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CategoriesInformation, OBS Tricks and Techniques by

OBS Studio 28 Released – Should you upgrade?

Should you update to OBS Studio 28 Now?

TLDR: NO! Unless…

OBS Studio 28 is a MASSIVE update.  This is a great release and advancement in the Open Source platform. Why do we say NO on updating right now? The issue revolves around the Qt 6 which handles the User Interface. This needed to be updated and great that it happened. Some of the side effects of this update can impact some of your current active OBS Systems and actually stop them from working.  For example; Qt 6 will no longer work on the following operating systems so if you have one of these, OBS Studio 28 will no longer work on these systems:

  • Windows 7
  • Windows 8
  • macOS 10.13/10.14
  • Ubuntu 18.04
  • All 32 Bit operating systems

Although this is a disappointment and likely to cause short term pain for many active OBS Studio users, this change should help open up major advances in OBS development for years to come.

 

Another issue when it comes to the Qt 6 Update, even if you don’t use one of the above operating systems, there is a need to make sure you get any plugins you use updated for Qt 6 if appropriate. Some of the big ones here are OBS-NDI. The current 27.x versions of that plugin use Qt 5 UI elements and will not load with OBS 28.

Our recommendation is to hold off on your update for a little while to let all the plugins and operating systems to stablize. A quick change now can shut down your production system, so make sure you experiment on a test configuration.

NDI Touch Broadcast Switcher Screen
CategoriesNew Product, Switcher by

New Product! NDI Touch Broadcast Switcher

NDI Touch Broadcast Switcher - NEW PRODUCT!

The worlds first NDI Touch based Video Broadcast Switcher. Check out this video to see it in action.

Power with build in NDI Technology

This 8 Channel Broadcast Switcher will make a great tool for your content generation. It will integrate 8 sources with the ability to directly output an RTMP or NDI stream.

The flexibility of using an NDI output stream will allow the use of sub-producers where a master broadcast center can be used to select multiple inputs and select the final published content.

This unit is packed full of features, be sure to watch the video to see how slick and power this unit will be for your organization.

Order yours now on PRE-ORDER and save!

Horse and buggy broadcast feel like this
CategoriesNew Product, Tools by

Is your Church broadcast setup a bit dated?

Is your Church broadcast setup a bit dated?

Play Video about Horse and buggy broadcast feel like this

Is your Church broadcast setup a bit dated? Does it feel like it is time to update to make your productions snap? Click the link for more information on how your organization can be one of the first to get this new cutting edge technology. Horse and buggies were good in their day, but wouldn’t it be nice to drive a Ferrari!

 

Join our Discord to stay up-to-date on the impending release of this new technology. Click the button below.

Click here
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CategoriesStreaming Tips & Tricks by

How do I live stream

How do I live stream

What is live streaming?

Before we can talk about how to do a live stream, we need to cover what we mean by live streaming. When content or an event is broadcast over the internet (or over the airwaves incase of a TV Production) to viewers of that content in near real-time. It is not possible to stream in real-time as there is always a delay in the content being transmitted to the viewer. In general this delay may be 1 to 20 seconds depending upon your streaming service. The issue with live streaming is more about there being no editing of the content before the consumer sees it. Like a live football game, the actions is broadcast live. But on the other hand, a movie is usually highly edited before the content is available to the viewer (Pre-recorded, recorded, or published content).

How to live stream

First understand the content and needs for your stream. Are there multiple people that will be active in the live stream? Is it just one person speaking on camera or no speaking at all? How do you get the best camera shot of your active or content; webcam face shot, top down table shot, multiple cameras for different areas, PTZ Cameras to follow action or reduce the number of cameras you need. You should also considered if your content needs to be live streamed vs pre-recorded.

We have a few articles of specific recommendations for some applications which may help:

Once you have figured out your needs, you can purchase set up your cameras to cover the content you will provide. Certainly consider our Jimcom line of PTZ cameras if that is in your budget. You will need Audio as well as many cameras will provide the video portion. Some webcams have a built in Microphone but depending on your content or activity, this might not be the best solution for you. A separate USB Microphone or something similar might help improve your content.

The last critical part of live streaming is the software needed to connect your equipment together and broadcast it out to the internet for others to view. Generally, this software connects to a Content Delivery Network which is a geographically distributed network of computers to allow thousands of users to watch in real time. There are many big companies such as YouTube, Twitch, Vimeo, FaceBook, and many others that provide this service. Many of these services are free, but your views are subject to advertisements and possibly limit what you can broadcast. 

There are many commercial applications that can be used to link your content stream to these services. In our desire to help lower the barriers to entry and ongoing service costs, our recommendation is OBS Studio, an open-source community supported streaming/recording solution. This application does just about anything you can need for recording content as well as live streaming content. You can refer to our Get Started with OBS Studio article for help with that application.

As noted above, OBS Studio allows you to live stream to all the CDN, Content Delivery Networks, listed earlier in this article.  Some of those CDNs are free such as YouTube, but others such as Vimeo require an annual fee. There are many more free video hosting services which are much more cost effective solutions if you don’t need to stream your content live. 

Consider if your content is timely such as a news broadcast, worship service, or town meeting. If the content is just as relevant tomorrow as it is today, you might want to opt for recording your content rather than live streaming. Post processing/editing your content might increase its quality making it a better product. Many publishers of content will do either live stream or recorded content depending upon their topic. A timely news update might be live, where their other content is pre-recorded with improved quality.

Summary

The general steps in setting up your streaming:

  1. Determine your needs and if you need to Live Stream your content
  2. Setup your needed camera(s) and audio equipment for the production
  3. Find a CDN to stream your live content, or a service to upload your pre-recorded content
  4. Acquire broadcasting software such as OBS Studio to record and/or broadcast your content to the world

Watch for our articles we have planned in the future, the next article being Post Processing of recorded content. We will give tips & tricks on how to do this with little or no money invested.

Authorized Sellers and Distributors of Jimcom USA products
CategoriesJimcom Product Support by

Authorize Distributor & Resellers of Jimcom Products

Authorized Distributors and Resellers of Jimcom USA products

Jimcom USA has several authorized distributors and on-line sites to purchase our products. Your product will only be supported under our limited warranty if you purchase the product from one of our authorized distributors or sellers.

Be sure to use one of the provided sources below to get the Jimcom USA Limited Warranty coverage for your product. Please note, on marketplace sites such as Amazon and NewEgg, only the listed seller is authorized. Your receipt needs to reflect the proper sellers name.

VideoProc Vlogger - Free
CategoriesTools by

Free Video Editing Software

Free video editing software!

Wow for free!

We are speechless, what a great tool from VideoProc called “Vlogger”, they have offered this product for free. DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE. We suspect there will be an upsell or need to purchase upgrades in the future, but the shear power and ease of use of this tool is a must for any video creator that hasn’t invested heavily into video editing tools.  The only tool we didn’t find in our quick review of this FREE software was that of “motion tracking”.  That would be a great feature and start to hurt some higher priced tools on the market.

VideoProc Vlogger is intuitive and capable video editing software for all creators. Make cinematic videos for everyday creativity, special moments, or fun.

Some of the features we have seen packed into this free tool are just amazing.  This is definitely a commercial grade tool to download it for free while you can.  Here is just a short list of some of the features that caught our eye:

  • Multi-track editing
    • Video Tracks
    • Effects Tracks
    • Audio Tracks
    • Subtitle Tracks
  • Transitions
  • Titles
  • Effects
OBS Studio Logo
CategoriesOBS Tricks and Techniques by

OBS Studio 27.1 Released

OBS Studio 27.1 Released - Should you upgrade?

OBS Studio 27.1 Released! The OBS Studio Team and community have released version 27.1 of OBS Studio. Should you upgrade? Well what is new?

Features:

  • Added YouTube integration
    • Allows the ability to connect your YouTube account without using a stream key
    • Adds various features when setting up your stream that allows you to set settings for each stream: your stream title, description, privacy settings, scheduling streams, and more
    • YouTube streams are created and managed via a new “Manage Broadcast” button next to “Start Streaming”
    • Also features a chat dock for public and unlisted broadcasts (currently read-only) 
    • Bandwidth testing is now supported in the Auto-Configuration wizard when logged in
    • Special thanks to the developers at YouTube for working with us directly on the initial implementation of this feature and helping to make it a reality
  • Added an 18-scene multiview option
  • Added a “Mask Only” option to the stinger track matte
  • Added a feature to browser sources to allow limited control over OBS, which must be explicitly granted by the user
  • Added an option to draw safe areas in the preview (same as the safe areas in the multiview)

What modifications did they make?

  • Added performance fixes for Windows 11 and Windows 10 Insider builds
  • Names for displays on macOS Display capture are now human readable names 
  • Auto-Remux now works with Replay Buffer
  • Optimized the media source, reducing unnecessary CPU usage
  • The missing files dialog will now detect missing files for stingers as well
  • Remove “Enter Fullscreen” from the menu on macOS because macOS already has a builtin fullscreen mode interface option
  • Sources that are invisible/hidden will now have their text dimmed as well in the source list
  • Added a “Missing Files Check” menu item to the “Scene Collections” menu
  • Added source icons to the source toolbar
  • Image sources that use gif files now will animate in preview when using studio mode
  • Enabled Alpha option in the Freetype 2 Text Source’s Font dialog
  • Added the ability to disable the Missing Files dialog using a startup flag
  • Added Ctrl+R on Linux and Cmd+R on macOS to reload browser panels
  • Re-enabled drag & drop for scenes & sources on Linux
  • Minor UI improvements to various areas, including Source Toolbar, Transform dialog and more
  • Improved internal behaviour in the game capture source to avoid unnecessary re-hooking
  • Wayland capture sources are now available without having to pass custom parameters to OBS from the command line

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed a bug on Wayland on Linux where the cursor would capture slightly mispositioned
  • Fixed a bug with Dynamic Bitrate that would cause it to malfunction when used with hardware encoders
  • Fixed a bug on Wayland where capture methods (ie window/desktop) that weren’t fully supported would appear anyway
  • Fixed a variety of colour-related bugs in window capture and browser source
  • Fixed a bug where track matte stingers would flash previous frames sometimes
  • Fixed an issue where the projectors would list incorrect resolutions for DPI-scaled monitors
  • Fixed a crash on exit that could occur when using 3rd party plugins that hold references to sources with audio monitoring enabled
  • Fixed a bug where the Game Capture source would occasionally still capture overlays with the “Capture third-party overlays” option disabled
  • Fixed a bug where keyboard interaction did not work correctly on macOS
  • Fixed a bug where the replay buffer could crash when plugins interact with it 
  • Fixed an issue where the mask/blend filter looked incorrect on version 27 
  • Fixed a bug where deleting a scene that’s used as a source wouldn’t Undo/Redo properly 
  • Fixed a bug where the Auto-Remux would pop up blank sometimes
  • Fixed a bug where performing a redo for creating sources would cause sources to be created in the wrong scene
  • Fixed the “Deactivate when not showing” option in the Decklink source not working properly
  • Fixed a bug where themes were unable to use previously defined palette variables
  • Fixed log viewer taking up unnecessary extra memory when closed
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when exiting OBS with decklink output active
  • Fixed an issue where saving screenshots or the replay buffer would fail if the output filename format contained a directory path
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when a connection was dropped during the Auto-Configuration Wizard’s bandwidth-testing stage
  • Disabled “Network Optimizations” when using RTMPS because of incompatibility
  • Fixed an issue where setting a zero second auto reconnect delay would cause OBS to stop responding if disconnected

Our Recommendation

This is a minor update with some new features and modifications that many people will benefit from by installing. If you see a feature of modification you like, then certainly upgrade. Many will like the better YouTube integration.

We recommend testing your live configuration as a Portable OBS Install with the newer version before going live. Please let us know if you would like instructions on create a Portable Version of OBS for testing of updates and PlugIns.

What is the best camera for your Town Meeting, Council Meeting, Subcommittee Meeting, Public Access Cable TV Streaming, etc?
CategoriesStreaming Tips & Tricks by

Best camera for your Town Meeting, Council Meeting, Subcommittee Meeting, Public Access Cable TV Streaming, etc.?

What is the best camera for your Town Meeting, Council Meeting, Subcommittee Meeting, Public Access Cable TV Streaming, etc?

What is the best camera for your Town Meeting, Council Meeting, Subcommittee Meeting, Public Access Cable TV Streaming, etc? The fact of the matter is, the answer isn’t that simple. It has a lot to do with the size and set up within your meeting space. So, the best camera for your application is going to depend upon several factors.

PTZ cameras are advised as with the power of PTZ (Pan, Tilt, and Zoom) you effectively get a lot of virtual cameras. That is the same camera can focus on many different aspects of your service within vision of the camera. Since the Jimcom PTZ cameras allow over 200 set points, with a single click of a mouse or push of a button, they camera focus moves to a new visual target.  These targets might include; elected officials, groups of elected officials, public address podium, seated guests, etc. Since this PTZ control is fully automatic, no one needs to sit near the camera and the camera doesn’t need to be physically located for someone to readjust its focus. A single administrative assistant or volunteer can control the cameras from a central location.

When producing a live broadcast have a minimum of two cameras available. Use one camera as the source for the live broadcast and the other camera can be moved through the PTZ mechanism or a PTZ joystick to find a new visual target for better broadcast. The same really goes for prerecorded services as this eases the production process. In some cases, it might be nice to have a third camera pointed back at the audience. If this is a PTZ camera as well, you will get the greatest flexibility as to be able to zoom in on certain individuals or to pan out to larger groups. Depending upon the size of your meeting area and the architectural considerations there may be fixed objects that may interfere with certain views from cameras which may require additional cameras to see around those objects.

Those are some of the considerations when choosing the amount and location of cameras but the next consideration is really around the technology of the camera.  There are numerous types of technologies for PTZ cameras; HDMI, NDI, SDI, USB, and standard IP-based cameras. To select the proper camera technology for your solution, you need to consider the equipment that is broadcasting or recording the service.

For new low-cost solutions, Jimcom USA recommends using an NDI based solution. Certainly, if SDI or HDMI cabling were already run to the camera mount locations at your site this would simplify installation. With new installations, NDI technology only needs CAT5/6 LAN cable run to the location the camera where it will be mounted. Most NDI cameras, such as the Jimcom NDI series, support Power-Over-Ethernet (PoE) meaning that the mount location of the camera does not need an AC power outlet. This reduces the cost of installation as an electrician is not required to run an outlet to where the camera will be mounted. Power can be provided over the low voltage LAN cabling directly to the cameras.

With the low latency for the NDI technology synchronization of audio and video will be easier at the broadcast location/platform. Jimcom USA recommends the use of a free broadcast platform OBS Studio. This tool supports the NDI protocol for very professional broadcasts at a very low cost. We recommend upgrading older technology to the newer NDI technology due to its cost benefits, quality, and ability to scale at a later time.

Synchronization of audio and video can be the most complicated aspect of setting up a broadcast or recording for your services. We recommend that you don’t use standard IP-based cameras (RTSP) because of the latency/delay inherent in the transmission of the video signal. If you have a single camera, this technology may suit your need at a very low cost, but once you add more than one camera to your production equipment, synchronization is almost impossible as timing drift will occur independent of each camera. Audio and video timing delays can be added with OBS but only if those timings are fixed.

So, to answer the question, “What is the best camera for my Town Meeting, etc?” Jimcom USA would recommend the NDI PTZ 20X or 30X Camera series for the most flexibility. These cameras offer the most flexibility and support older technologies such as the SDI and HDMI outputs. These cameras also support VISCA and ONVIF for remote control of the PTZ camera system.