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Followyourblissmedia  
#1 Posted : Sunday, September 10, 2017 2:08:37 PM(UTC)
Followyourblissmedia

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I've had vMix for about 3 months, and was excited to get going with multi camera switching. I'm running vMIx on a gaming laptop (specs below) and purchased a JVC HM200 that i connect to vMix via RTSP stream input. The JVC connects great and works awesome when there aren't wifi bandwidth issues. My problem has been with adding 2 USB logitech webcams. A C920 and a PTZ Pro. I can add them as inputs and they connect, but regardless of the video formats I use (Default vs. MJPG), the connection isn't solid. Typically the C920 looks OK but drops alot of frames. The PTZ looks really good when MJPG is selected, but either immediately or after a little while, starts glitching. Not sure what the technical term is, but the image with distort and go black. When both cameras are connected, the C920 will glitch too. This is very frustrating because I've read all the posts on this forum regarding webcams, and I've followed every suggested fix, with no success. I'm pulling my hair out at this point because I need to have multiple cameras to start making money with my streaming setup. Any help is much appreciated.

Here is what I've tried so far:

I've tried plugging each camera in to other USB ports on the laptop, no change. I've also tested both cameras on a different computer (Mac pro) and they work perfect.

I've opened the cameras in VLC on the laptop, and the cameras do not glitch.

I've tried changing the video format from Default to MJPG. Improves frame rate, but still glitches.

I've tried changing the resolution and frame rate of both the cameras and the main vMIx settings.

I've updated drivers in Device Manager to both UVC and back to Logitech drivers. No change


ASUS i7 2.7GHz
16 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (2GB VRAM)
500 SSD
2 TB HD
Windows 10 updated
Fresh update to vMix 20
300/30 mbps LAN
vMix is configured to use NVIDIA graphics card


Here is a video of what is going on: https://drive.google.com...x3lztOjZqR2hlWE1GV2VMcFk
kjones9999  
#2 Posted : Sunday, September 10, 2017 10:44:33 PM(UTC)
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It looks like you don't have the resources to do this. With 25ms framerates and 90% CPU what you are seeing is typical. Go into settings and performance and make sure the nvidia is the selected video GPU.

If it is, I might drop down to 1280x720 project size and see if that helps.


FWIW, I would rather see SD than MJPEG video. A few cheap firewire cams may be the ticket here, depending on what you are doing.
Followyourblissmedia  
#3 Posted : Friday, September 15, 2017 12:32:38 AM(UTC)
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I'm not sure what you mean about the resources. The reason the CPU got near 90% was because i had the additional desktop capture input and of course i was recording. When i connect just even one webcam, say the C920, the CPU goes to maybe 5% vMix and 10% Total, even in 1080. vMix is recognizing the camera but is dropping alot of frames. The PTZ seems better, but does have the glitching issue. This seems silly to me that I'm having trouble connecting even 2 webcams.

I tried dropping the project output to 720 30p instead of 1080, it seems to help a bit but it still glitched.
And the NVIDIA gtx 950m is set to default card.

Is this laptop really not up to the task of 2 1080 USB webcams and 1 1080 RTMP stream?

Any help from @admin or @sinc747 would be much appreciated.
RHSportable  
#4 Posted : Friday, September 15, 2017 9:33:00 AM(UTC)
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Are the webcams still glitchy when you don't have the NDI desktop capture brought in as an input?

Have you tried 1 camera at a time? And is it still glitchy?
mjgraves  
#5 Posted : Friday, September 15, 2017 12:22:11 PM(UTC)
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Is looks like you're having issues with the USB bus when connecting two cameras. That's not uncommon. Is the host connection on the laptop USB 2.0 or USB 3.0?

I also have the C920 and PTZ Pro. I have no trouble using two USB cameras connected to a USB 3.0 hub, onward to a USB 3.0 port on my desktop.

Even using MJPEG, you probably can't use two cameras connected to a USB 2.0 port. A single bus just isn't fast enough to be reliable.

Laptops can be troublesome as they may only expose one USB bus. That's why I bought my Airtop PC. It's a small, fanless desktop with an i7, GTX GPU, and tons of ports.

Followyourblissmedia  
#6 Posted : Sunday, September 17, 2017 11:43:17 AM(UTC)
Followyourblissmedia

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I was starting to suspect the USB bus. These issues still occur when connecting even one webcam in 720. And i have 2 USB 3 ports that I'm connecting to. Could there be something wrong with the USB bus or settings? I would think an RTSP stream would take more resources than a USB webcam.
AlanZ  
#7 Posted : Sunday, September 17, 2017 12:31:46 PM(UTC)
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Just as a matter of curiosity... did you try creating a new project in vMix (not relying on a copy of another project)?

I recently had a choppy webcam (one of three webcams attached to the computer), and it got resolved when I recreated the project from scratch.
Followyourblissmedia  
#8 Posted : Friday, November 3, 2017 6:40:04 PM(UTC)
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I'm not sure how to find out how many USB buses I have or the load on them. I did realize that my laptop is only dual core and most people running laptops have quad core. Does processing power also greatly effect how many USB cams I can use? I'm looking to upgrade my laptop to either an alienware 17 r4 or a ROG laptop , both quad core. Wondering if anyone has feedback.
mjgraves  
#9 Posted : Friday, November 17, 2017 2:08:26 PM(UTC)
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vMix has a built-in tool to display that CPU usage in the lower left corner of the app. That will tell you if the system is CPU constrained.

I can tell you that my Lenovo X1 Carbon (2013) with an i5-3427U dual-core CPU cannot handle 1080p30 reliably. It does well enough at 720p30 with one external webcam.

It has one USB 3.0 port and one USB 2.0 port. By definition these are different controllers, so I can connect two cameras and know that they're on different buses.

With a USB 3.0 hub I've used two webcams on the USB 3.0 bus. Two webcams at 720p30 MJPEG is fine. Anything more starts to drop frames.

It occurred to me that I haven't tried vMix on the X1C in about 6 months. I see now that operating at 720p30 vMix required about 15% of CPU, the entire system running at around 30-35%. If I were to use vMix External output to emulate a webcam to a Hangout the system would be close to unstable.
Followyourblissmedia  
#10 Posted : Sunday, November 19, 2017 12:35:03 PM(UTC)
Followyourblissmedia

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Thanks for the response @mjgraves. I haven't done much more testing with this lately. I'm hoping to upgrade my laptop for Christmas. I've been going back and forth on whether to get another laptop or to build a portable tower with a handle on top. A lot of my productions will be mobile so I really like the portability of a laptop. I eventually want to build a tower as well but I think a laptop would be best for now. I'll also buy a sonnet pci box so I can use either hdmi or sdi capture cards for professional cameras. Now I'm just trying to decide what laptop I should get. I was trying to stay under $1200 but the more research I've done, I'm probably looking closer to $1500+. Originally I was looking at the alienware 17r4. I really want something with a 4k screen so color correcting is more accurate. But for an 17r4 4k with SSD and gtx 1070 I'm looking at about $1700+ for a used one. So then I started looking at the MSI titan pros. I really like them a lot. They have the gt73vr with i7 6820hk 4k SSD and 1070 for $1600 used. I actually think the MSI is a better laptop and less expensive. But now I also found the MSI gt80vr for $1300 used which I believe is a little older model Because the i7 5920hq is older and the gpu is gtx 980, however it has dual 980 for a listed 16GB vram. So my question is, which is the better deal? Is the newer CPU and gpu that much better? Is the 8GB 1070 better than the 16GB SLI 980?

I'm also going to post this in a separate thread in the systems forum
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