Of live streaming games and inter webs service providers.

maximumzero · August 2014

So recently I've been thinking of doing some video game livestreaming. I wouldn't be doing it for monetary reasons, and I likely wouldn't even be doing any sort of live cam or voiceovers.

Now, I picked up a Elgato Game Capture HD in the past, and it worked wonderfully. It worked great within OS X and captured some great video direct to an external hard drive I had connected.

However, to be frank, my internet is garbage. AT&T DSL at 3.0Mbps downstream and only 384Kbps upstream. Obviously this didn't work for streaming, as it simply wasn't fast enough. Heck, even Youtube took a good 3 hours to upload a 5 minute video. The Elgato went back to the store only a day after I purchased.

Well, after AT&T gave us a particular bout of shitty service this week, we're switching to Cox for internet service. Judging by what I'm seeing on their site, it looks like we're going to have a 25Mbps downstream connection with a 5Mbps upstream. (They're claiming they're updating their equipment at the end of september and we'll get up to 50Mbps downstream automatically. Whether or not the upstream will also be doubled up to 10Mbps I'm not sure.)

Is 5Mbps sufficient for a 720p stream online with a decent bitrate, or should I just not bother with that upstream speed?

Dehumanized · August 2014

Should work. Only way to know for sure is to try it, as a big part of the question isn't just how much upstream you have, it's how quickly your provider can route that traffic to the streaming service you're using. Twitch, for example, looks for a maximum bitrate of 3500kb/s, so 5mbps should be sufficient... assuming something doesn't get in the way.

edit: mind you, a well encoded stream at 3500kb/s is really quite high quality. minimum number for a watchable stream is quite a bit less. here's twitch's recommended bitrates (in kb/s) for given resolution streams:

Recommended bitrate for 1080p: 3000-3500
Recommended bitrate for 720p: 1800-2500
Recommended bitrate for 480p: 900-1200
Recommended bitrate for 360p: 600-800
Recommended bitrate for 240p: Up to 500

maximumzero · August 2014

Most of the Wii U games don't do over 720p, and either of the displays I'd be playing on are 720p, so I may be good with just sticking with that.

Sweet, guess I'll start stacking up my Swagbucks for an Elgato device again.

Penny Arcade

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