That looks fantastic. The audio is clear, though a little soft.
The link below indicates that some people adjusted the audio using 48KHz and resolved the problem with a non-360 stream on YouTube. I suspect the solution may be found by research general YouTube audio streaming problems and then modifying the source code of the plug-in.
It may be possible to make small changes to the source code and recompile.
public boolean prepareAudio() {
microphoneManager.createMicrophone(44100, false, false, true);
// If the argument is omitted, 128 * 1024, 44100, true, false, false
return this.audioEncoder.prepareAudioEncoder(128 * 1024, 44100, false);
}
If we search more on general “audio problems streaming on YouTube,” we may be able to form a theory as to why the audio problem is occurring with the plug-in. If we can isolate the problem, you could roll the solution into the Flow Tours plug-in and have a unique working solution.
@craig thanks! I tried in past to adjust this code and to set 48KHz, but without success. I was able to debug that it’s related to the encoding library itself (pedro), how timing of audio frames happens there. It’s on my radar to check further, but spending weeks of effort is too much and as I see it could take 2-3 weeks to debug and solve.
I did another stream today, but toward my own platform in HDR dual fisheye format, highest quality settings, which by the way produces more heating.
Thanks for the encouragement as well as your earlier tests.
Realistically, this may take a while to fix. The problem may be related to an underlying library that the plug-in uses. The THETA V/Z1 use an Android OS inside the camera. The problem with the library may only surface when someone is live streaming from an Android device to YouTube AND using that library.
Laszlo is in the process of submitting his plug-in to the store. However, his plug-in likely has the same audio issue streaming to YouTube. His plug-in works to his own service or Facebook, but not to YouTube. His service looks good, but I understand you want to stream to your subscriber base on YouTube.
Also, you may need to blow a fan onto the body of the camera for longer streaming sessions.
You have an interesting use case. A few years ago, RICOH developed a specialized streaming camera (max 2K resolution) for this type of use case.
As it’s 2K only, the RICOH R may not be a good solution for you. Actually, I recommend you don’t spend more money at the moment. If I were you, I would wait and see how the plug-ins for your existing camera to evolve.
I am definitely going to wait. I spoke to someone at ricoh and they are aware of the problem - and are working on updating the plugin as well. I was planning on following up w them towards the end of the month… I don’t’ really wanna broadcast on FB - - so I have to wait for a better option.
Oh, that’s good news. If the RICOH engineer that developed the plug-in is going to work on it, they may fix the audio. Thanks for this update. I hadn’t heard that RICOH engineers were going to give it a try. Based on your tests, I reported the problem, but wasn’t sure if they had time to take a look at it.
Thanks for redirecting me here Craig. Really thankful for Biviel’s efforts here.
If I want to stream to facebook, would the plugin be available to share? Trying to get fb live stream working for a dance re-open event before next weekend, where most of our viewers will be on fb. We are planning to hang the camera from the ceiling in the center of the dance studio so viewers can pan the camera to watch everyone in the room.
Hi! I tested the latest official “Wireless Live Streaming” Plugin toward youtube and the audio got improved, I can hear just a bit of ticketing sound during live stream. Also image quality is better. There is an issue however, the FPS is around 10-11 only with that plugin.
@iamralphsutton ,
I’m finalizing my own plugin called “HDR wireless live streaming”, which provides already much better image and overall quality to stream to any custom RTMP or RTSP server. This was a preliminary test I did a few weeks back, for internal use, but anyway you can look at it.
Since this I improved further, video is smoother, will release a significant update of this plugin in a few weeks and it will of course work toward youtube too.
Please let me know when it’s ready – its so weird because before covid – and the last update to the plugin - it always worked so well for me… and now forever it hasn’t worked well at all… I am looking forward to any update or plugins you can provide!
Laszlo, what are the steps to use your plug-in? Does the user of your plug-in have to first connect to FlowTours and FlowTours relays the video to YouTube? Or, is the Z1 directly streaming from the camera to the YouTube RTMP server?
If the data is going through your own servers, what are you charging?
If streaming to youtube or facebook, or any other than flow.tours media server, it will not go through my website at all, camera will directly stream to these platforms.
My website is only used to control the camera configuration. Certain services I’m planning to charge later, or to let users buy this plugin once I think it’s good enough.
The main goal is only to provide a UI to users to control camera settings easier, as on Ricoh Wireless Live Streaming plugin, users need to get the IP of the cam, etc. process is not too user friendly.
Also I have control over who is using the plugin I developed…
Regarding charges when streaming to my platform, I’m not sure yet, but would like to minimize cost for sure. I’m in the process of setting up some tensorflow services, object tracking, looking into motion tracking options and multi camera views. Once I’m done with improved HDR Wireless live streaming plugin I will come back to work out those goals or some of them.
