Broadcasting a Session

[mr_h]

Tonight I wanted to broadcast my FantasyGrounds game to my friends. However, when I used UStream or Justin.TV, the quality was absolutly terrible.

I was using ManyCam for a desktop broadcasting option (its max resolution is 640x480 and that's not very good).

Has anyone had any luck with other options out there? I've got a 23 inch wide screen monitor and I'd like to show as much of the desktop as I could.

[Xorn]

Try Livestream, using Procaster, specifically.

https://www.livestream.com/fgii

That's the quality you can expect. Set the video output to On6 codec, 1280p, 6 fps, 482 kbps target bitrate. Set audio to 18 kbps, 22 Khz, Mono, MP3. Free Livestream is restricted to 500 kbps upstream, so you have to keep your target there. You might have issues streaming it while hosting, depending on your ISPs max upload bandwidth offered. (I'm okay with 1 Mbps upload.)

Good luck!

P.S. 1280p means set the width to 1280, let the ratio set the height, and don't check the interlacing stuff.

[Zeus]

I'll second the recommendation of Livestream with Procaster. Xorn recently introduced me to Livestream and I must admit its a very simple to use yet very powerful streaming solution.

For someone like me who was relatively green to the world of streaming and video recording, the Livestream and Procaster tool is a perfect introduction.

[mr_h]

Hmm, looks interesting. Im mostly concerned about the resolution as Im not going to be transmitting sound or anything of the such (although that is a handy feature).

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Xorn]

You don't have to put audio up.

I have actually considered using LiveStream (or Ustream/Justin.tv/etc) to handle mood music with my games!

I also figured out how to record my mic AND speakers at the same time with Procaster. The stream will use Speakers, and then set the camera audio to your mic. It records whether you use a webcam or not.

I did some fiddling around with this FLV calculator (https://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/apps/flv_bitrate_calculator/) and came up with these resolutions and FPS (assuming you can handle 500 kbps upload) and had these results with the output:

1024x576 @ 12 fps: The motion is great--mouse/window movement and dice rolls are very smooth, while the text is legible enough to read, but blurry.

1280x720 @ 7 fps: There is a slight stutter in the mouse/dice animation, but it's not enough to be distracting. The text is a little sharper, definitely easier to read.

1536x864 @ 5 fps: The mouse and dice movement has a notable stutter to them now, the dice are kind of bouncing around instead of rolling smoothly. Text is clear and easy to read.

1792x1008 @ 4 fps: Mouse and dice movement skips across the screen. Text is very crisp and easy to read.

If showing this to friends that haven't seen FG2, I'd probably use 1024 for the very smooth, very pretty dice rolls. The text is clear enough to read most of the time. If crisp text was my primary goal, I'd probably go with the 1536, as I didn't see enough improvement in 1792 to have the teleporting mouse/dice.

Good luck!

[Leonal]

I use Livestream if some players have problems connecting or seeing maps. It works like a charm.

Also had one session with two players on FG as normal, and two others watching the map through Livestream and rolling dice in Maptool. ^^