[rezyn8]

Hopefully this turns into a self help guide to get the most out of your stream for everyone, but in the interim, I am after tips and advice from the community on how to get better quality on streams. This is not limited to any particular stream service either.

The quality of my stream (livestream.com/siliconsports) is woeful to say the least. The picture quality is so blurred that its not really worth advertising.

What can I do to get this 'up to scratch'?
- What are the best streaming services for a particular location?
- What settings need to be tweaked for the streaming service?
- Any thing else that needs to be taken into consideration?

To do this I guess you need a little background information.

Location: Melbourne, Australia
Connection: ADSL2+ (18/1Mbps up/down)
Service: livestream.com (I am happy to change)
OS: Windows 7 64bit Ultimate

All help appreciated!

[Unstable]

PLEASE NOTE,

this is an except of the "how to stream like a pro" thread i am making soon, but this should help you understand the basics

Live Streaming
What is live streaming?
Live streaming, more specifically, means taking the media and broadcasting it live over the Internet. The process involves a camera for the media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher where the streams are made available to potential end-users and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. The media can then be viewed by end-users live.
Live streaming can come in all shapes and sizes and the image quality or extras you would like to broadcast have a high impact on what hardware you need to do each. There are three main things that attribute to stream quality. Bit rate, Frames per second and the resolution.

Aspects of quality streaming?
Bit rate:
What is Bit rate?

Bit Rate is a unit of measurement used for network data transfer. The bit rate is quantified using the bits per second (bit/s or bps) unit, often in conjunction with a prefix such as kilo mega or giga. Note that, unlike many other computer-related units, 1 kbit/s is traditionally defined as 1,000 bit/s. For conformity all measurements will be in kbps throughout this document.

What impact does it have in streaming?

When streaming, the bit rate determines how clear the image will be on the screen. If the image changes from one location to another low bit rates will take up to 5 seconds to completely re-create the image causing the screen to be very blurry for a high amount of time. In games like Starcraft with constant motion you require as high a bit rate as you can afford.

What does this mean for the viewer?

As an example, the average Australian user has a download speed of 8000kbps. This is extremely low compared to countries like South Korea but is surprisingly on average overall as decent result. This means that an average user should be able to accommodate 2000kbps stream. This is more than enough to stream in High definition or 720p. This is the standard the majority of the star craft community expects. This value can be adjusted as per request however for optimal streaming at 720 a minimum of 1000kbps is required.

Frames Per Second:

What is Frames Per Second?

FPS is the amount of times an image is shown per second during a broadcast. This is heavily reliant on CPU power. Anything below 25 FPS for gaming streams is simply not up to standard. However, anything more than 60 and you will not notice the difference for RTS games.

What impact does it have in streaming?

If a stream is running with a low frame rate, it can cause annoyance and even headaches to those watching. It can also cause important details to be missed on the cast by the viewers to it skipping frames.

What does this mean for the viewer?

Initial thoughts of most stream viewers are heavily critical on the quality of streams, it is paramount that the first impression a viewer will get is a good one, and otherwise the time it takes to tune out is very very short.

Resolution:

What is resolution?

Resolution is the amount of pixels on the screen at the time. They are measured height x length e.g 1280x720 when someone is referring to quality, 480/720/1080p they are talking about the length of the image. The higher the resolution the more pixels which mean’s the clearer the image gets on larger screens. Due to that anything in 720p is more than enough for online streaming, as you require a monitor of at least 24” in size to see the difference between 720p and 1080.

What impact does it have in streaming?

Due to the gaming world having a wide array of screen sizes and personal tastes the optimum medium for streaming is 720p, the pure resources needed to stream at a higher resolution isn’t validated since it is by far the minority who would benefit. Also due to bit rate limitations streaming in 1080p is not suitable with the current internet capabilities.

What does this mean for the viewer?

It is important that the viewer be able to full screen the stream window on their screen and still be able to accurately see what is going on without any annoyances. Resolution is sometimes referred to as the most important aspect as even a small resolution with an absurdly high bit rate will still look stretched and blurry when maximized to a normal screen size.

Streaming Quality Requirements:
Requirements for quality streaming are surprisingly very simple. You need the following.

Internet Upload Speed:
To allow the appropriate bit rate for high standard streams the internet upload speed is paramount. for a watchable low quality stream you want beetween 500 and 1000kbps upload or for HQ beetween 1000-3000kbps

Computer Processor power:
When Frame rate is concerned CPU power is the number 1 needed thing. Unfortunately CPU is used by everything in regards to streaming and production so the CPU power needed becomes exponentially higher.

as a baseline you want a quad core with at least 2.0Ghz clock speed to stream. IF you have less you can attempt to lower the resultion. but remember if you dont have 25 fps please dont stream its frustrating to the viewer!


TO BE CONTINUED!

[Satu]

Originally Posted by Unstable

PLEASE NOTE,

this is an except of the "how to stream like a pro" thread i am making soon, but this should help you understand the basics

I remember you saying about working on a thread like that a few weeks ago. As in 5+ weeks ago I believe. Haha.

[kellyMILKIES]

Hi Rezyn,

Basically if you use livestream, I think you can only have a max of 50 viewers unless you pay for some kind of service or get partnership with them.
Can you please post what graphics card and processor you have so I can help you more?
As for your connection, please go to speedtest.net and reply with your results here. I will try my best to help

Regards,
Kelly.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by kellyMILKIES

Hi Rezyn,

Basically if you use livestream, I think you can only have a max of 50 viewers unless you pay for some kind of service or get partnership with them.
Can you please post what graphics card and processor you have so I can help you more?
As for your connection, please go to speedtest.net and reply with your results here. I will try my best to help

Regards,
Kelly.

Incorrect, Livestream does not cap users, although there is a limitation on quality of you use Livestream Procaster.

[kellyMILKIES]

Originally Posted by Benji

Incorrect, Livestream does not cap users, although there is a limitation on quality of you use Livestream Procaster.

orly @_@ , I used to have a cap, and Champi also had a cap on his channel.

[Benji]

Originally Posted by kellyMILKIES

orly @_@ , I used to have a cap, and Champi also had a cap on his channel.

I used livestream for ages and saw at least 300 people watching at some points.

[ZergGirl]

I have a slower connection :P
My lazy way of doing things~

http://www.xsplit.com/ (in beta so it's free)
http://img97.imageshack.us/i/settingsn.png/
http://img18.imageshack.us/i/restj.png/

and you get something like:
http://www.justin.tv/zerggirl981/b/281850923

If you want people to be able to read your text, just increase the resolution - but you'll need to increase the bitrate so when you are moving around it refreshes instantly and doesn't get all pixelated.

Have to work so I can't go into more detail :P

glgl

[Wawa]

if the viewer has a pretty low download speed, what can the streamer do to make the stream smoother for them?

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Wawa

if the viewer has a pretty low download speed, what can the streamer do to make the stream smoother for them?

Lower the resolution and/or bitrate.

[Unstable]

Originally Posted by Benji

Lower the resolution and/or bitrate.

-.- benji i expected more from you, download speed is bitrate only!

[Benji]

Originally Posted by Unstable

-.- benji i expected more from you, download speed is bitrate only!

Eh my bad, I honestly focus more improving the product and just ignore most of the steam settings.

In the future I proberbly shouldn't comment on second thoughts :P

[rezyn8]

Thanks for getting back to me! Looking forward to the full article Unstable.

@Kelly

CPU: i7 920
GPU: Sapphire 4890HD


Livestream: Initially there is a 50 viewer cap but once you complete the channel signup and qualify it becomes unlimited (read 100,000). I have no cap on livestream at the moment.

Am hoping to get most of this sorted out before I cast the FaDe Monthly Open tomorrow. :/

[kellyMILKIES]

Originally Posted by rezyn8

Thanks for getting back to me! Looking forward to the full article Unstable.

@Kelly

CPU: i7 920
GPU: Sapphire 4890HD


Livestream: Initially there is a 50 viewer cap but once you complete the channel signup and qualify it becomes unlimited (read 100,000). I have no cap on livestream at the moment.

Am hoping to get most of this sorted out before I cast the FaDe Monthly Open tomorrow. :/

You can ask unstable or I to help you tweak it after SEASL tonight #0#;; Im at work now and after work I have to rush home to host SEASL

[sheepy]

Great information unstable. I've tried to stream before and i was getting massive stuttering? is this to do with the fact that i am using an i5 duel core?

[Unstable]

Originally Posted by sheepy

Great information unstable. I've tried to stream before and i was getting massive stuttering? is this to do with the fact that i am using an i5 duel core?

that would be why!, try running scv2 on a lower resulution, the smaller the ppicture the cpu hasto capture the less resources it uses

[cruxis]

As a viewer of user streams quite regularly, I can say that Justin.tv has the best stream, and the vast majority of SC streamers already use it.

And once you get past 500 viewers on a regular basis you can start making money from them.

[ZergGirl]

Does playing the game itself in a lower graphics setting reduce the amount of upload required to stream something? I thought in theory it might, less colours etc etc.

Any ideas?

[rezyn8]

I played around with my settings in Procaster and it seems to have cleaned it up a little - not as blocky. Will document what I did for livestream/procaster.

Will also have a look at justin.tv as well sometime this week.

[Meatex]

hmmmm i have done a lot of playing around with basically every program available
Xsplit is easy to use but chews cpu like a mofo
You can try using an old version of VH ScrCap Driver along with adobe live blah blah whatever its called for better perfomance on your end though VH driver is used in Xsplit I find older version less of a strain on CPU
Also big thing is your desktop resolution. Having same aspect ratio will help alot and having same desktop res as stream res will make a world of difference.
As for settings, I find you can up the bitrate and lower quality for best balance