Less resource intensive options for 2 remote hosts

mimoLive
1

Hello Boinx Community,

Situation: livestream setup with 2 main hosts remotely located. I am curious to know which among the options below is less resource intensive for the host computer running mimolive.

  1. mimoCall - send each hosts their unique mimoCall link and they dial in (done this several times but we have several feedback especially for people new to mimoCall confused about the interface they are seeing or are having issues with their camera and mics. basically, they just to use zoom. lol)

  2. skype in a separate computer - the 2 main hosts will come from skype in a separate computer and pull each of their video feed via NDI to mimolive

  3. skype in the same computer as mimolive - use screen capture for each host from the skype window and feed to mimolive. Using loopback to capture skype audio and feed that to mimolive.

Less computer resource is priority, then video quality. What do you think?

2

Hi @Design_District_Stud

Have you tried the new mimoCall web client? It should be easier to use and is certainly the best option.

Having the callers on a separate computer takes resources of your mimoLive computer but only if it doesn’t make your usecase more complicated, for example because you want to feed the program output back to the callers.

NDI is a great option but maybe takes even more resources on your mimoLive computer, depending on what other things it is doing like decoding video files or streaming. Another major disadvantage is that the NDI sources are not available for configuration as long as there are no incoming Skype signals.

We have a number of people using an external computer and capturing audio and video via HDMI using a Blackmagic Design capture device, for example the Decklink mini recorder. That is probably the most resource saving way to do this and gives you the flexibility to use either Skype or Zoom or other video conferencing tools.

1 Like
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Ah, i haven’t heard of the new mimoCall beta until now but it looks like it is more user friendly especially on mobile and tablet. Our team will definitely try that.

You mentioned regarding feeding the program output back to the callers in the external computer, yes that was kind of complicated at first but we did manage to achieve this by having NDI Virtual input and NDI Scan Converter on both computers so we use the mimolive output window, screen capture that window and feed it to zoom/skype meeting as my video source. For audio we use Loopback on the mac/mimolive and VB-CABLE Virtual Audio Device software on the PC/external computer.

Regarding NDI we just want to use it to capture individual skype callers as separate video channel/feed. While some prefer to use Zoom, which does not have NDI functionality (yet?), we just use NDI to capture the screen of the external computer running zoom and create several placers in mimolive, set its custom geometry and crop it to to fit each participants faces in the grid view so to make separate like video channels for each participants. A couple of disadvantage to this though, 1) is to have only a fixed number of people in the zoom meeting, otherwise when a new person joins in or leaves, the pre-set placer is not capturing the intended person’s face anymore, 2) output quality and 3) time consuming to setup.

NDI sure is amazing. It’s a better option rather than screen capturing a portion of the local computer’s screen and having to setup audio separately and I think that’s a main strength. i am just not familiar on how resource intensive it is.

Interesting idea regarding capturing audio & video via capture card. Isn’t the Decklink mini recorder a capture device for PC? It’s the other way around.
Here’s a question regarding capture cards, is a typical office dell computer’s built-in HDMI out good enough and output that to a USB capture card in a mac? Is the Elgato Cam Link 4K or the Elgato HD60 S Capture Card better for screen capturing via HDMI the external computer?

To easily understand the resource usage for each, how would you rate them in terms of resource usage in a scale of 1 to 10?

  1. mimoCall (beta)
  2. Skype via NDI from external computer
  3. Running skype or zoom on local machine as mimoLive and screen capture portion of its window of each participant + using loopback for audio
  4. Skype or Zoom via HDMI USB capture device from external computer

Thank you Oliver and more power to the mimolive team. Your input on these questions is greatly valued.