In reply to a post by ian72:

Last time I used the Pro version of Zoom you couldn't change video rates and I never saw more than 2Mb/s upstream - often it would be 1Mb/s or lower.

Like I said, I'm not an expert... just commenting on what the bitrates suggest.

Yes, was just saying the position in Zoom. Don't know what options there are with youtube streaming as I don't do it.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2853702?hl...

You may have been using settings on YouTube studio that was using all the capacity. 1080p on that link shows Video bitrate range: 3,000–6,000 Kbps

Another thing no one has mentioned is the device running the encoding, you can get warnings if your PC is slowing things down i.e. cannot encode frames fast enough and creating dropped frames.

So what you need to do is find out what settings are set in YouTube studio and check the PC performance is not maxing out the CPU

Edited by MrSaffron (Mon 16-Nov-20 13:33:53)

In reply to a post by MHC:

Just use Zoom and there will be no issues. Every user should be able to join using phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, ...

Not everyone wants to use Zoom which asks for registration and software to be downloaded. And Zoom doesn't work on all browsers. Given the choice I'll take the FB feed. Your choice may vary, but give a choice!

A few points:
Yes we are attempting to achieve something like a poor man's version of UK broadcast quality, 1080 / 50. The current cameras are Sony domestic HD camcorders which are delivering quite reasonable pictures which match surprisingly well, but if this becomes the norm we hope to upgrade them fairly soon.
The YouTube and Zoom feeds will eventually be different, Zoom feeding in from homes to both a church congregation (Whenever!) and back out on the YouTube feed. I have monitored our current YouTube feed during tests and it is running at just over 9Mbps. We also have a decent network at the church, installed by one of my colleagues who is a professional in that field.

As others have suggested it is likely to be a device problem rather than a broadband problem.

Are you using one device for both Youtube and Zoom? I would suggest using a different device for each stream, this may mean two separate cameras. ( I am assuming a semi professional setup if you have the resources of that many members). Otherwise you will need to get a semi-professional mixing desk with dual outputs to the two different streaming devices. or a very high spec PC capable of handling two HD video streams at once (Quad CPU segregated across each stream.)

I am aware of quite a few churches streaming online services using less bandwidth than you. Some with less than 10Mb upload.

The Streaming / switching device is a Blackmagic ATEM mini pro which has a an ethernet connection to feed out directly over our network and comes with their own software ready installed. It also has a usb c output which can simulate a webcam, that feeds a separate PC which handles the Zoom side of things, but which carries the same input feed as YouTube. We have a Zoom professional licence I understand. The PC used for Zoom is a 3rd generation i7 running Win 10 I believe.
We will eventually be using all 4 HDMI inputs on the ATEM, probably 2 cameras, another PC for video clips, song words etc. and the fourth input for an output from the Zoom PC.

It's the simultaneous Zoom and YouTube operation which increases the demand The outgoing feed to the Zoom computer is 1080/50 which is also probably higher than many would use.
I'm pretty confident of our bandwidth needs, my son is also involved in live broadcast work which includes many zoom type contributions these days and confirms my figures.
Any suggestions of where we should be looking for reliable provision at these speeds?

The simplest and would provide some redundancy is a second line and maybe if G.fast is available with a good upload prediction getting that would be good. If your upload is only 17 Mbps on VDSL2 (max 20 Mbps) then you may not see much faster on G.fast, hence what the prediction is is important. If looking at a long term solution then an Ethernet (leased line) 100 Mbps symmetric line might be the way to go, but comes with a higher cost but also less affected by contention.

1080/50 should be entirely possible with 5 or 6 Mbps bit rate, you really need to spend some time looking at the settings used and experiment with the different bitrate/quality settings and then have some remotely watch feeds to evaluate. Once above 3 to 4 Mbps you will find most viewers won't be able to tell the difference.

Remember the feed to a PC maybe 1080/50 at a high bit rate of say 40 Mbps, but nothing to stop the client PC encoding at a different rate (raw 1080p HD is something like 1.6 Gbps, if brain recalls and broadcast kit tends to run at around 250 Mbps for recording). This is where your choice of graphics card in the PC comes into play as ones that support hardware encoding will be happy.

Thanks for all that, G.Fast A is available with a claimed upload range of 30-45Mbps, but the prices vary a lot with supplier, is that to do with contention or just competition? A second line is obviously an option, but cost is a significant factor in this, once we've reached an adequate quality threshold. Slim chance but I'd love to hear from anybody with current practical experience in this area. We're not in ay way an American Megachurch, just a medium size Methodist Church in the Thames valley which happens to have some relevant IT and broadcast experience in its membership (Thames Valley is more or less the Silicon Valley of the UK).