How do I get the best video streaming quality?

[Ash Raj]

I would like to live stream video from a camera to YouTube in 2160p. Which encoder would give me the best video quality? E.g., x264 with a fast CPU, Nvidia NVENC, Intel Quick Sync, M1 Mac hardware encoding.

I read somewhere that no CPU on the market is fast enough to encode 2160p video with x264 slow in realtime. Is that true?

How does the quality of Nvidia's NVENC encoder differ between cards? Desktop vs notebook, 20 series vs 30 series, cards within the same generation.

 

Thanks!!!

[Anonymous_Yee]

2 minutes ago, Ash Raj said:

I would like to live stream video from a camera to YouTube in 2160p. Which encoder would give me the best video quality? E.g., x264 with a fast CPU, Nvidia NVENC, Intel Quick Sync, M1 Mac hardware encoding.

I read somewhere that no CPU on the market is fast enough to encode 2160p video with x264 slow in realtime. Is that true?

How does the quality of Nvidia's NVENC encoder differ between cards? Desktop vs notebook, 20 series vs 30 series, cards within the same generation.

 

Thanks!!!

I think if you were to do 2160p, you would need either a 5900X or 5950X. And then like a really good graphics card.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, Ash Raj said:

Which encoder would give me the best video quality? E.g., x264 with a fast CPU, Nvidia NVENC, Intel Quick Sync, M1 Mac hardware encoding

x264 technically offers the highest image-quality, if you use the veryslow-preset. The slow-preset or any faster preset than that produces is beaten by NVENC now.

2 minutes ago, Ash Raj said:

How does the quality of Nvidia's NVENC encoder differ between cards? Desktop vs notebook, 20 series vs 30 series, cards within the same generation.

All cards of the same generation use the same encoder, so there is no difference there -- including mobile. Also, both the 20 - series and the 30 - series use the same encoder, so again, no difference there. The 10 - series and earlier use a different encoder which doesn't produce quite as good results.

[WereCatf]

Just now, Anonymous_Yee said:

I think if you were to do 2160p, you would need either a 5900X or 5950X. And then like a really good graphics card.

Why would OP need both a beefy CPU and a beefy GPU, if OP was doing the encoding using the CPU? No, it doesn't work like that; you either use the CPU to do the encoding and thus you need a beefy CPU, or you use the GPU to do it and you need a GPU capable of handling it.

[curiousmind34]

8 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

 encoding and thus you need a beefy CPU, or you use the GPU to do it and you need a GPU capable of handling it.

Considering the current graphics card options, I'm assuming the first is going to make more sense. The highest end CPU in stock which makes sense to buy is the 10850k, and hopefully the integrated graphics can handle it, but I don't know.

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, curiousmind34 said:

Considering the current graphics card options, I'm assuming the first is going to make more sense.

Depends on where one lives, the budget, the availability of the components in the area, the willingness to wait for shipping from a further-away place, the encoding settings, like e.g. how many frames-per-second one plans to encode at, and what else one plans to do other than just simply encoding the video and streaming it out to Youtube. OP never mentioned any other details than the encoding - part, so I have no opinion on what does or doesn't make most sense.

 

Oh, and one has to remember that if one plans to use all sorts of heavy effects and such, those are typically rendered by the CPU even if the encoding itself was done by the GPU and at 2160p they do also take a toll.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Biggest thing is probably bitrate.

 

Look here for the max bitrate, and use those max bitrates you can.

 

At those bitrates, the quality difference isn't too big, but new nvenc, and good x264 is pretty similar, a user is very unlikely to notice the difference.

 

 

 

 

[Ash Raj]

30 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

All cards of the same generation use the same encoder, so there is no difference there -- including mobile. Also, both the 20 - series and the 30 - series use the same encoder, so again, no difference there. The 10 - series and earlier use a different encoder which doesn't produce quite as good results.

Just to confirm: You're saying that a notebook with an RTX 2060 would encode 2160p video with the exact same quality as a desktop with an RTX 3090?

[WereCatf]

Just now, Ash Raj said:

Just to confirm: You're saying that a notebook with an RTX 2060 would encode video with the exact same quality as a desktop with an RTX 3090?

Yes.

[Ash Raj]

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

Oh, and one has to remember that if one plans to use all sorts of heavy effects and such, those are typically rendered by the CPU even if the encoding itself was done by the GPU and at 2160p they do also take a toll.

I'm keeping things simple on the streaming PC. Although I'll be using OBS, I could theoretically just run an FFMPEG command.

[Craftyawesome]

It might be worth noting that youtube supports HEVC over HLS https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/guides/ingestion-protocol-comparison

 

It's a pain to deal with, though.

[Ash Raj]

What about that makes it a pain to deal with?

Is NVENC also the best option to encode 4K video in HEVC for live streaming?

[Craftyawesome]

3 hours ago, Ash Raj said:

What about that makes it a pain to deal with?

Is NVENC also the best option to encode 4K video in HEVC for live streaming?

The only way I've managed to get it to work on OBS is to use ffmpeg custom output to url on the recording tab.

As for quality, x265 might be better, but only if allowed to run way slower than realtime. For other encoders https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/ultimate-encoder-quality-analysis-2020-nvenc-vs-amf-vs-quicksync-vs-x264.998/

[Kilrah]

10 hours ago, Anonymous_Yee said:

I think if you were to do 2160p, you would need either a 5900X or 5950X. And then like a really good graphics card.

Just did a streaming job where I had 3 simultaneous encodings at 4K, 1080p and 720p running with no CPU usage. NVENC is really cool. 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Programs, Apps and Websites

[Ash Raj]

On 4/18/2021 at 9:25 PM, Craftyawesome said:

The only way I've managed to get it to work on OBS is to use ffmpeg custom output to url on the recording tab.

Could you post a screenshot of your settings?

[Craftyawesome]

21 hours ago, Ash Raj said:

Could you post a screenshot of your settings?

Blocked part is stream key. You probably need StreamFX plugin to get a simple video encoder option, but doing custom output with vanilla OBS shouldn't be too hard either.