Blurred video during streaming to twitch

[The_King]

Hello guys

I thought maybe some of you could help me with this. I am new to this streaming business and would like to stream my favorite game KAM !!!!

However, I did a stream of it last night (using Open Broadcast Software) with my friends simke and Styds and the video seems very blurry especially when moving units are there. It seems that it happens occasionally and not continuously. It goes ok for some seconds then blurred then ok then blurred etc. Any idea what this is about and how to fix it?

You can view the video at: http://www.twitch.tv/lordmidasgaming/b/473124589

Thanks

[dicsoupcan]

hmmz i see no blur in your video, the quality is not HD if that is what you mean but that is often a good thing since hardly anyone can stream that. but otherwise pawel might be able to help you since he knows all about this stuff.

[The_King]

Thank you for the reply dicsoupan

I think that it could also be a problem with the Twitch video player. Because I also saved a file on my disc of the same stream and now that I have played that it seems fine in my video player. However, the sprites of the moving workers like laborers, serfs, and other units still look blurred. Also moving buildings like the Windmill is also blurred.

So lets see what pawel has to say

[Lewin]

It's probably related to your internet connection speed. Blurred moving things is usually related to compression since the stream does not update the entire image every frame (and non-moving parts of the image have more time to become more detailed). It could be your upload speed when you first streamed the video (so Twitch only received a low quality version because your connection isn't fast enough to live stream in HD) or it could be your download speed if it looks good to other people but blurry to you. Either way Twitch is never going to look as nice as a local recording because it's highly compressed to reduce bandwidth usage (even at HD)

[sado1]

There's some setting in OBS but I don't remember where; it's a slider/menu where you can set some value that is responsible for quality of the stream in regards of moving objects. That's the one you need to find.

[The_King]

It's probably related to your internet connection speed. Blurred moving things is usually related to compression since the stream does not update the entire image every frame (and non-moving parts of the image have more time to become more detailed). It could be your upload speed when you first streamed the video (so Twitch only received a low quality version because your connection isn't fast enough to live stream in HD) or it could be your download speed if it looks good to other people but blurry to you. Either way Twitch is never going to look as nice as a local recording because it's highly compressed to reduce bandwidth usage (even at HD)

Thank you for the reply Lewin. My upload speed is high enough for streaming the video, I have 0 frame loss according to OBS. And like I said, the local saved file of the same upload stream also looks blurred in all moving parts (units and buildings). So I'm thinking it must be some video encoding settings in OBS.

There's some setting in OBS but I don't remember where; it's a slider/menu where you can set some value that is responsible for quality of the stream in regards of moving objects. That's the one you need to find.

Thanks sado1. I will read about it

[pawel95]

I really should make a tutorial about how to set settings in obs and co. for twitch, but I´m too lazy for it

Please test first your UPrate:

http://www.speedtest.net/


Post the results here, with information about cpu. Mostly a small changement of the bitrate in the settings will help.

The problem:

*You have a bad internetconnection(like me for 2 more months): So you have to set your bitrate lower. The quality isn´t the best then, but you have the most smooth picture as possible.
*You have a good internetconnection but too low bitrates settings , that means that you "waste" quality and smoothness in your streams, because you just limit your connection for that streaming process up to the bitrate.
*You have a good internetconnection but still too high bitrates settings(Look at discos livestreams ): That results in excellent quality but with breaks/pauses like of 0,5-2 seconds(PIcture is freezing).



So that are the most common problems. However there is also a problem in encoding(CPU SETTINGS). That means when your cpu isn´t the fastest one(Believe me, encoding while livestreaming takes a lot of cpu performance ) or your settings are just a little bit too hight( In OBS 2 steps over normal is only for Intel i7 cpu´s XD ) than you will get also a bad quality or pauses each minute or so.

However when you said, that your quality of your movie ON your HDD is excellent, it can be only the internet/bitrate setting in your streamingsoftware

LIke I said, give me some information and I ll tell you the optimal settings(I hope ).


The problem why I don´t make a tutorial for it is simple. Twitch.tv is a young site that changes their "rules" quite often. I had a quite stable picture quality even with my bad internetconnection, but since the last changement from twitch, they force you to have constant FPS (+bitrate ? ). That means my streaming quality is constant! It doesn´t change like before So after that changement I had also to change some settings in FPS/Bitrate section=>Quite complicated stuff XD


I hope i could explain you a bit about twitch.tv´s common problems


When you don´t want to tell me which uprate you have/Cpu you have XD then use the official Estimator from OBS(When you use obs), maybe it can help you a bit :

http://obsproject.com/estimator


Pawel95