I’m not sure if this is a “Help” thing, or a “Suggestions” one! I hope I am describing my problem properly.
So, I use ManyCam with Adobe Connect. Adobe supports some odd resolutions, such as “480p” at 16:9 aspect ratio (IKR!)
If I set Adobe to 720p and ManyCam to 720p, all seems to work. Unfortunately, there are times when, due to network bandwidth, I need to switch Adobe to 480p. With me so far?
OK, so when I do this, it seems that Adobe somehow “asks” ManyCam what resolutions are available and ManyCam gives a list up to, and including 4K, which it looks like Adobe then requests since the actually needed “480p” (at 16:9) is not available “natively”. What I am seeing is that ManyCam appears to be upscaling the video (= high processor utilization) to 4 k (at least that’s what right-clicking the live stream icon reports) and the Adobe downscales it again (=even higher processor utilization) to the 480p it needs to send. This results in instability and awful latency from all the unnecessary re-scaling of the stream.
Is there any way to “cap” ManyCam at 720p? Or add a new custom resolution for 480 at 16:9?
I appreciate this is a compatibility problem. where each piece will blame the other, but I’m stuck in the middle here!
The video settings page allows you to restrict what resolutions you use. Have you tried to switch off all the hi-res options? That way you should be able to cap the output from ManyCam.
OK. Before we go much further, I need to clarify that I am a user and not brilliant at some of the technical terms. That said, aspect ratio and resolution are not (exactly) the same. Maybe this website can assist with clarification. https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-the-difference-between-aspect-ratio-resolution/.
There are more sources out there you can refer to. 480p may not be suitable for a 16:9 ratio. I use 1080p streamed directly to YouTube and I have not had any challenges. However, sending it to ZOOM to restream to YouTube is a problem as ZOOM does 720p and will degrade the video in the reprocessing. Then all sorts of errors appear. So now I go directly to YouTube’s servers and feed ZOOM with a secondary feed that does not need to transmit to YouTube. At this point, there are no errors.
Also, you may want to look in Adobe if there is some setting that overrides what you enter and seeks to reset a default to improve quality.
This site from Sony also shows a table with relevant information. https://www.sony-latin.com/en/electronics/support/televisions-projectors/articles/00105548
