Streaming to SubC Cloud

SubC Streaming Service is a cloud-based software that is accessible from any system connected to the Internet.

The SubC DVR+O / SCI and RCS applications have the ability to interact with SubC Streaming Service, allowing you to live stream video from offshore (i.e. ROVs and/or Vessels) to SubC Presentations where viewers onshore can watch from anywhere in the world.

With SubC Streaming Service, you can Stream the Channel videos to the Internet and securely control who can view by creating Presentations in SubC Streaming Services Web application.

Your Presentation invitations include a link and Access Code and are sent to your viewers via email from within each Presentation.

One-Time Presentations do not require an access code; these can be viewed in a web browser using its unique generated URL

Activate SubC Application with SubC Streaming Service

To use this Streaming feature in SubC Software desktop applications requires a SubC Streaming Service account.

When you select Menu → Streaming, if you get this activation prompt, and your company has subscribed to SubC Streaming Services, login to SubC Streaming Services Web application to generate an Activation Code. Enter this code in the Activate prompt on your SubC Software desktop application.

This “Activate” step registers your SubC Software application system’s network card MAC Address with your Group in the SubC Streaming Service. You’ll only have to do this activation once per PC when you first install the SubC Software desktop application.

If you have multiple NICs in the system, such as wired ethernet and WIFI, you can go ahead and activate the MAC addresses for each NIC.

Select Menu → Streaming

Streaming - Sign In / Out

With SubC Software Channel configured with video Inputs, Select Menu → Streaming and Sign In to your Streaming Service account.

This will enable the Presentation Name selection field.

SubC Stream servers are geographically located. Typically, you select a Stream server that is closest to the region in which your vessel or project is operating. However, you can select any Stream server you wish as they are all available globally.

Server

Location - Click the dropdown field and select from the list of available SubC Stream servers.
Login Timeout - Is set to default of 15 seconds. You can adjust this to a longer wait time if your network takes more than 15 seconds to respond to the transmissions between your system and the Stream server.
Auto Reconnect - Is set to default Enable. If you lose your Internet connection or your connection to the Stream server is interrupted, as soon as the service is re-established any streams that were started before the interruption will resume.

Ideally,

Latency shouldn't exceed 150ms.
Jitter should be below 30ms.
Packet loss % should be no more than 1%

Network Stats

Server - This field will populate automatically with the domain name of the Stream Server based on your selection (below in the Server → Location field).
Status - Indicates the status of the connection with the selected Stream Server: Success or Failed (Failed if the server is unavailable or unreachable due to Internet accessibility issue).
Latency (ms) - Latency refers to the delay in network traffic between your PC and the streaming server.
Jitter (ms) - Jitter is when packets arrive at the destination in a different order than they were sent. (Typically caused by network congestion, route changes, etc.) The longer it takes for packets to arrive, the more jitter can negatively impact the video and audio quality.
Packet Loss % - Packet Loss happens when packets traveling across the network fail to reach the destination (usually caused by network instability and/or congestion).

This GPS data is tied to our new Map View in SubC Streaming Service Web application

See SubC Streaming Service Web User Manual for details.

Location

GPS - Global Positioning System - This field displays the location of your SubC Software desktop application host System

Be sure to take in your GPS source into the SubC Software Desktop application on Channel 1 using Menu → Data I/O → Data Input

Standard GPS using $GPGGA or $EXIF data string formats as shown in example below.

RealTime streaming is useful when you need very low latency video (such as for piloting a craft). Typically, this type of stream has sub-second latency but minimizing latency means no buffering. Frames are delivered and displayed as soon as they become available. The lack of buffering may result in the video being jumpy on slower networks

Video - RealTime

Transmission Type: RealTime
Encoder: vp9 | gpu_h264 | h264
- vp9 - Default; vp9 is a higher compression codecs, allowing for better quality images at a lower bitrate/bandwidth requirement; Stream at 1bit/sec; requires higher CPU resources
- gpu_h264 - Is a lower compression codecs; Streams at higher bitrate/bandwidth requirement; Stream at 4bit/sec; requires less CPU resources as the performance is video-card based.
- h264 - Is similar to gpu_h264 in all aspects, except it utilizes the CPU resources; Select h264 if your system video card does not support gpu_h264 but you wish to use lower compression/stream at a high bitrate/bandwidth.
BitRate (Kbps) - Default = 256;
- Selection Range: 16-5120.
Resolution - Default = Auto;
- Selection Range: 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x480, 320x240.
Framerate (fps) - Default = Auto;
- Selection Range: 5, 15, 20, 29.97, 30.

SRT Sender Latency: Low | Medium | High

These settings allow you to adapt to variations in your Network quality. You can select Low = 1s, Medium = 3s, High = 5s - whichever best suits your current Network conditions. For example, if you have optimal Network conditions, low dropouts, less buffering required, select Low for 1 seconds of buffering. If you need more buffering, select Medium for 3 seconds or High for 5 seconds.

Video - Smooth

Transmission Type: Smooth
Encoder options: mpeg4 | n264
- mpeg4 - Moving Pictures Expert Group 4 is a standard for the coding compression of audio and video files. MPEG4 efficiently reduces video and audio size while keeping quality and fidelity.
- n264 - provides better video quality at smaller file sizes compared to its predecessors.
BitRate (Kbps) - Default = 256
- Selection Range: 16-5120, 320x240
Resolution - Default = Auto
- Selection Range: 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x480, 320x240.
Framerate (fps) - Default = Auto
- Selection Range: 5, 15, 20, 29.97, 30.
SRT Sender Latency: Low | Medium | High
Low = 1s, Medium = 3s, High = 5s

Audio

Embedded Audio - Enable
If you have a microphone connected to your system through which you would like to communicate/add narration during your video streaming transmission, select Enable checkbox.
Audio Bitrate (Kbps) - Default is set to 64Kbps depending on your Network performance. You can adjust the audio bitrate to improve the audio quality.

You need to be logged into the SubC Streaming Service (See Menu → Settings → Sign In/Out) to activate the Presentation Name field to become a drop-down / selection field.
Create your Presentations from within the SubC Streaming Service Web Application to make them available in this selection field.

Presentation

Presentation Name - Displays the Name of the Presentation that this Channel will stream to.
Data Enabled - Displays as red “X” if not enabled / green checkmark if enabled on the Presentation
See Data Input section for more details.
Audio Room - Displays as red “X” if not enabled / green checkmark if enabled on the Presentation
See Audio Rooms for more details.
One-Time - One-Time Stream is optimized for quickly sharing a single channel of video, (without the need for an access code as is an option in regular Presentations). The link to a One-Time Stream will expire as soon as the Channel stops streaming, and a new link will be generated each time the input is started streaming again.
See Presentation → One-Time Stream

Streaming Service Web Application

On the Streaming Service web application → Menu → Home - Groups, you’ll see and be able to interact with your SubC Software application Channels.

New GPS Map UI

In SubC Streaming Service Web application, you can now see where your SubC Software desktop application host systems (members of your Streaming Service Group) are located on the globe.

Global Map View

SubC Software desktop application systems that are active in your Streaming Service Group are listed as cards on the left.

Original UI

Similar to the SubC Software desktop applications UI, you can also configure the Channels within the Streaming Service web UI and start / stop Streaming.

See SubC Streaming Service Web User Manual → Home Groups for details on Configuring Channels Input, Quality and Presentation within the Streaming Service web UI

Rayfin Input Example

Rayfin Input → Camera Name: Name of SubC Rayfin Camera and Serial Number

IP Camera Input Example

IP Camera - Name of the Camera
Camera Username
Camera Password

INPUT

Name - By default, displays the hostname of the system on which the SubC Software desktop application is running. If you wish, you can change the Channel Name and click Save Name. This name change will also be applied to the corresponding Channel on the desktop application.
Type - Select an Input Type
- Rayfin

Capture Card
IP Camera
RTSP Address
Screen Capture
Window Capture
Presentation Input

QUALITY

Transmission Type - RealTime | Smooth
Encoder - vp9 | gpu_h264 | h265
Bit Rate (kbps) - 512 | 256| 128 | 64 | 32 | 16
Resolution - Auto | 1920x1080 | 1280x720 | 720x480 | 320x240
Framerate - Auto | 30 | 29.97 | 20 | 15 | 5

PRESENTATION

Presentation - Name of Presentation
- Select the Presentation Name to which you wish to output this Channel video
- Presentation Features
  - Video | Data | Audio Rooms | One-Time
Streaming Location - Name of Stream Server
- Select the Stream Server by geographic location
  All SubC Stream Server are accessible all from any location, but we recommend selecting a Stream Server nearest your location

ACCESS BUTTONS

AUDIO ROOMS - Opens SubC Audio Rooms web app in a new browser to a private room associated with Channel’s assigned Presentation
VIEW PRESENTATIOM - Opens SubC Presentation web app in new browser and connects to the Channel’s assigned Presentation
VIEW CHANNEL - Opens a view of the streaming Channel in a new browser

The above features are only active when Channel Streaming is Started

APPLY - When you are finished configuring the Channel, click Appy to commit those settings
START - To begin streaming the Channel
STOP - To end streaming the Channel

Streaming in progress

You can Start | Stop the Channel Streaming from within the SubC Software desktop application or remotely Start | Stop the Channel Streaming via the SubC Streaming Service web application.

Click VIEW to see the streaming Channel video
Click STOP to end the Channel streaming

When you configure Channels through the SubC Streaming Service web application the configuration is synchronized on the SubC Software desktop application when you click APPLY.

You’ll see the Cloud Str icon when Streaming is active in the bottom, left of the Channel Preview Window.

As well as the Stream Start | Stop button icon (bottom, center, right) has also changed, indicating Streaming is active.

In the SubC Streaming Service Web application, Select Menu → Presentations to create and see your list of Presentation.

Regular & One-Time Stream Presentation Examples

Click the green + circle to open the Create Presentation UI.

Regular Presentation

Title - Give your Presentation a meaningful name.
Email Addresses - enter the email addresses of people you would like to invite to view your Presentation (separate each email with a comma)
Internal Presentation - Select only for internal testing of Presentations and One-Time Presentations as this option will place a SubC Watermark overlay the videos. Do not use Internal Presentations for customer facing / live projects.
Video Streaming - Select if you wish to stream video in this Presentation
Data Streaming - Select if you wish to stream data in this Presentation
Audio Rooms - Select if you wish to include the ability to speak with other viewers during your Presentation.
- An “Audio Rooms” button will appear on the Presentation that the viewers can click to open an Audio Room session in another web browser.

Presentation as Input to Channel

Menu → Data I/O is only available on Channel 1

When you include the Data Streaming option in your Presentation, if the Channel that is assigned to this Presentation is streaming Data, if you then take that Presentation in as Input to a Channel on another SubC Software system, that Channel will also receive the data streaming from the Source

On the Receiving system’s Channel, you can see this incoming data in Menu → Data I/O - Data Inputs → Presentation Data. You can also display this data on the Receiving Channel with Menu → Overlay → Data

When you connect Channel 1 to a Rayfin camera, the Rayfin automatically also sends its data

You can add other data sources, such as NMEA Sender, telemetry data, or GPS - GPGGA data via Menu → Data I/O - Data Input

Those invited to view the Presentation can now open the Presentation web application, enter their email address and the Presentation specific Access Code to view the Presentation with the Channel videos Streaming to SubC Streaming Service.

If you would alternatively like to have a SubC Presentation viewer UI customized with your Company logo / branding, contact sales@subcimaging.com

Once logged in, the Presentation shows the streaming Channel video in real-time.
If you are running SubC Software desktop application with multiple Channels configured and streaming to the same Presentation, all videos will be displayed in the Presentation.

One-Time Presentation

Title - Give your Presentation a meaningful name.

You can invite participants to view a one-time stream by starting the Channel streaming in the SubC Software desktop application and sharing the One-Time Stream link with them to pasting it into a web browser.

Data Streaming and Audio Chat are not applicable to One-Time Presentation
See One-Time Stream for more details.

See SubC Streaming Service Web User Manual