There are a few things you can do to get your video streaming up and running smoothly. If you’re using a web-based application, like Google Hangouts or Skype, there may be some tricks that will help boost the quality of your broadcast for viewers. For those who use desktop apps, such as OBS Studio, here are a few tips on boosting the quality of your streams.
The first thing is to make sure your computer has enough memory to run whatever app you’ll be using to stream. Streaming audio and video requires processing power so if you don’t have enough RAM you won’t be able to keep everything in motion at once without getting stutters.
You also want to make sure your hardware isn’t overheating (especially important with laptops). That means keeping tabs on any fans inside your machine—you should know what they sound like when they spin up. You could check out these free online tools for finding fan noise too.
If all else fails though, you might need to upgrade your PC’s CPU. Video encoding takes a lot more processing power than other tasks we perform every day, which makes it especially taxing on older machines. So if your laptop heats up during an hour long live stream then chances are something needs replacing—and if you’re not comfortable doing that yourself you can pay someone to take care of this problem for you.
In terms of software, another trick I often try before upgrading my system specs is lowering the resolution of the camera I’m broadcasting from. It sounds counterintuitive but by reducing the size of the image being sent over your network you can reduce how much data gets transferred each time someone tunes into your feed. The tradeoff is you end up losing some detail around the edges of objects within the frame, but if you’ve got a slow internet connection then you probably wouldn’t notice anyway.
That said, most applications now compress images automatically rather than just sending them straight through as full-sized pictures, so you might find that cutting down on the number of pixels doesn’t give you quite as big a drop off as you would expect. However, if your screen looks blurry because you’re trying to send a high definition video signal through cable modem dialup then this tip might actually work wonders for you!
When choosing between different resolutions, remember that HD footage appears larger on screens than standard definition does, even if both sources were shot at 1920 x 1080. And while 4K cameras tend to look better than 720p ones, you’re only going to see improvements in picture quality when viewed from a monitor bigger than 40 inches.
As far as compression goes, unless you’ve already made plans to upload your content somewhere else (like YouTube), you’ll usually find higher bitrate options available for download than you’ll get via live streaming services like Twitch and Facebook Live or for cam girls live cam sites have the same options. This is because people watching on their computers will generally experience less lag than those viewing on phones and tablets.
So why aren’t lower quality settings offered? Well, it comes back to bandwidth again. When users tune in on devices with slower connections (or no connections) they need to wait longer for frames to appear, which causes lagging problems. In order to compensate for that delay, broadcasters must either decrease the rate at which new frames arrive or increase the amount of information contained in each one.
For example, let’s say you’re recording a video game tournament streamed on Twitch and the average viewer connects over Wi-Fi instead of paying $10 per month for access to a wired Ethernet port. They’d still prefer fewer dropped frames than slower load times, so the broadcaster lowers the framerate to 30 fps instead of 60 fps.
This works fine until it runs out of steam, forcing everyone to sit through a bunch of “buffering” messages and pauses. Most webcams support variable refresh rates, meaning they can switch between two presets based on how many megapixels you’re working with and the current demands of the situation. These modes include VGA (640x480px), SVGA (800x600px), XGA (1024x768px) and UXGA (1280x1024px). Lowering the setting allows you to save space on the canvas used to display incoming frames, but you’ll lose some visual fidelity along the way.
With regards to actual codecs, H.264 remains the industry standard for compressed videos today, although newer methods called HEVC (H.265) and VP9 are making waves thanks to their improved efficiency levels. A quick search on Amazon yields plenty of cheap USB webcams designed specifically to handle these types of files.
Unfortunately, you’re unlikely to find a decent webcam capable of handling anything above H.264 for under $100—although you might come across some models that ship with limited editing capabilities built right in. But given the choice, sticking to standards like WebM/Ogg Theora, MP4, MOV and MPEG2 tends to produce smoother results in general.
Streaming itself can sometimes result in issues where certain parts of the video play faster than others, which creates annoying flickers. To avoid this problem, you should always set your encoder to output a single keyframe whenever possible. This ensures that nothing ever plays twice as fast as anyone expects it to.
One last thing worth mentioning is that depending on whether you’re relying solely on cloud services or uploading directly to sites like YouTube, Netflix and Hulu, you might be able to optimize the way your broadcasts look a little further. Some providers allow you to adjust the color balance manually after capturing the footage, giving you complete control over exposure and contrast.
And if you’re planning to post your finished product elsewhere later, consider enabling multi-camera mode on your webcam so you can capture multiple feeds simultaneously. Then simply cut together clips taken from separate angles to create cool montages and timelapses.