Live Streaming AmigaOne X1000

Sorry for the long wait for another blog post. Today I wanted to look at the setup I have done recently which allows me to live stream the output of the AmigaOne X1000 with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 1 to the internet via Twitch!

The last month has been very difficult for me to say the least. 

Work was very busy with the company being taken over, and then finding out that all the IT operations would be moved to Queensland. I was made redundant in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic last week with many of my colleagues. This is like many others globally too I know. 

Unlike many others affected in Australia by this, I am unable to get government financial assistance as the company I worked for was not impacted much by COVID-19, making me ineligible for government help...great.

Fortunately I saved money for a rainy day, and now it is here. I will be ok for a bit, while looking for a new job. With the market right now being very tough job-wise, I don't expect to find anything for a while.

This of course means I have some significant free time on my hands, for the first time in many many years.

I decided first to up skill in various IT I am weak in currently, and one of those areas was streaming technologies. I decided to learn more about how it works, what is needed to set it up, and try to weave my love of all things Amiga into it too by streaming some Amiga generated content out to the world live!

I was inspired watching some of my favourite F1 drivers live streaming their esports sim gaming (while motorsports are all stopped) to keep their skills sharp. It was a great way to get to know their real personalities better too outside the cockpit.

To say there was a lot of work to do to get this working was an understatement. But getting it working and live streaming the X1000 on the internet was very satisfying.

I enjoy gaming too, and in addition to the AmigaOne X1000 I was keen to connect my PC, Nintendo Switch and PS4 to stream as well.

To do this I needed a lot of things. Fortunately I had most of them already, and for things I didn't have (like a dedicated webcam) I found an innovative solution from Newtek (remember them?) to use my iPad as a dedicated webcam.

For the capture of the HDMI output from the X1000, I needed a game capture card. Because I plan to use my Mac as the streaming machine (to keep the load off the PC and other devices), I needed to get an external game capture device.

Previously I had purchased a Game Capture HD device for this purpose, but didn't get far with it, as it is limited to using it's own software on the Mac for streaming, which didn't allow me much freedom with how I wanted to stream content. Also, it couldn't stream 1080p, only 720p due to limits of USB2. (it will though pass through 1080p to your screen)

The newer devices are sold out worldwide, and so I found one (Elgato HD60S) second hand, and still boxed, on Ebay. After a thorough cleaning after arrival, I could get to work setting it up.

These Elgato capture devices work by taking an input HDMI source (like PS4, PC, Switch, etc), and passing through the signal to HDMI out port to your normal screen.

They have a USB cable connection to your streaming PC running the software to grab that HDMI data and give it to the PC to process, either to record to the local disk, or stream live to YouTube, Twitch, Facebook live and more.

I then use a HDMI switch box to take multiple HDMI inputs (PC, Switch, X1000), and output to this HD60S.

Something to keep in mind is that this capture device is limited to 1080p60 pass through, so no 4K HDMI connections are possible. The newer HD60s+ model supports this I believe, but I was unable to find one. In any case, most of the systems I am currently using (apart from my PC) are outputting 1080p anyway, so it is not such a big hassle. I changed the PC to output 1080p for now.

One obvious hassle I knew I would hit early on is the audio from the X1000. Unlike the PS4, Switch, PC, etc, the AmigaOne X1000 does not output audio via its HDMI output. Instead it uses a standard line out phono plug via the onboard HDAudio.

So I needed to think outside the box on how to fix this and merge the audio into the HDMI output somehow, before it reaches the capture card.

There is an audio in phono port on the HD60S (unlike the Game Capture HD I was using before), but it is intended to be used for the chatlink function of the PS4, so that audio from the PS4 controller audio input is spliced into the HDMI output. I don't want to use that, since I intended to use it for that purpose later on, and also it is annoying and expensive to buy another set of RCA audio switch box setups and more cables to accomodate different inbound streams in a convenient manner.

The Radeon Southern Island card installed in the X1000 has DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, as below.

I purchased a VGA to HDMI converter from Jaycar Electronics, which has VGA and RCA audio input, with HDMI blended video + audio output. It uses a USB power source.

I then used a DVI to VGA converter to connect the X1000 to the converter. I then ran a phono to RCA audio cable from the X1000 HDAudio out to the converter.

I then hooked it up and connected to my HDMI switchbox, which then allowed me to see the output on my screen to confirm the normal output was working

I checked the audio output was working using the VGA converter to HDMI and pleased to say it worked perfectly:

Naturally I soon got distracted and tested the audio in a game or two...

With that done, I turned my attention to the streaming part of this setup, which is connected to my "Trashcan" 2013 Mac Pro.

I bought this system second hand from Ebay a few years ago (for a fraction of the price of it new) to replace my similarly ageing 2013 MacBook Pro, which was necessary as the battery had ballooned and made the system unusable. The quote to replace the battery was ridiculous so I replaced with a second hand system instead.

This system is still running Mojave, rather than the newer Catalina. The reason for this is because Catalina dropped 32bit application support, and I still have a number of applications and games that are 32 bit and will not run on Catalina. Including AmiKit XE...I am looking forward to the upgrade for that soon please...

The software provided by Elgato is functional for basic streaming, but I really wanted to use all the cool features that the freeware OBS Studio makes available for streaming.

There is an open source variant of this called Streamlabs, which is the software I wanted to use for streaming, and is based on OBS with some other features added to make streaming easier. It allows to use of themes and programming different inputs and screen layouts to make the stream more professional.

This needed the HD60S device in order to work on MacOS, due to the need to use OBS Link software to connect the game capture device to OBS running under Streamlabs. The older Game Capture HD device doesn't work with OBS Link.

With that working now with Streamlabs (as above), I turned my attention to the webcam so people can see me when streaming.

As you may know quality webcams are in high demand due to the working from home happening globally due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In Australia, it is basically impossible to buy one that support 720p or 1080p streaming right now.

In addition, many countries are simply not shipping to Australia now due to the removal of most flights to/from Australia. This further limits my options!

I do have an Apple Thunderbolt display, and yes, I could use the 720p webcam on that, but I can't easily re-position the screen in the right place while I am streaming, and since it contains the streaming software too, it would be distracting to look at it while streaming live. I don't want to have to move it every time.

I know that I could buy an Elgato Camlink to take a camera input, but that would mean spending more money, which in my current position I don't want to do for obvious reasons.

So, I did some research and found out you can connect iPads and iPhones as webcams over WiFi in Streamlabs using NDI software from Newtek (yep, the Amiga guys) on the iPad! This month Newtek is offering the NDI app on the App store for free so I took full advantage of it.

This meant I could get an easily movable webcam solution without spending any money! Awesome.

Here is the setup, showing the X1000, iPad, PC, Xbox One, with the Mac out of shot on the left.

For those eagle-eyed people, I also tried using the MIST (Pictured) on this setup too, but the resolution outputted is a problem it seems for the capture card to feed correctly. I'll try it again soon.

In the meantime I have working output from the X1000 with audio, ready to stream to the world.

I did this stream on the 13th May 2020 via Twitch. My Twitch profile is here:

http://twitch.tv/EpsilonAUS

If you follow me on Twitch you can be advised when I go live with new streams to view, listen and chat live, or just view the older broadcasts if you miss the live streams. There are some C64 Max and PC gaming streams you can still view too.

You can see the broadcast for another 14 days from when I wrote this blog post - from this link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/619530703

In case you missed that, I also recorded this particular stream locally, and uploaded it to YouTube. You can view it below but recommend you click the link instead: https://youtu.be/GsYZiXf7AlI

Despite my best efforts, I will soon have to mute sections of the YouTube video audio since YouTube are annoying when it comes to copyright claims. The audio they claim copyright is from Supertuxkart and Prototype games when I was playing them. Seriously? freeware games?

This is why people use Twitch and not Youtube for live streaming. Anyway..

It was fun doing this, and I have a new high respect for the excellent work of Bill Borsari doing the live streams from AMIWest every year. It is a lot more difficult and involved to setup a professional stream than people think - thanks Bill for your hard work to make that happen.

I learnt a lot more now about the technologies involved in live internet streaming, and finally getting my AmigaOne X1000 live streaming to the world. I am sure there will be more to follow.

I hope you enjoy the stream and future ones too!

ABC iView TV streaming and downloading preview on X5000

Back in 2015 I covered a script written by MickJT to allow AmigaOS 4.1 users to stream local Australian TV channel ABC iView programming.

In May 2015 the ABC changed the method to stream iView dropping PS3 support which broke the script, as I reported back then.

Now, in 2019, thanks again to MickJT, we have a new script and ABC iView streaming works again, now using my AmigaOne X5000!

I have been beta testing the new version of the iview script, which should be released in the not too distant future, and I can report it streams very well.

For this to work well, you do need the latest versions of ffplay and ffmpeg 4.0.2 (as I write this) which you can get from os4depot.net.

Make sure you follow the instructions to use the Shell to unpack the latest versions. There are altivec and non-altivec versions, which means you can use ffplay and ffmpeg on AmigaOne X1000 (Altivec) or X5000 (non-altivec) without a problem. I copied the programs to c: so they are available anywhere I want to launch from.

You step through the menus via a text sequence in an Amiga shell, able to search or browse to find programs you want.

Once a program is chosen, you can choose the resolution to stream the video at:

The script then launches ffplay and shows the content! You can (in theory) modify the script to launch ffplay in full screen, and other options too.

Here is one of my favourite shows at the moment, The Good Place, streaming well on my X5000:

I binge watched The Good Place seasons 1 to 3 on Netflix, bought the DVD's because I really enjoyed it, and now you can watch it on Free to air (ABC) - and no, I don't work for Netflix or the company that made it! Just a fan!

This ABC iView streaming development is maybe not so interesting for people not in Australia (I am not sure you can view it from outside AU without a VPN), but it is very exciting if you are here!

Streaming TV on AmigaOS 4.1 in 2019 - loving it again!

I even watched 'Mad as Hell' featuring the often funny Shaun Micallef (originally from Adelaide):

Next I tried out using the latest ffmpeg to download the streaming programs to hard disk on my AmigaOne X5000! It works!

To do this I need to use the iview script first to get the required header and URL for the video - I then copy the relevant part (as shown below) from the script executed into a text editor:

In the text editor I next need to add ffmpeg to the beginning, -i in front of the URL and add -c copy <outputfile.mp4> to the end, as shown in this example below. I put some line feeds in so you can read it easily, but in reality this should all be on the one line:

I then feed this line into the AmigaShell and the program downloads to my X5000:

With that completed successfully, I then checked the file in the drawer and it is there:

I then opened it in Mplayer, using the MPlayerGUI, both also updated on os4depot recently so grab the latest versions!

With MPlayer for the X1000 use the Altivec version, for the X5000 the non-altivec version.

The resultant downloaded file worked perfectly and played back great!

As mentioned, the new version of the script should be available on os4depot in the not too distant future. Thanks to MickJT for his work in making this happen!

New Computer Rooms in 2019

Hi all, and welcome to my first blog post for 2019. I hope you all had a great Xmas and New Year.

As mentioned in my last blog post in late December 2018, I have been very busy over Xmas and New Year moving house!

This of course meant packing up all my computers including my beloved Amiga systems (and everything else of course!) and setting up from scratch in a new home.

Over the past long weekend I finally made some progress on the new computer rooms in the new place. I am very happy to say I have more than one computer room now! :-)

For those who have been through this (packing up an over-full computer room and setting up again), you would know it is a serious amount of work! You have my respect!

Here is the last photo I took of my old computer room in December 2018 prior to packing it all up:

Looking back at it now I am so amazed I managed to fit everything into this room.

Needing to keep a computer running while packing made for some tricky packing but I managed it..

Previously this Ikea cupboard was filled with software and the top of it covered in screens and computers I couldn't set up in the room due to lack of space.

After we moved house and I unpacked the rest of the house, I could then start work on building my new computer rooms in the new house. One of the key criteria of the new place is that it needed more space for my computers, and I certainly have that now!

I now have three rooms to work with, each one is the same size as the original room I was using in the old house for everything!

One room is for the modern systems, one exclusively for Classic Amiga systems, and the other for "everything else" including the AmigaOne NG systems. I may move the Amiga NG systems into the modern room depending on space requirements - we'll see.

To start with I worked on building the modern room (not pictured). Following that, the Classic Amiga room was next on the list and of most interest for this blog!

Some problems presented themselves quickly, like a lack of desks, lack of network connectivity between rooms, lack of power boards and lack of speakers...when they were in one room I needed much less equipment.

So I got some ethernet over power devices to connect up the three rooms, and connect them to the network and internet in the modern room. I also bought a bunch of speakers and desks...

Anyway, I got to work assembling my old desks and disk drawers which I plan to use in the Amiga room.

I even found my old dining table during the move and decided to re-use it in the Amiga room to save money on desks since I had to spend quite a bit upfront on this stuff (not to mention the house)!

I added my Amiga30 poster to stamp this as an Amiga room, and loaded up my drawers filled with thousands of Amiga floppy disks.

Since my Amiga 1000 had little love in the old place (no room to set it up), I decided to get it running first, along with the Amiga 2000!

Here is the Amiga 2000 up and running again. Something is wrong with the mouse port though. I can click left and right mouse buttons but the mouse does not move on screen. I tried three different working mice and no go.

I can use the manual Amiga mouse workaround on the Workbench screen in the meantime. You can do this by holding down the left Amiga key and cursor keys to move it around and LeftAlt+Left Amiga to left click, etc.

Now is not the time to fix it, so I just got the mod music going on the A2000 and moved on to the next task!

Here is the Amiga 1000 and Amiga 2000 running side by side. I added the ram expansions and two external floppy drives to the Amiga 1000.

Interesting thing I found while doing this is that the Amiga 1000 wouldn't boot any disks with the external disk drives connected together. If I connected each drive one at a time to the Amiga 1000 it worked fine! Strange! 

Anyway, I worked out that one of the external floppy drives caused the problem when it was the first external drive. When I changed it so it was the last drive, everything worked fine! Weird, as the Commodore 1010 has no toggle switch for on/off, etc. Anyway, it works now so I am happy with that!

I promptly got distracted playing demos on the Amiga 1000 for a bit - which is good as I wanted a small break:

Next up is unpacking and building the Amiga 500 and A4000T:

The Amiga 500 has been my focus of late with plenty of blog posts recently on my work on it, with the upgrades and AmigaOS 3.1.4 installation covered, amongst others.

Here it is, the expanded Amiga 500 up and running and working perfectly.

I left some space on the right for the Amiga 1200/Amiga 600. I don't have enough screens for them all right now, so I plan to connected the A1200 via DVI and the A500 via VGA to the two inputs on the screen and switch them as needed in the meantime.

I was planning on doing the Amiga 4000T next but got a bit distracted setting up the CDTV and Amiga 1200 instead:

 One of the reasons for the distraction was the arrival of the recently released boxed Amiga games Powerglove reloaded and Tiger Claw from RGCD for the Amiga 500, CDTV and CD32!

I previously used the ADF version on the gotek when I looked at this game last year on the blog, while waiting for the boxed one to turn up. Unfortunately for me the floppy disk version I got has a read/write error on it :-(

I unpacked and setup the CDTV so I could try out the CD version, which works great:

Tiger Claw also has a CDTV/CD32 version included, which I fired up on the CDTV.

Part of the reason of the positioning of the CDTV and CD32 on the disk drawer is because the CDTV and CD32 discs are in the top left drawer just below it! Easy to access:

The CD32 was working ok on initial test, but when I opened the lid after testing below, the bracket snapped! :-(

Despite this, things are starting to fill up nicely in the Amiga room:

I was going to show a shot from the Amiga 1200 but it appears to have a problem since the last time I used it. It powers on (lights showing) but nothing else. No booting and no insert disk screen. Holding the mouse buttons down on boot yields nothing..I'll have to look at it later.

Next I got to work on the Amiga 4000T setup, which uses a dual display, one for the RTG Voodoo3 PCI card, and one for the native output using an Indivision AGA output:

The system is working, but still has a problem with the data partition (SFS) which decided last year to become unreadable! I need to fix this too! Classic Amigas - everytime you move them you get problems..well, at least for me. YMMV!

Anyway, I moved on to setup the Amiga 4000D. This system has long been in storage as I had no room to set it up. It is nice to finally be able to set it up to use it again:

I am pleased to report it survived storage and the move just fine and works perfectly.

I also hooked up the Amiga 2000, Amiga 4000T and Amiga 4000D to the internet using a network switch I connected in the room to the power over ethernet device. I took the opportunity to download some new releases from Aminet while there:

With that done, the Amiga room is mostly built (in it's initial form anyway!) Phew! Really glad to have it done at last - some more completed photos:

My biggest happiness with the new room is finally being able to use all the Amiga systems at any time, without having to pack up a system, rewire and unpack another one.

I realise that many other Amiga people have much bigger and more complete collections than I do, but I am very happy with the systems I have. I am not hunting for any more. I just wanted to be able to use all the ones I have today!

With the Amiga room now done, I turned my attention to the "everything else" room, which includes the NG AmigaOne systems.

I used all of my previous desks in the modern room and Amiga room, so I had to buy new desks for the other room. I went cheap for these desks, as I don't need fancy desks - just functional. I found these cheapies from Officeworks for under $100 each. I got three to start, but will need more!

As I said, these desks are not fancy. But I have to stick to a budget for these:

Here are the three desks installed. I will add another one later on, but I need to unpack the systems first to make room for it!

Initially I set up the Commodore 64, FM Towns and Commodore Plus/4. The Plus/4 is another victim of lack of space in the old place, rarely seeing use. Now it will be permanently set up! :-)

I also use a switchbox to switch the Intellivision FPGA, Sega Megadrive FPGA, C64, Plus/4 and PC Engine (not yet installed in the photo below) to the screen:

Unfortunately I only have one video cable for the C64 so I have to swap it with the Plus/4 when I want to use it. I will try to find another video cable for the Plus 4 later on:

Next up is the AmigaOne X1000. I also started the setup of the IBM Pentium 200MMX PC - as it uses PS/2 my plan to is to use the PS/2 KVM switchbox I was using in the old place to switch between the Minimig, Chameleon64 and IBM PC on it's screen to save some space and also because all of them need PS/2 keyboard and mice to operate and I only have one set of those!

It is great to have the AmigaOne X1000 up and running.

This X1000 setup (like the old place) is using a 5 port HDMI switchbox and audio switcher so I can connect HDMI devices with audio out (like SNES Mini, NES Mini and Switch) to one audio switch and screen, and use the other position for the X1000 and other NG Amigas.

Here is the setup with the SNES Mini and NES Mini installed. I also connected the X1000 via a small network switch to the ethernet over power that goes to the modern room. I added the Nintendo Switch to this as well later on (not shown in photo).

There is plenty of work still to be done but I wanted to get a blog post out in January so you could see what I have been up to - I have been so busy!

Hopefully things will start to settle down in February as I finish the rooms and can actually do some new stuff with my Amiga systems! Thanks for your patience!