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I've been using OBS for a couple months for live streams on YouTube (see https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/ansible-101-jeff-geerling-youtube-streaming-seri

I've been using OBS for a couple months for live streams on YouTube (see https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/ansible-101-jeff-geerling-youtube-streaming-series https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/ansible-101-jeff-geer...), and I have had rock-solid reliability, using an external mic interface, an external camera (displayed PIP), and sharing one of two displays during some instructional sessions. One thing to keep in mind, though—unless you have a dedicated video card, and it's supported by OBS (the list of supported cards on macOS is very thin), your CPU has to do all the compositing and compression, meaning you need a lot of CPU to be able to manage the streaming. On my 2016 MacBook Pro 13", it barely has the horsepower to do a stream and also run processes that I'm explaining (e.g. manage some VMs, run some database operations, etc.). I had to turn down the compression method to 'ultrafast', which is lowest quality (but still pretty good with 1080p output), and I also use SwitchResX to set my shared display at 1080p 1x resolution (instead of 4K/2x resolution).

tessla 7y ago
have you ever thought about getting a PC?
- lostgame 7y ago
  If I was doing Logic Pro X tutorials, or XCode tutorials, this would be a non-option - which are the only kinds of tutorials I personally have enough knowledge and drive to create. PC is a non-option for a chunk of people in dev and media - I, for instance, do iOS dev for a living, and live by Logic Pro X for professional audio work. (I've been using Logic for about 15 years...) The amount of time it would take for me to transition, to, say Ardour - or the amount of my career that would be lost if I swapped from, say, iOS to...I'm not sure what the FOSS equivalent is...(Android doesn't count, obviously, because Google) I'd lose years and years of training, experience, and wisdom.
  - calebio 7y ago
    I think in that case you'd use a capture card on the PC and still continue to use your Mac.
  - chme 7y ago
    I don't think you would loose that much. From my experience real experience comes from learning concepts not applications. Someone that knows the ins and outs of Microsoft Word can relatively easy switch to switch to Libreoffice Write. Or someone that is a good modeler in 3dmax can also become a good modeler in blender. Buttons in applications change position all the time. UI gets reworked, keyboard shortcuts changes, etc. from each version to the next, but if the concept behind doing certain stuff is learned, it doesn't really matter which software product is used. The only time when stuff is really hard, if you encounter a concept you haven't worked with before and have to change the way you think radically.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  I have one but 30 years of muscle memory and favorite Mac apps is hard to overcome. If anything I’d go Linux, where similar limitations seem to apply. My PC laptop has almost identical specs to my Mac anyways... I haven’t owned a desktop in 10 years :/
fenrirthviti 7y ago
OBS core team member here, just a quick clarification on this post. OBS will not run without a supported GPU for compositing; that is always handled by the GPU running on OpenGL (for macOS and Linux, we use Direct3D on Windows). The available encoders, however, might change based on the available hardware. Hardware encoders are, generally, much faster and lower impact on system resources, but may have lower quality per bitrate as a trade-off.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  Ah, thank you for the clarification, TIL!
- mycall 7y ago
  Any ideas if OBS could support FFGL for video effects?
NightlyDev 7y ago
Lots of options: - Use Quick Sync - Lower your bitrate - Use a faster encoding preset - Lower your output resolution If I remember correctly then your PC is a dual-core, and you can't expect a low-end machine to do high-res encoding well without HW acceleration.
lukevp 7y ago
Thanks for all of your contributions to the ansible ecosystem! My team and I greatly appreciate the work you do.

tessla 7y ago

have you ever thought about getting a PC?

lostgame 7y ago
If I was doing Logic Pro X tutorials, or XCode tutorials, this would be a non-option - which are the only kinds of tutorials I personally have enough knowledge and drive to create. PC is a non-option for a chunk of people in dev and media - I, for instance, do iOS dev for a living, and live by Logic Pro X for professional audio work. (I've been using Logic for about 15 years...) The amount of time it would take for me to transition, to, say Ardour - or the amount of my career that would be lost if I swapped from, say, iOS to...I'm not sure what the FOSS equivalent is...(Android doesn't count, obviously, because Google) I'd lose years and years of training, experience, and wisdom.
- calebio 7y ago
  I think in that case you'd use a capture card on the PC and still continue to use your Mac.
- chme 7y ago
  I don't think you would loose that much. From my experience real experience comes from learning concepts not applications. Someone that knows the ins and outs of Microsoft Word can relatively easy switch to switch to Libreoffice Write. Or someone that is a good modeler in 3dmax can also become a good modeler in blender. Buttons in applications change position all the time. UI gets reworked, keyboard shortcuts changes, etc. from each version to the next, but if the concept behind doing certain stuff is learned, it doesn't really matter which software product is used. The only time when stuff is really hard, if you encounter a concept you haven't worked with before and have to change the way you think radically.
geerlingguy 7y ago
I have one but 30 years of muscle memory and favorite Mac apps is hard to overcome. If anything I’d go Linux, where similar limitations seem to apply. My PC laptop has almost identical specs to my Mac anyways... I haven’t owned a desktop in 10 years :/

fenrirthviti 7y ago

OBS core team member here, just a quick clarification on this post. OBS will not run without a supported GPU for compositing; that is always handled by the GPU running on OpenGL (for macOS and Linux, we use Direct3D on Windows). The available encoders, however, might change based on the available hardware. Hardware encoders are, generally, much faster and lower impact on system resources, but may have lower quality per bitrate as a trade-off.

geerlingguy 7y ago
Ah, thank you for the clarification, TIL!
mycall 7y ago
Any ideas if OBS could support FFGL for video effects?

NightlyDev 7y ago

Lots of options: - Use Quick Sync - Lower your bitrate - Use a faster encoding preset - Lower your output resolution If I remember correctly then your PC is a dual-core, and you can't expect a low-end machine to do high-res encoding well without HW acceleration.

lukevp 7y ago

Thanks for all of your contributions to the ansible ecosystem! My team and I greatly appreciate the work you do.