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OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

obsproject.com

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Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#91

Post by DrewADesign »

squarefoot wrote: post #63
DrewADesign wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we need more design expertise in FOSS. Your form/function dichotomy is incorrect. You have software domain knowledge and experience working with spaghetti interfaces assembled by developers rather than designed by experts. You find them more functional because it fits your existing mental model of an interface. However, these interfaces are vastly less functional to everyone else. An interface that only f…

> This is why we need more design expertise in FOSS. The secret probably is having well defined roles: whoever writes the code shouldn't be involved in interface design and vice versa, unless they prove themselves good at it, as the two tasks require very different sets of skills. This is easily accomplished in commercial software writing where roles are defined and salaries paid, but in the FOSS world where everyone…

There’s definitely some utility in separating roles— as an experienced designer and developer I can assure you that making the right design decision is a lot harder if it’s going to be a pain in the ass for you to code — but the most important factor is having the right expertise for the task. We’ve all seen the cargo culted loopdy loop code written by non-experts armed with tutorials, and having one of them do the design and one do the coding won’t work out any better. Same thing with devs and UI work. Design is a wholly different skill set that requires study and practice.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#92

Post by ketzo »

NorwegianDude wrote: post #68
reilly3000 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man that sounds like an awesome rig. I didn’t realize Nvidia Broadcast can reduce background noise like keystrokes until you mentioned it here. Does that really work? If so I now have a reason to buy a new GPU and finally use my cherry mx blues again.

I'd say that it works very well. So well in fact that as I reinstalled windows and watched F1 on Sunday I was surprised to see that Ferrari had managed to remove the engine sound from the drivers microphone, but at some cost to the clarity. Turns out the background noise removal was turned on for my output too.

Wow, that’s… kind of insane. Cool. I’m gonna have to check it out.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#93

Post by smcnally »

r1ch wrote: post #28
TechSquidTV wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to find a way to better integrate UI/UX designers into open source.

We have actually just launched a user survey[1] today hoping to get some feedback about how people use OBS, with the goal of improving UX. No telemetry makes it difficult to get an idea of which features users actually use or find important. [1] https://obsproject.com/survey

> No telemetry makes it difficult to get an idea of which features users actually use or find important.

Beyond the survey, are there usage logs we can share or limited telemetry we can opt into?

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#94

Post by eropple »

yellowapple wrote: post #31
naikrovek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it have a freaking equalizer yet? > Seriously. I don't want to research plugins or pay for one of the most fundamental signal processing blocks. It’s amazing how often I see this “I am owed feature X” attitude… and I don’t get it. If it isn’t useful for you, then just don’t comment. OBS is a VST plugin host, so there are probably a million equalizers, but you seriously don’t want to research plugins.

OBS is a VST plugin host I had no idea. The idea of something other than a DAW being a VST host seems bonkers to me, yet in the case of OBS makes perfect sense.

The catch here is that OBS doesn't support a way to bus together multiple audio sources and apply plugins to their downmix, which limits the effectiveness of being a VST plugin host. When I use OBS I find myself having to route audio (both analog and digital sources) over a virtual audio cable to another application if I want to apply nontrivial effects chains (and eating the resultant latency/fighting with audio-video sync).

It's doable, but it can be intimidating if you don't know exactly what you're looking at.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#95

Post by Karrot_Kream »

sundvor wrote: post #50
reilly3000 wrote: post #39

When I was half my age, OBS was unfathomable. I was shooting video on digital 8, editing in Final Cut Pro 4 which was the new hotness, and trying but failing to use DSS on my college network. Actual streaming at scale required a massive server and a massive license from RealNetworks. If I wanted to do anything with animation, it was all $$$$$ software. This all took place in a shared lab at my college with stuff I co…

We've come an incredibly long way since Genlock on the Commodore Amiga! I use OBS Studio with my Streamdeck, a Logitech Streamcam, NVIDIA Broadcast, a condenser microphone via a Steinberg XLR audio interface along with Elgato Key lights and iHue fill lights for my working from home office Google Meets. Startup and shut downs of the entire stack including launching into Google Meets are automated with the deck (one bu…

Unless OBS (or FFMpeg or GStreamer) is giving you something you need (maybe correction on your camera or some touch up filters or whatever), I'm not sure if you (the royal "you") really need OBS for this setup.

I also have a very similar setup. High quality webcam, high quality headset, and a few lights pointing into my face to offset the lighting in the room. I have Zoom configured to use original audio and turn off echo cancellation and most audio postprocessing as the headset pretty much does everything I need audio wise. I've even had my partner talking in the same room and others on my VC haven't heard a thing.

My webcam needs almost no touch-up. While I can stream at 1080p easily (and do so with friends over FFMpeg and an RTSP server), Zoom (and I'm guessing Meet) will frequently downsample your webcam output when in a VC with multiple participants to save on bandwidth. A 1:1 chat can have you streaming in full 1080p glory, but I don't ever need a post-processing layer atop my webcam.

The setup is as easy as me turning on my camera and putting on my headset. Make sure you are using Ethernet so you don't run into AP congestion, especially if you have others in the house doing VC as well. But yeah modern high quality VC is almost completely plug-and-play.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#96

Post by ehsankia »

reilly3000 wrote: post #39

When I was half my age, OBS was unfathomable. I was shooting video on digital 8, editing in Final Cut Pro 4 which was the new hotness, and trying but failing to use DSS on my college network. Actual streaming at scale required a massive server and a massive license from RealNetworks. If I wanted to do anything with animation, it was all $$$$$ software. This all took place in a shared lab at my college with stuff I co…

I remember when you had to use Fraps to record your game, and a shitty proprietary webcam software to record that, then somehow mix them together like you said. Honestly mind boggling that there was not really a solid way to capture screen and webcam before OBS. It makes creating videos so much easier. OBS is honestly probably the greatest open source software out there in terms of quality and value.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#97

Post by ehsankia »

usrn wrote: post #81
platz wrote: post #62

I'm not a streamer, but I find OBS is great for other uses. The main things I use OBS for is: - Recording screen or window, while recording desktop audio and mic at the same time. - routing master windows audio through a compressor/limiter when listening to videos or streams that have poor leveling (though you need to install a virtual audio output in windows to do this - I found something called CABLE that works. Th…

> - Recording screen or window, while recording desktop audio and mic at the same time. FFMPEG alone (well, with the pulseaudio loopback) can do this. It can also stream to stuff like twitch with no extra software. OBS is great but I feel like it's overkill for a lot of what people do.

Good luck figure out the command to compose even a simple scene with a webcam on top of a desktop feed, let alone switching inputs or mixing audio. All of which are very basic thing you'd want to do when creating a screen recording. Meanwhile it's 4-5 clicks in OBS.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#98

Post by ehsankia »

rubychill wrote: post #52

I remember having a subscription to xfire back in 2012, apparently the same year that OBS 1.0 was released. Having such a high quality piece of open source software as the defacto standard for video recording/streaming is quite nice alongside Audacity for audio recording.

XFire, now that's a throwback...

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#99

Post by DrewADesign »

squarefoot wrote: post #63
DrewADesign wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we need more design expertise in FOSS. Your form/function dichotomy is incorrect. You have software domain knowledge and experience working with spaghetti interfaces assembled by developers rather than designed by experts. You find them more functional because it fits your existing mental model of an interface. However, these interfaces are vastly less functional to everyone else. An interface that only f…

> This is why we need more design expertise in FOSS. The secret probably is having well defined roles: whoever writes the code shouldn't be involved in interface design and vice versa, unless they prove themselves good at it, as the two tasks require very different sets of skills. This is easily accomplished in commercial software writing where roles are defined and salaries paid, but in the FOSS world where everyone…

And the main barrier to design work being integrated into FOSS is usually the attitude of project maintainers. I know plenty of designers who’ve worked as developers and all of them contribute to FOSS… just not as designers. The attitude of the post to which I responded is a perfect example of it— the way developers do it is the advanced way to do it but designers just want to make the Tonka version for idiots. It doesn’t fly in commercial software but FOSS is fun for a lot of developers specifically because they don’t have to listen to a project manager telling them to make it pixel perfect just like the designer asked. And hey — it’s their Project and they can do with it what they will, but it rubs me the wrong way to see those same people blaming users for struggling with their “advanced” interface and scoffing at the utility of experts and their work.

Re: OBS – Open Broadcaster Software

#100

Post by TimTheTinker »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #73
bityard wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm normally one who vastly prefers function over form and UIs that get out of the way of someone who knows what they're doing instead of catering _strictly_ to the use cases of the lowest common denominator. But even I think the Calibre UI is pretty awful.

While I'm sort of rephrasing what DrewADesign said, I think, it's not a matter of "form over function" as much as the difference between a UI designed around the tasks to be done versus one designed around the underlying data/function models. The latter can be very "functional," but that doesn't necessarily make it a good interface. Calibre's UI isn't illogical or nonsensical, and it can do everything you probably wa…

I think the classic design phrase "form follows function" best describes the ideal.

That is, when designing something, and especially when there's nothing to yet dictate what the form should be, let function guide you to it.

If you were to ask "how should a table lamp be designed", I would point to its function -- to give diffuse light and allow switching it on and off -- as the primary guide. Make that work well. Don't let the form get a life of its own that will distract from the function. Rather, the form should serve the function and make it beautiful.

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