Recommended/Best Settings?

[Bulk]

At the moment i stream with these...

25 fps
Key Frame 4s
Image Quality 60
Buffer Size 10s

Im keen to hear experienced Stream Torrent streamers thoughts on these, would you recommend any changes, if so which ones and why?

Thanks.

[miahjj]

i run my 325k stream @ 480x270 pixels for 16:9 sources & @ 400x300 for 4:3 sources.
i run my 650k stream @ 608x342 pixels for 16:9 sources & @ 520x390 for 4:3 sources.

however, i drop the frame-rate down to 20 fps, for a couple of reasons. One, lowering the frame-rate allows my single-core CPU to keep up better. Second, it gives a sharper output image, while sacrificing a little bit of fluidity of motion. at 20 fps, i feel the image is still fluid enough, while definitely giving a sharper picture. (for comparison, N. American TV standard was 29.97 fps, Europe tv standard was 25 fps, and hollywood movies were 24 fps. So dropping down to 20 isn't too big of a step down from the movies. ;) i have seen some streamers use 15 fps, but in my opinion that makes the motion a little too 'jerky.')

for audio, i use 20kbps @ 32 kHz mono for my low-BW streams, and 48kbps @ 44.1 kHz stereo for my higher-BW (650k) streams. on low-BW streams, sound quality can be improved greatly by using mono. take mine, for example. if i were to use 20k stereo, i'd be streaming left & right channels encoded @ just 10kbps each--thus each one would sound pretty lame. but by downmixing to mono, i basically double the bit-rate/quality, while sacrificing separate left-right channels--a small price to pay for much clearer sound, IMO.

personally, i've never found a need to change key frame or buffer size from default settings, but i guess it wouldn't hurt. (i'm not even sure what the key-frame interval does... :))

ultimately, there are no universal "best" settings. what's best is what works best for each streamer's own hardware and bandwidth limitations. just remember that when it comes to a highly compressed audio-video stream, you have to give up something to gain something. a couple of guidelines are: higher bit-rate/bandwidth can handle more pixels, lower frame-rate equates to more bits-per-frame but with reduced fluidity, and stereo sound (approximately) halves the bit-quality. (e.g., the 48k stereo that i use for my high-BW stream uses approximately 24 kbps for each.)

[Big Mac]

t. (i'm not even sure what the key-frame interval does... :)))

Key frames are complete video frames (or images) that are inserted at consistent intervals in a stream. The frames between the key frames contain information on movement and scene changes that occurs between key frames. For example, if a video depicts a person walking past a doorway, the key frames contain the complete image of the person and the door in the background, and the interval frames contain information describing the person’s movement as they walk in front of the door.

So the Frames per second analogy with film media is not particularly appropriate, where each frame on a reel of film is complete in itself.. Of more significance is the sort of event you are streaming. If there is a lot of action across the whole of the screen, then a shorter keyframe interval will give a better (i.e. sharper) image, but if much of the screen is just green grass, then a longer interval would be possible. But the shorter the key frame interval, the more resource (processor/bandwidth) you use, and in a CBR (Constant Bit Rate) stream, especially at lower bitrates, shortening the key frame interval could deteriorate the quality if the image

Really, changing the keyframe intervakl is more relevant to VBR (Variable Bit Rate) encoding, whivh is used in creating files, rather than live streams.

Of much more significance is the video codec used, since they create different alogorithms to render the "picture". Old ones (like WMV9) are not nearly as good as the more modern ones (like VC-1 Advanced in providing better quality images for a given amount of frame data. H264 is probably the best of all, but, sadly, that is not supported by the StreamTorrent player

[miahjj]

thanks for the info, BM... now that you described it, i have read that about key frames in regards to DVD authoring, (but i think they called it something different..?) anyway, good info, much appreciated.

Of much more significance is the video codec used, since they create different algorithms to render the "picture". Old ones (like WMV9) are not nearly as good as the more modern ones (like VC-1 Advanced ) in providing better quality images for a given amount of frame data. H264 is probably the best of all, but, sadly, that is not supported by the StreamTorrent playerspeaking of which, is it possible to use VC-1 while using WME9, or do you have to go to Expression encoder to get VC-1? i've heard of people doing VC-1 Advanced in WME9, but if so i can't figure out how.

[Big Mac]

speaking of which, is it possible to use VC-1 while using WME9, or do you have to go to Expression encoder to get VC-1? i've heard of people doing VC-1 Advanced in WME9, but if so i can't figure out how.

Not sure about that....guess it would be no harm to download the VC-1 family of codecs, and see if WME9 recognised them. I cannot test this, but have read that to encode on WME9, Windows Media Player 11 must be installed on the computer to ensure full VC-1 compliance across all three profiles (Simple, Main and Advanced)

But in truth, my inclination would be to move from WME9 (which is well past its sell by date) and go to EE4. I find EE4 much easier to use and "tune" than was the case with WME9, and do not find it any heavier in terms of resource hogging.

[Bulk]

speaking of which, is it possible to use VC-1 while using WME9, or do you have to go to Expression encoder to get VC-1? i've heard of people doing VC-1 Advanced in WME9, but if so i can't figure out how.
Yes.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/codecadvancedsettings.aspx#WindowsMediaVideo9Codec Versions

I have the 64 bit edition of WME9 installed and that comes with the VC-1 compliant Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile codec. I hadnt realised until now when doing some googling.

Anyway im changing with video codec to that from now on, hopefully it will improve my streams quality.

Thanks for all the help guys.

[miahjj]

Not sure about that....guess it would be no harm to download the VC-1 family of codecs, and see if WME9 recognised them. I cannot test this, but have read that to encode on WME9, Windows Media Player 11 must be installed on the computer to ensure full VC-1 compliance across all three profiles (Simple, Main and Advanced)

But in truth, my inclination would be to move from WME9 (which is well past its sell by date) and go to EE4. I find EE4 much easier to use and "tune" than was the case with WME9, and do not find it any heavier in terms of resource hogging.thanks, BM. unfortunately, that won't work for me...:(
M$ won't let me install EE, nor will it let me install any version of WMPlayer greater than 9 because i'm using win2ksp4. it's frustrating because i do have the VC-1 codec on my system, because i watch vc-1 streams all the time. but in the WMEncoder, my only codec choices in the drop down menu are WMV7, WMV8, WMV9. i'll keep looking for ways to get around this so i can move up to vc-1, because you are right: it is a much better compression algorithm than wmv9.

[Big Mac]

thanks, BM. unfortunately, that won't work for me...:(
M$ won't let me install EE, nor will it let me install any version of WMPlayer greater than 9 because i'm using win2ksp4. it's frustrating because i do have the VC-1 codec on my system, because i watch vc-1 streams all the time. but in the WMEncoder, my only codec choices in the drop down menu are WMV7, WMV8, WMV9. i'll keep looking for ways to get around this so i can move up to vc-1, because you are right: it is a much better compression algorithm than wmv9.

lol...w2k....that takes me back..only had it briefly because I used NT and then moved on to xp.

Sadly, however, my xp machine finally died 3 weeks ago. But went out in style.....the capacitors in the power supply blew, amnd completely fouled up the HDD and MoBo. So nothing to be salvaged. :(

[miahjj]

lol...w2k....that takes me back..only had it briefly because I used NT and then moved on to xp...UPDATE: well, mac, i am finally getting with the times--and 11 years after its release, i've made the switch to XP! :D after installing XP, i was able to upgrade my WMP to v.11, which indeed did give me access to "advanced profile" encoding in WME9. thanks for the tip, 'cuz i didn't realize that WMP11 was the hurdle that was keeping me from encoding with WVC-1.