how much money you're willing to spend.

Super 8

[trevc]

Super 8 cine camera on a tripod.

Re:Missing piece of information

[Rockoon]

Its 15 minutes long by 60 frames per second wide by 3 hours high of course.

Re: OBS Studio. Done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Brag time. Moved to a house in the âburbs that has fiber optic to the house. 750Mbps down, 800 up (sustained). Itâ(TM)s glorious, and costs exactly $85/mo. Midwest living, yo!

Dear Slashdot

[ArchieBunker]

I'm recording massively large video clips that no one will watch and it takes forever to upload them to YouTube. I have a 50Mb/s upload speed and can't figure out why this 60 gig file takes three hours. Pleas help me do math.

Re:Missing piece of information

[jvp]

> How big is the file?

If they're recording at ShadowPlay's default 50Mbit/sec rate, that'd by a 5.6GB file, give or take.

(50Mbit/sec * 15 * 60sec) / 8

Too much data,

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Quick calculation shows, 15 min at 60 fps at 4000x2000 frames works out to 4.32e11 pixels. With a 24 bit color, you need 1.04e13 bits. or 1.3 Terabytes, uncompressed.

If you have a 50 Mbps upload service, and if Youtube server is absorbing it at that full speed, you are looking at 208000 seconds, or 2.4 solar days. You say it takes three hours. That works out to a compression ratio of 20.

Looks like it is not reasonable to expect anything faster, at this resolution and frame rate.

Lots of people don't realize how quickly numbers grow when you chain multiplications. "Four trace widths, three trace gaps, four via diameters, six frequencies, 8 excitations... OK your parametric sweep will run 2304 simulations, each needing half a TB of memory and 2 days of run time".

Or my users asking for 100 micron resolution mesh on a model that is a couple of meters across. "User specified a 8 trillion element mesh. No wonder mesh maker ran for 8 hours and ran out of memory. Not a defect" is the resolution.

Re:Too much data,

[Hognoxious]

Plus most recorders are optimised for speed rather than storage efficiency, since if you're recording live you miss it and it's gone.

Not the same thing but the same principle, I record analogue TV with an old PVR500. At DVD resolution it chucks out nearly 3G per hour, which is ridiculous. If only there was something that could crop it, chop it, normalise the sound and make the bitrate more sensible... they could call it mencoder or something.

Re:Too much data,

[Calydor]

they could call it mencoder or something.

Did you just assume the program's gender?!

Re:OBS Studio. Done.

[cdtush]

I just uploaded a video that was H.265 using the amd encoder in OBS. youtube had no issues with it

Re:OBS Studio. Done.

[jvp]

These articles and youtube videos were created by folks that literally have no no idea what they're talking about. Set OBS to NVENC. Crank the bitrate to 50Mbit/sec just like ShadowPlay uses for its default. Go.

Zero load on the CPU and zero FPS hit. Full stop.

And yes, I've spent considerable time using both. ShadowPlay is a very useful app for folks who don't want or need the flexibility that OBS offers. OBS, on the other hand, is a "cake and eat it too" app. But you need to put in some configuration effort.

Or, you can ignorantly quote folks who have no idea what they're talking about and carry on using ShadowPlay. It makes no difference to me. :-)

Re:"How do I commit a massive copyright violation?

[datavirtue]

Nah. It helps them. When you show noobs how to play their game they are less likely to run away crying. Witnessing the success of Creimer on YouTube, I had to get in on the action.