The Pearl-2 User Guide states direct streaming should only be used “for a small number of viewers” because each viewer uses the full stream bandwidth and consumers resources on the Pearl-2. Can someone provide more specific guidance on just how many direct streams the Pearl-2 can support?
I read in one of the replies that “Pearl 2 supports 6 channels of 1080p 30fps”. Does that mean the Pearl-2 is only able to host up to 6 direct streams at 1080p/30 before running out of internal resources?
A channel in the above example is an encoding of separate content. So there can be 6 separate encodings or entirely separate content each at 1080p 30fps on one Pearl 2.
The Pearl2 can handle up to 50 simultaneous direct connections for local streams under normal circumstances. This would be the Live View page, RTSP, FLV, or MPEG-TS direct streams. For HLS this would be about 20 simultaneous, as HLS requires additional overhead.
Thank you for your reply Adam. As a follow up question, what are the basic assumptions for supporting 50 simultaneous local streams (or 20 for HLS) in terms of bitrate, compression, latency or other variables.
50 connections (or 20 HLS) would be assuming default configurations of Hardware encoding at the automatic bitrate and at 1920x1080 30fps.
Latency would be mostly up to the receiving video player, as we would be pushing out the direct stream data within about 200ms. Then you would have to add the caching/buffering of the receiving video player to this value. Though HLS would be significantly higher and I don’t have a measurement for this unfortunately.
I am running a Pearl Mini, in default configuration, to 27 BrightSigns throughout our company. They are receiving a HLS stream from the Pearl Mini and have not skipped a beat. If I were to upgrade to a Pearl 2, would I be able to expand the amount of players receiving the HLS stream? I would much rather upgrade than place another Pearl Mini if possible.
The Pearl-2 is certainly more powerful than a Pearl Mini! However we haven’t tested beyond 20 HLS streams. That being said, I would expect the number would only go up using a Pearl 2 compared to a Pearl Mini!