Hardware vs Software Encoding

I noticed in the streaming settings that I’m not afforded many options for which encoder I can choose to encode my stream. I’ve also noticed in recent release notes that mimoLive does give an indicator in the streaming status as to whether my stream is using a hardware or software encoder. I would like to have some measure of control as to whether I stream with the software encoder, or the hardware encoder. (Or a third party hardware encoder like the AMD/nVidia hardware h.264 encoder I can use with other streaming software depending on what Mac I’m using)

Is there anything I can do to select the hardware or software encoder myself, or anything I can do to influence how mimoLive selects which encoder to use?

Thank you for the feature request.

Currently, OS X makes the decision on what encoder to use. Basically, if there is an h.264 hardware encoder, it will use that. If there isn’t, it defaults to a software encoder. Since the software encoder is not very efficient, if it is used, it seriously degrades system performance. In order to diagnose this, we’ve added the information to the streaming status window.

H.264 is currently the only option available on OS X for encoding live streams.

So, as @“Achim (Boinx)” tell me in a email, the Mac Pro 5.1 doesn’t have encoder chip…

I don’t test it yet, but it’s mean that if I use it, my system will degrade the performance? 12 cores, 32 GB RAM and 4gb GPU is not enough?

It is there some hardware option to add?

This card will work?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/618352-REG/Matrox_MCHD.html

Maybe I should have worded this differently. :wink: A 12 core MacPro will certainly do fine, but the cores will be busy encoding. mimoLive does most of its magic on the graphics card, so encoding will not impact mimoLive severely. However, if you plan to also use 6 HD video sources, it might get busy…

We use the smallest Mac Pro to test on purpose to make sure that we catch any issues, and we did a live stream from Berlin using 5 HD cameras with our MacPro.

The Matrox card will not work as far as I know.

The Matrox card, support Flash Live Media Encoder…

And also, they say that “Boinx is supported”

http://forum.matrox.com/mxo/viewtopic.php?p=48227&sid=476f97b2eb2637d41f2a1f8176775fc0
Which software is the Mimolive encoding streaming based?

The comments about the Mac Pro not having a built-in hardware h.264 encoder are interesting. It makes sense that the Xeon line wouldn’t have QuickSync like the Core i3/i5/i7s, but is it also the case that the dual AMD GPUs don’t have hardware h.264 encoders either? I can’t seem to find much on the Internet saying one way or the other. It just seems odd when pretty much all their other product lines over the past couple years have had hardware h.264 encoding built in.

If there’s no h.264 hardware encoder anywhere in a new Mac Pro, I would happily pick up a thunderbolt enclosure and a mid-range consumer grade nVidia/AMD video card just to get the hardware accelerated h.264 encoding. Is that something that mimoLive would potentially support in the future?

@JMVBMW The Matrox solution is from 2014 and utilizes QuickTime APIs. it works with BoinxTV and Flash Media Encoder but not with mimoLive.

@“Oliver (Boinx)” I could use Matrox card - mimolive - syphon sender layer - twistcam and FMLE? like the BoinxTV old way?

@madden64freak Currently, mimoLive doesn’t choose which encoder is used. This is done by macOS. The software encoder is only a fallback in case there is no hardware encoder.

@JMVBMW Yes, this still works.

@“Oliver (Boinx)” I’ll do my own test with my machine and I’ll let you know the results

Recently, I’m upgraded the GPU to and GTX680 4gb card. I hope that help.

I’m looking forward to hearing your test results!

@“Oliver (Boinx)” there is a chance to FMLE recognize Mimolive as video source?

@JMVBMW Unfortunately FMLE is using the old 32-bit-QuickTime technology to capture video from video sources. mimoLive is build on AVFoundation which isn’t compatible with the old QuickTime capture API. Why do you need to use FLME since mimoLive can stream by its own?

@“Achim (Boinx)” Because the Mac Pro Xeon lack of H264 encoder chip, and it issues during streaming

I was looking for the possible solution, and I found the Matrox CompressHD PCIe card, which work with FMLE.

I don’t know if a Hi end video card, like the GTX680 can help with this situation

@“Achim (Boinx)” There is some way that Mimolive use the Nvidia CUDA H264 encoding, for those who have Nvidia’s GPU’s?

http://www.mainconcept.com/eu/products/sdks/gpu-acceleration-sdk/cuda-h264avc.html

@JMVBMW I am sorry, currently there are no plans to implement it.

I have a Matrox MX02 hardware scaler and audio i/o that no longer operates with mimoLive. It used to work with BoinxTV. Im using OSX 10.10.
The scaler works fine with other apps. Is this a bug?