Dear Boinx,
after 3 months tests with MimoLive (both stable and beta releases) i still have Video Stuttering Issues and Artifacts on the encoder Output.
I’ve managed to get rid of output artifacts by taking the MimoLive Syphon Output and using OBS instead (which is much more stable in terms of output, i know due to the fact that OBS utilize an open-source codec while you can’t due to licensing issues). Unfortunately my hardware is a MacPro (which should be the top-of-line of Apple’s hardware by the way.)
Please take 45 seconds to see this video sample, coming from MimoLive 3.0b3 (232251) on a MacPro (Late 2013), 64 GB Ram, 3 GPUs (1 nVidia GeForce GTX 1080 with 8 GB Vram + 2 AMD Fire Pro with 3 GB VRAM):
I’ve tried enabling Debug mode on MimoLive (for selecting the GeForce instead of the AMDs), i tried lowering resolution (this output test is done with a 1080p 29.97 FPS video) and i tried every possible combination of OBS + MimoLive settings in order to get rid of video stuttering, but still with no luck.
What can be done in order to remove this micro and macro stutterings with your software?
@nfer81 Thank you for being this patient and not giving up on mimoLive easily. I’m sorry that you experience these issues.
Thank you also for providing the example video. Just to make sure I understand what I’m seeing: Is that a recording made directly with mimoLive or are you streaming somewhere and record that?
The artefacts make me think that maybe the data rate for the mp4 stream is much too low and the key frames are too far apart.
However, this is highly unusual. I just did a test with recording multi-cam free stock footage with fast transitions and did not experience any of those issues. Can you please contact us at support@boinx.com, ask for @“Achim (Boinx)” , and we’ll set up a TeamViewer session to look at your computer to figure out what’s wrong?
Dear Oliver, thank you so much for your prompt reply.
To answer your question: that recording was from the final YouTube output, recorded with Screenflow at the same FPS rate of the streaming output.
I will surely contact Achim at support@boinx.com as you suggested, in order to see what can be done about it!
Dear Oliver, just to let you know that the issue of stuttering video has improved dramatically by re-booting the MacPro. Maybe some CPU/GPU cache issue was causing the stuttering problems. But as long as i’m not that technical I can send you separate sample processes logs if you needs them.
The following video is a recorded ScreenFlow (at 29.76 FPS) of the same previous YouTube streaming via MimoLive + Syphon sent to OBS. Same video source, 1080p at 29.76 FPS.
I’ve added also a “News Crawl” layout sample in order to test the overall stuttering.
As you will see no (or little) stuttering occurs with no encoding glitches on the output (but, again, i’m using OBS instead of MimoLive):
Please download the above video, instead of stream it thru the Dropbox player, since that Dropbox player can cause additional stuttering which are not present in the test video.
At this point i’m stil having issues on the Encoding side of MimoLive, but as far as this trouble is caused by MacPro Xeon processors, i can by-pass it by using OBS. Hopefully with High Sierra and H.265 everything will be finally solved.
@nfer81 Stepping through your provided OBS video frame by frame shows that the crawler is frame accurate making me believe that stuttering in this video comes from play back only.
Regarding your artefacts issue: To me it looks like there are missing frames maybe even key frames that “reset” a video about every 2 seconds.
What are you streaming settings in mimoLive? Please can you share a screenshot of the streaming setup window with the Advanced section open?
Do you encounter internet bandwidth problems? Is the streaming performance and encoding performance in the Streaming settings panel always on green while streaming? Does the “Adjusted Data Rate” drop because of internet bandwidth problems? Once it dropped it will slowing increase the data rate for recovery until it will reach the original level.
Dear Achim, as i further discussed this with Wayne of Boinx Support, the missing frames and key frames issues on the streaming output are related to the missing hardware encoding features of the MacPro’s Intel Xeon processors.
It’s very unfortunate not to be able to use such hardware power (12 cores) but hopefully MimoLive will be able to have more luck with High Sierra and support of the H.265 standards.
Currently the only solution with my MacPro configuration is to stream the output via Syphon sender to OBS and fetch the Syphon signal along with an audio capture software such as Soundflower. This permanently solved the problem.
Concerning my internet bandwidth: i currently have 1 Gbps I/O fiber connection dedicated just to this MacPro. No other machines shares the connection, so i believe that this is not an issue related to our internet network speed.
I’m at your disposal should you need any additional test!
@nfer81 Glad to hear that you found a solution. However, I’m confident that it is actually not necessary to use OBS, although the software x264 encoder used in OBS is certainly performing better than the macOS h.264 software encoder.
We would really like to get to the bottom of this. Could you please post the h.264 settings you are using in mimoLive?
Dear Oliver, this solved completely the encoding output artifacts! Do you think that this 25 FPS setting is to be used in every MacPro live streaming situation?
Please download the 45 seconds sample video here below:
As you will see there are still stuttering issues, but definitely not h.264 artifacts! Please note: the above video has been taken from YouTube’s output, thru Screenflow on a different machine (MacBook Pro with 16 GB Ram, 1.5 GPU Intel Iris HD).
@nfer81 Did you get to the bottom of the stuttering?
I have a similar config with a maxed out MacPro 2013. Bandwith is not a problem. However, we do experience the same stuttering as you described and demonstrated. I’ve just upgraded to High Sierra so will be conducting a new set of tests.
The same issues with video stuttering when stream to fb (6000kb, 720p30, 1gb lan, top 2017 macbook pro i7, 16gb, iris 650)
i have split screen layer (3 in row) with skype window capture frames, when i start play video from playlist source (tried .mov and .mp4) - video is stuttering
1 example: i had turned on split screen with 2 skype windows capture + ios device demo laeyer = In general, everything works well, there are no red bars in the render monitor. (actual render time 24 sec of 30)
a1) CPU utilization is about 90-100%, in system monitoring window we had top proccess:
mimolive 118% + skype 92% + windowserver 35% + kernel task 26%
2 example: when first set was on - i had turned on video layer: and it very stuttering (any video laeyer)
a2) CPU utilization is about 90-100%, in system monitoring window we had top proccess:
mimolive 177% (why?) + skype 80% + windowserver 12% + VTCDecoder %9 (why?)
b2) no fps drops in render monitor, no redlines, but music and video is stuttering
c2) i turned off all laeyers and turned on just camera facetime laeyer and start video layer during stream = also stuttering
d2) but if i start video under camera layer not in during stream = not stuttering.
