Question / Help Best video format for source playback?

[Der Fleischmann]

Hey guys,

so is there any video format that is suggested for the smoothest video playback and lowest performance impact as a media source? My guess was, that h.264 should be fine, but I am not sure about the decoding load it puts on the streaming computer, so I asked myself if there is a better format for OBS to handle playback?

Thx in advance and cheers from Germany!

 

[Suslik V]

Stinger transition (with alpha): https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/stinger-transition-not-working.82917/#post-346605 (.mov qtrle)
All other stuff: H.264 or MPEG2.

 

[Der Fleischmann]

@Suslik V thanks for your answer! Is there any bitrate limit or sweetspot for h.264 or mpeg2 within obs at 1080p 60fps 8-12 MBit/s? I will check the the ffmpeg method with the stinger transitions aswell. I used the direct quicktime file output from after effects lately (2s = 60mb), so a little bit of compression might be a good idea! lol :D

@nazim13 yeah, but is is a kind of old format. I guess I will stick with h.264 and mpeg2 for now. But thanks fpr your answer aswell! ;-)

 

[Suslik V]

I can think only of limits by level 3.1 for 1280x720@30fps (try to keep it up to 5 MBit/s while still using crf), and maybe level 4.2 for 1920x1080@60 (my PC is hot ready for FullHD recordings, so I cannot recommend exact settings).

 

[Der Fleischmann]

@Suslik V okay! I will keep it low bitrate, I guess. It doesn't make sense to have videos played back, that are 50mbit when just sending out 8mbit to twitch. Thx for your help! ;-)

 

[Suslik V]

Not at all.

 

[lebaston100]

To add something to this conversation: The bitrate is not as important here. It's how much it's compressed. Decompressing a prores or cineform or playing an uncompressed avi file takes less resources then using heavier compression like h264 or even h265(the difference isn't that big depending on your hardware). Naturally the file sizes will be bigger and you i would recommend using a large (dedicated) ssd for playback media if you have a lot and go the not much/uncompressed route.

 

[Der Fleischmann]

@lebaston100 Thx for your advice! I thought about this aswell. Shouldn't be a m.2 ssd (3200 MB/s read) enough? I will do some tests with AVIs, I guess...

 

[Makoah]

HI all. I noticed today that moving a media source files location while OBS is open does not make any difference until OBS is closed and then reopened. At which point the source is blank on the canvas. So if that's the case, wouldn't that mean ALL of the media files are loaded into RAM when OBS is opened? And if all files are loaded into RAM, wouldn't a dedicated drive not matter?