Why are RTSP streams so unstable in VMix? I have had so many problems with various devices I've been testing not working well with this program. Some devices won't work at all, some at only certain bitrates, and other oddities. For example, the CAMON app works well on every device except the Pixel 4 which will not show a picture. I have a TBS2603 that connects but won't show a picture. I have a TBS2603SE that only works for certain bit rates. Everything works fine with VLAN, so I know it isn't the devices (per se) or the network.

One more oddity: the other day I had a system with 3 RTSP streams in and YouTube and Facebook streams out and everything was great until I started to record. Then my main camera stream using the TBS2603SE started glitching. I had to reduce the bitrate to below 3Mbs to keep it stable. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but the system was working great and was well tested for hours including sending the 2 output streams using hardware encoding (RTX2060 Dell G5 laptop). Once I started recording to the internal NVMe using software, that one stream went south. The other two were still working fine. CPU usage was typically 60% - 80%. Never in the 90s.

This has been really frustrating. Any solutions until NDI encoders start showing up again for purchase?

Robert

Thanks for the response Martin. Yes, I've tried the VLC option but the latency is just terrible. I have one NDI encoder on its way now, thank goodness. Doesn't look like I will get a complete NDI solution until sometime next month, unfortunately.

Well, vMix does allow you to delay audio and video streams independently and that works as expected. If you are getting random amounts of latency, my recommendation is to try and force the cameras to stream at whatever frame rate you are delivering and do so strictly - Constant vs Variable. That will go a long way to reducing any variations you may be seeing. Keeping the bitrate between cameras consistent wouldn't hurt either.

I personally have given up trying to deal with multiple sources using RTSP as there are just too many things that go wrong. I've ordered a couple NDI converters that I'm quite certain will solve all sorts of issues, not the least of which is stability. This is the direction I would recommend to anyone looking for an IP based distribution of multiple video sources.

Good Luck!

The last major event I streamed, I had the main camera as a PTZ optics 12x gen 2 running rtsp to vmix. I haven't had problems with it in the past, but that weekend it decided to continuously grey-out and show static. Was extremely annoying and unusuable.

Thankfully, the quality camera that I was recording video clips with was plugged into an NDI converter as a backup/secondary camera angle for the stream and I wound up just using that angle for the whole thing (4 days of streaming, 16hrs a day). PLus it looked a lot better :)

That company claims that it achieve NDI results with RTSP because they use better decoders than eg VLC. Are there better decoders that can be used in vMix as well?
Is converting RTSP into NDI an option?