Help with multiple stream problem

[fiadmimedia]

we are using 1 pc to push three streams to three different sites. things were going good until program starting to crash and getting chopping video. using a dell intel quad core 2.6ghz, 2 80gig hhd configured to raid 0, 4 gigs ram. using the osprey 240e capture card and viewcast pushing the feed to ustream, livestream and justin.tv. any idea i would welcome to see if the problem can be corrected. also using winxp as OS.

[dmerchen]

I see a few potential bottle necks here, clearly disk I/O should be a problem because of your raid configuration, in fact, if you're not recording, it should all be handled elsewhere.

Any particular reason your using all three of these services, other than your trying to have multiple points of presence? Seems like you might be having one of two problems.

A.) You're using all of the bandwidth you've got available for upstream, which is causing the player to buffer because it has nothing to play.

B.) The processor is just plain not keeping up, I'm not sure how the viewcast works, are all of your out going streams the same bitrate?

[fiadmimedia]

not sure about the whole disk i/o thing. how to check on it. we are not recording on that machine at all.
the bandwidth isn't maxed out at all for the upstream. as for the cpu it's topping out at 85% most times.

[dmerchen]

Sorry about that, it appears I've mistyped. I meant to say that the disk I/O should not be a problem. Though it might not seem like your bandwidth is maxed out you might consider testing it a little further. Try and locate your streaming provider geographically, then head over to http://www.speedtest.net and see what kind of throughput you can get to a city nearby your host. Take your upload speed from this and take it by about 85%, this allows some overhead in case the available bandwidth fluctuates a bit.
Perhaps setup a test broadcast and see about taking down one of the extra streams, see if it improves quality on the other two.

[cmchamp]

what is the network structure like? Hardware, protocol, etc.? If you're attempting to push three streams out a gigabit NIC into a 100bit network to the ISP, that's a problem as well.

[fiadmimedia]

we are using optimum online ultra service but switching to verizon fios by the next of the week. the upload speed will be pretty much the same but yes by when we will be pushing gigabit to 100 mb. i could never find out where ustream is located or if they have a point of presence on the east coast.

[dmerchen]

Unfortunately it appears that Ustream is primarily west coast. The cgw.ustream.tv domain returns as being in Palo Alto, United States. This is just north of San Jose. I've not run a tracert on their streaming servers, as I don't have a url readily available for testing.

[fiadmimedia]

thanks for the info. and for trying

[dmerchen]

Sorry I couldn't be of much assistance. You might check out StreamAPI, they've got a quite cost effective model going, and they have a point of presence on the east coast, New York to be more specific. StreamAPI

I can't speak first hand for their quality, but at their prices one can afford to do a little experimenting on just about any budget.

[fiadmimedia]

we had verizon fios installed on friday and did our broadcast yesterday and to my surprise the stream was solid right thru the entire service especially ustream. we had no problems or choppy video

[dmerchen]

Great to hear that. Why don't you tell Verizion that I'd like FiOS to come to South Dakota? Glad to hear your problem seems to be solved.

[fiadmimedia]

i feel your pain. i waited about a year before it was available in our area.