Preview streams are meant to present the beauty of a product, but instead in recent ones we got extremely blurred image. After some investigation I found those streams to be streamed in H.264 + ~3000Kbps bitrate, which is devastatingly non-ideal for 1080p60 standards. I advise dovetail staff checking streaming settings and bump it up to at least 10 Mbps for better viewing experience.
I noticed that on the Ludwig stream too. Surely DTG aren’t so cash strapped or under the cosh from Focus, that they can’t do hi res stream and subsequent YT archive?
Tinfoil hat, but maybe they are streaming lo res to overcome further degradation of the gameplay quality, stuttering etc.?
Save that tinfoil for the dinner leftovers Thanks for the suggestions folks, the team are looking at how we can improve streaming quality following these suggestions. I'm not exactly sure what's changed, but we want to make sure that you get the best viewing experience. If you want to see more Mittenwaldbahn, Be sure to check out TrainSimPlay's showcase tomorrow at 17:30 UTC with TSG guest Lukas - but please note it'll be in German.
We will still be able to answer english questions tho! So if there are questions left, feel free to ask
Good morning folks, The way YouTube compresses and encodes video always struggles with anything fast moving, resulting in those artifacts you can see in the second screenshot posted by the OP. Next time you watch our streams, compare the quality between sections when the train is in movement with landscape rushing by and any slower sections, like when the train is stopped and the camera doesn't move around as much or when we show overlays of still images or our webcams. You might also want to compare the streaming quality between the different platforms. Sometimes it looks better on Twitch, compared to YouTube - or vice versa. On top of that, live streaming requires the video data to be compressed in real time, compared to uploaded videos where this happens during and after the upload. While increasing the bitrate would improve the stream quality, it would also increase the bandwith required, as more data is being streamed. This could result in buffering or lower quality for viewers with slower bandwith, so it is a balancing act. Matt's PCs and internet speed are powerful enough to stream at a high quality, and we've set up the streaming software for high quality as well (1080p at 60 FPS and 4000 bitrate for anyone interested). We did reduce the FPS to 30 after Matt's streaming PC died last night though. We also stream to multiple platforms at the same time, which could affect the quality. Matt streams to his co-hosts directly via Discord, so they can react in real time, then the stream gets split to any of the streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch and the Steam storepage. So as Alex said, no need for the tinfoil, but we are taking your comments into consideration and are looking into ways to possibly increase the quality further. All the best, Jan
As a reference, this is Google's recommendation. For H.264 streaming you are advised to multiply the first two rows by 1.2-1.5, and do note that is the minimum which is not very suitable for gaming use.
I did say, tinfoil hat... And it has been subsequently confirmed the streaming is (somehow) being done from a second PC so should not sap resources on the host machine. Which means if the sim is stuttering and spluttering so much then 100% down to the core and/or the pressure the route is putting on it.
Whatever the reason, the outcome was something akin to Train Sim Classic from 15 years ago on a 386; probably one of the worst quality Dovetail livestreams there’s ever been.
