Encoding rate on Vidiu doesn't match what Meetinghouse Webcast shows

[jscrockett]

We successfully broadcast stake conference recently, so this is simply a follow-up for improvement.

During the Saturday evening broadcast members said they were getting not-great video quality, and we checked and found that the Vidiu was somehow set to low bandwidth (250 kbps or something like that). So we changed it to Medium (700 kbps) for the Sunday morning broadcast, expecting to see the usual nice video. However, the output video was still not-great. On further inspection we found that the Vidiu was reporting 700kbps encoding but the Meetinghouse Webcast tool was reporting less than 300 kbps broadcast bandwidth. (See attached photos.) Did we miss a setting change? Any ideas what went wrong?

[In the photos you can see that the Vidiu webpage is reporting "Quality: Medium (700Kbps)" while the Webcast page is reporting Current/Target encode rate of "280/210 kbps" and the Vidiu box front screen itself is showing Medium (796Kbps).]

Thanks in advance,
John

[MarkerAd]

I have seen the exact same thing on my webcasts.

The issue started for me in December and is still going. Before December, the webpage would always match the Teradek setting. From what I can tell, the Webcast page puts the target rate at what rate it receives when the broadcast starts. If I start the feed in the chapel without any movement, I will get somewhere between 200-400kbps for my target rate, but if I have movement from individuals or changing camera positions, my target rate will be between 500-700kbps (I stream at Medium "700kbps" on the Teradek). Getting the higher bit rate with movement makes sense, but it bothers me that I don't get the targeted rate that the encoder is set at. I think the bigger issue that I have observed, is the clients will be capped at the target bit rate, so even if the encoder sends a higher bit rate during the meeting, the clients are stuck at the lower rate and the picture doesn't look so great.

Also to note, I have tried a different Teradek with the same result. I have tried changing Azure location and it made no difference. The Teradek is setup for auto-config and my upload is 10mbps and to ensure no one else is using the bandwidth, I tested with the Teradek directly into the modem and the Meraki firewall disconnected. I also opened a ticket and had webcast support check it out, but they were unable to fix the issue. I am thinking I might trying bumping up the quality to compensate for whatever is going on or switch to OBS as it appears to be closer to the targeted rate.

In general, the Teradek webcast solution has worked great for me. If anyone has any ideas on what else to try or do, the would be awesome.

Thanks.
Adam