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Tone13  
#1 Posted : Friday, June 12, 2020 9:38:40 AM(UTC)
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The more I use vMix call, the more let down I am each day.
In theory, I love the way vMix call works and my show is based around 8 vMix calls. It's amazing what can be achieved, having presenters, guests and producers all on vMix calls and putting a show together.
The issue I have is in the call quality. I am on a 150Mbps down / 60Mbps Up connection and my callers have 50/30Mbps connection at least
Yesterday, even doing a small stripped back show using just four vMix calls, the call from the UK (I am in Australia) was really poor. I know it has a long path to travel but seeing others use Zoom across the same distance, i notice how much better the zoom calls seem to be.
Doesn't zoom use the same protocol as vMix Call? Is there anything that can be done by vMix to improve things?
I love vMix Call as it's such a powerful tool right in vmix itself so would rather not have to use external options but producers are expecting Zoom quality as least these days and vMix Call is falling short.
ask  
#2 Posted : Friday, June 12, 2020 10:40:30 AM(UTC)
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Perhaps a bit of reading here might help: https://webrtc.org/ and https://webrtc.github.io/webrtc-org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC

"Doesn't zoom use the same protocol as vMix Call?" Probably not....gut feel is no!

A quick way to benchmark the quality you can get is to establish a call between two PC's on your LAN. This will give you an indication of what webRTC is capable of. Now when you have a call to an external location, what you will see is how it adjusts to the prevailing network conditions as it passses through ISP's, the cloud and so on.

Even though a speed test at either end indicates plenty of bandwith it doesn't show where throttling or QOS has been applied in any part of the chain.
KnKproductions  
#3 Posted : Friday, June 12, 2020 12:37:41 PM(UTC)
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Do a full test and run 8 separate guests at the same time in the same studio environment. Be sure to stream it to all the places you stream it to, and if you record do that as well. A 100% live test.

Once that is going, check your CPU usage in the windows task manager. If it's maxed out, you need a new computer that has a state-of-the-art processor and that will solve all your problems :)

Also if your guests are using old and slow computers, they won't be able to send a good feed regardless of their internet connection.
Tone13  
#4 Posted : Friday, June 12, 2020 4:04:08 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: KnKproductions Go to Quoted Post
Do a full test and run 8 separate guests at the same time in the same studio environment. Be sure to stream it to all the places you stream it to, and if you record do that as well. A 100% live test.

Once that is going, check your CPU usage in the windows task manager. If it's maxed out, you need a new computer that has a state-of-the-art processor and that will solve all your problems :)

Also if your guests are using old and slow computers, they won't be able to send a good feed regardless of their internet connection.


The computer is not maxing out. As I mentioned, even doing a stripped back show with only four calls the quality was pretty poor and we were pre recording this show so no streaming was happening at the time.

My guests connect using current model, i5 Microsoft Surface Pro’s or newish ipads.

I know that many external factors are at play when using VMix call but it just seems that zoom gets consistently better results in similar situations.
admin  
#5 Posted : Friday, June 12, 2020 4:28:18 PM(UTC)
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Hi,

The latest vMix now offers a lot of control over the call quality, so you can adjust these to get better results.
But first we would need to get a better understanding of what is meant by low quality?
Is it frame rate, resolution, something else? Knowing exactly where you are seeing the drop in quality is key to working out how to improve it.

In the case of comparison with Zoom, note that they limit to 360p at the moment, so for a fair comparison make sure
the return video quality you are sending the caller in vMix is the same.

Also, Zoom uses servers to allow routing only one call at full quality at any time, so it is not fair compare 4x vMix Call inputs with 1x Zoom as network conditions
will dictate vMix needs to reduce bandwidth of those callers all things being equal.

Finally, you can set a fixed bandwidth for the guest from the right click menu on the call under Advanced Settings, though note that if bandwidth is not up to task
the browser may be forced to reduce bandwidth regardless.

Some further diagnostics info here that might be helpful:
https://www.vmix.com/kno...on-issues-with-vmix-call

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Martin
vMix
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eduardocfs on 6/13/2020(UTC)
Tone13  
#6 Posted : Friday, June 12, 2020 10:11:34 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: admin Go to Quoted Post
Hi,

The latest vMix now offers a lot of control over the call quality, so you can adjust these to get better results.
But first we would need to get a better understanding of what is meant by low quality?
Is it frame rate, resolution, something else? Knowing exactly where you are seeing the drop in quality is key to working out how to improve it.

In the case of comparison with Zoom, note that they limit to 360p at the moment, so for a fair comparison make sure
the return video quality you are sending the caller in vMix is the same.

Also, Zoom uses servers to allow routing only one call at full quality at any time, so it is not fair compare 4x vMix Call inputs with 1x Zoom as network conditions
will dictate vMix needs to reduce bandwidth of those callers all things being equal.

Finally, you can set a fixed bandwidth for the guest from the right click menu on the call under Advanced Settings, though note that if bandwidth is not up to task
the browser may be forced to reduce bandwidth regardless.

Some further diagnostics info here that might be helpful:
https://www.vmix.com/kno...on-issues-with-vmix-call

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Martin
vMix


Thanks for the reply Martin,

In terms of ‘quality’, what I experience is the frame rate dropping to 1- 10 fps rather than compression artifacting or blurriness due to low data rates. Images seem to stay sharpish, but just freeze for over a second fairly often.

I set the return feed to each presenter/ guest to 800kbps as this seems to be the lowest quality I can get away with while presenters can still read the graphics on our output. Any lower, and the text turns to mush and they say they can’t read it.
I have played around with the Advanced settings and switching it from Auto to 2000kbps but neither seemed to make much difference. I’ll try a few in between tomorrow.

I didn’t know Zoom maxes out at 360p! Maybe I do need to lower my incoming feeds in the Advanced settings to 800kbs or so and see how that goes but I assumed that the ‘Auto’ setting should take care of things like that and adjust depending on available bandwidth. It seems to me that rather than adjusting the compression or data rate, it just drops the frames .

All in all, I should say that you have done an amazing job with VMix overall. I’ve been in broadcast TV for twenty years and even now, it’s amazing what VMix is capable of.

Cheers.
Vuurmannetje  
#7 Posted : Saturday, June 13, 2020 1:28:21 AM(UTC)
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Hi Tone13,

One of my clients uses Vmixcall daily for hours on end for a virtual production, and weve had your issue arise sometimes as well.
Basically, we notice that quality varies a lot per user. Things that clearly affect it:

- Provider QoS/throttling
Happens more often with US providers, but choppy image and artifacts in sound happen with these. Even more so with low latency enabled. 50/50 on our US callers if their ISP throtthles.
These guests use zoom for other shows too, where this issue arises less. We've found that VPN services mitigate a lot of this issue.

- Browser issues
If a user has a lot of tabs open this affects Vmixcall performance. Ask them to close down to the necessary tabs or use a separate laptop for notes
This issue extends to computer resources. If theyre running a lot of stuff this will affect the browser responsiveness and Vmixcall as a result.

Cheers
mjgraves  
#8 Posted : Wednesday, June 17, 2020 9:04:12 AM(UTC)
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I can't help but answer the question, "Does Zoom use WebRTC?"

Yes. And No.

They use a lot of the underlying fundamentals, but they implement it in an installable client application. That's one of the things that WebRTC set out to eliminate.

Zoom does this because they have some secret sauce of their own and they have, they feel, a unique focus on making the process easy for clients. They're not wrong about making things easy. In recent days some of their strategy, like glossing over security, has come back to bite them.

Zoom does have a web client that can be used to join a conference without having the application installed. They don;'t make it especially easy to find this way of connecting. They're prefer people to install the client.

The folks at WebRTC Hack have a great overview of how even the web client isn't normal WebRTC.

https://webrtchacks.com/zoom-avoids-using-webrtc/

I completely get this. The issue that I have observed is the browser like to react very quickly to degrading network conditions. Very slowly to improved network conditions.
grantcoll  
#9 Posted : Tuesday, June 30, 2020 9:10:56 PM(UTC)
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Hi Tone13,

I think you have covered this in your initial statement about 50/30, but just thought to mention that some users don't think about other things on their internet and about up speed. They may have good downspeed, but don't think about needing the upspeed to get their footage up to you. In NZ there is still a lot of ADSL which has slow upspeed by design. I am not sure about other countries, but it is worth checking.

Another thing users don't think about is they can tend to watch the show on another computer, and not think about how they are using their own bandwidth. A mistake I have made in the past is not telling callers to turn everything else off on their internet before starting.
craigreilly  
#10 Posted : Wednesday, August 19, 2020 5:27:08 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: grantcoll Go to Quoted Post

Another thing users don't think about is they can tend to watch the show on another computer, and not think about how they are using their own bandwidth. A mistake I have made in the past is not telling callers to turn everything else off on their internet before starting.



And their spouse on a Zoom call for work, and 4 kids on Youtube or playing video games with friends...


thanks 1 user thanked craigreilly for this useful post.
grantcoll on 8/19/2020(UTC)
duxmedia  
#11 Posted : Saturday, August 29, 2020 1:13:46 AM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: Tone13 Go to Quoted Post
Originally Posted by: admin Go to Quoted Post
Hi,

The latest vMix now offers a lot of control over the call quality, so you can adjust these to get better results.
But first we would need to get a better understanding of what is meant by low quality?
Is it frame rate, resolution, something else? Knowing exactly where you are seeing the drop in quality is key to working out how to improve it.

In the case of comparison with Zoom, note that they limit to 360p at the moment, so for a fair comparison make sure
the return video quality you are sending the caller in vMix is the same.

Also, Zoom uses servers to allow routing only one call at full quality at any time, so it is not fair compare 4x vMix Call inputs with 1x Zoom as network conditions
will dictate vMix needs to reduce bandwidth of those callers all things being equal.

Finally, you can set a fixed bandwidth for the guest from the right click menu on the call under Advanced Settings, though note that if bandwidth is not up to task
the browser may be forced to reduce bandwidth regardless.

Some further diagnostics info here that might be helpful:
https://www.vmix.com/kno...on-issues-with-vmix-call

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Martin
vMix


Thanks for the reply Martin,

In terms of ‘quality’, what I experience is the frame rate dropping to 1- 10 fps rather than compression artifacting or blurriness due to low data rates. Images seem to stay sharpish, but just freeze for over a second fairly often.

I set the return feed to each presenter/ guest to 800kbps as this seems to be the lowest quality I can get away with while presenters can still read the graphics on our output. Any lower, and the text turns to mush and they say they can’t read it.
I have played around with the Advanced settings and switching it from Auto to 2000kbps but neither seemed to make much difference. I’ll try a few in between tomorrow.

I didn’t know Zoom maxes out at 360p! Maybe I do need to lower my incoming feeds in the Advanced settings to 800kbs or so and see how that goes but I assumed that the ‘Auto’ setting should take care of things like that and adjust depending on available bandwidth. It seems to me that rather than adjusting the compression or data rate, it just drops the frames .

All in all, I should say that you have done an amazing job with VMix overall. I’ve been in broadcast TV for twenty years and even now, it’s amazing what VMix is capable of.

Cheers.


+1 to Tone13.
I won't bring Zoom into this comaprison, but i'd like to talk about other WebRTC tools out there - Streamyard, Restream Studio and even OBS.Ninja. All do an excellent job with just bringing in Caller video and audio. Sometimes vMixCall just doesn work and it gets very frustrating very quickly because you cannot use any other tool out there as they dont have the capability and maturity of vMix. Caller video quality is sacrosnact for us and no matter what tweak we try, sometimes it just doesnt work via vMixCall.

Rgds
Supreet
mironta  
#12 Posted : Tuesday, September 8, 2020 8:29:46 AM(UTC)
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vMixCall audio
Great for simplicity and flexibility but I'm also disappointed with vMixCall audio. Can't use in good conscience with musical instruments. FB live stream can do an acceptable job with music from a smartphone. Does FB have some magic tech available nowhere else?
mavik  
#13 Posted : Tuesday, September 8, 2020 5:32:01 PM(UTC)
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That is not 100% fair. vMixcall is based on webRTC out of the browser. The network and the browser both have influence on the results of vmixcall. Have you tried the beta.vmixcall.com which allows for more options, especially for the audio section.
Getting rid of webRTC limits you can use other transmissions. RTSP, SRT, Mpeg-TS that would allow better audio settings.
mironta  
#14 Posted : Wednesday, September 9, 2020 1:58:42 AM(UTC)
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My comment was not intended as a general negative on vMixCall. Only to note that the technology is out there for better audio, e.g. FB Live. I appreciate that implementation is non-trivial.

vMixCall would have a whole world of applications for live music streaming if the audio quality was as good as what can be done with FB Live.
I will be trying beta.vmixcall.com. Thanks.
mironta  
#15 Posted : Wednesday, September 9, 2020 8:00:19 AM(UTC)
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RE vMixCall beta audio.
Turning off echo cancellation and auto gain do help audio quality but not enough to remove "underwater" distortion on music.
grantcoll  
#16 Posted : Wednesday, September 9, 2020 8:36:22 AM(UTC)
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Hi Mironta, there are many audio settings and controls within vmix, so it would help if you are clear about which direction and what you are hearing. vmix has multiple audio bus, audio bit rate settings, and the possibility of audio being fed back/muted to the speaker as well as them hearing themselves. Also, when talking about vmixcall and comparing it with FB live, are you comparing apples with apples ?. I would have thought you would compare vmix with FB live, and not vmixcall which is a separate component in vmix.
mironta  
#17 Posted : Wednesday, September 9, 2020 2:31:05 PM(UTC)
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Thanks for the setup suggestions. We will test out more setup options.

I'm assuming FB Live is using a propriety technology. I did not intend to compare vmixcall to FB Live as apples-to-apples applications only to point out that it is technically possible to achieve (sometimes barely) acceptable audio quality for music on a live internet stream with consumer hardware and run of the mill connections.

We are attempting to set up hosted multi artist music shows with performers using vMilCall and a host using vMix to control streamed video output. vMix has all the tools needed to handle this is at a pro level except the audio quality of vMixCall clients. Frustrating!
mavik  
#18 Posted : Thursday, September 10, 2020 6:16:36 PM(UTC)
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Sorry to say. webRTC has dynamic latency. You'll have hard times getting remote musicians playing together.
In your case you would want to have a locked latency, and the same for all participants. That said SRT seems a viable solution. Larix broadcaster is able to do this (no return feed) or something like medialooks (including return)

If you would like to test give me a ping.
mironta  
#19 Posted : Thursday, September 10, 2020 11:18:04 PM(UTC)
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We don't need to synchronize multiple connected players. I realize that's impossible. All performances would be from a single audio/video mix of one or more players at a single location.

We've now tried using vMixCall in conjunction with Cleanfeed, YouTube Live, and FB Live. These all have possibilities but add complications especially when bringing on remote, non-tech users.

I will look into SRT. Thanks for the suggestion.

YouTube and FB add lots of latency which makes sense if they're doing secret sauce processing to maintain quality. For our purposes multi-second latency is not a critical issue. The host/producer has to be aware and manage.

Wonder if vMix can offer an API hook into third party services like Cleanfeed or even FB Live. Or offer a high latency, high quality audio connection option. Possible vMix?
mjgraves  
#20 Posted : Friday, September 11, 2020 9:07:16 AM(UTC)
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vMix Call is as good as any WebRTC service that uses a browser as a client. The weak link is audio handling in the browser, where most services leave automatic noise reduction, echo cancellation and gain control turned on.

Other services, like SourceConnect, are specifically designed for broadcast contribution. They take more explicit control of the audio settings. They are NOT free.
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