Even if not originally done for that, VBAN protocol can also be used on internet to transmit audio in high quality (PCM native), but it requires a fixed public IP address (at least fixed for the streaming time) and to configure your router.
You may know your public IP-Address and other information by numerous internet services:
Type “what is my ip” on Google (it will appear directly).
You may know your real internet speed rate (especially UPLOAD) to know what kind of VBAN Stream you can send (for example by this website: http://speedtest.att.com/speedtest/).
A PCM stream 24000Hz, 1 Channels, 10 bits requires 0.3 Mbps
A PCM stream 32000Hz, 2 Channels, 10 bits requires 0.7 Mbps
A PCM stream 44100Hz, 2 Channels, 16 bits requires 1.5 Mbps
A PCM stream 48000Hz, 2 Channels, 16 bits requires 1.6 Mbps
A PCM stream 48000Hz, 2 Channels, 24 bits requires 2.5 Mbps
On internet (& Wifi) reception, VBAN Network Quality parameter can be useful to keep a stable stream: set Net Quality to “slow” or “very slow” to increase the internal buffering on receptor side (outgoing stream can usually be sent with OPTIMAL network quality parameter).
They talk about this workflow (in french) on Radio-Actu forum:
https://libreantenne.radioactu.com/topi ... ti-studio/
Outside Broadcasting with VBAN (by using a VPN powered by Hamachi Application):
radio workflow explained in french https://youtu.be/Ha6bPHTWawc
VBAN Stream on internet
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
I am very interested in using VBAN to stream audio directly from VMB over the internet. Right now I use VLC to stream over the internet. Do you know if a discussion location that discusses how to achieve this in English? Unfortunately my French is non-existent.. 
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Vincent Burel
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Re: VBAN Stream on internet
yes, we just made a small picture explaining all the things around IP-Address Management to transmit a VBAN Stream (see below).
There is basically 2 points to know:
On transmitter side, you must send VBAN stream to public address of your destination.
(you may ask him his public ip address - just type "what is my ip address" in chrome for example).
On receptor side, internet router has to be configured to open the VBAN UDP port 6980.
(this is usually possible thanks to NAT/PAT rules or Port Transfer rule in the advanced/network configuration page of your router).
There is basically 2 points to know:
On transmitter side, you must send VBAN stream to public address of your destination.
(you may ask him his public ip address - just type "what is my ip address" in chrome for example).
On receptor side, internet router has to be configured to open the VBAN UDP port 6980.
(this is usually possible thanks to NAT/PAT rules or Port Transfer rule in the advanced/network configuration page of your router).
- VBANStreamOnInternet.gif (190.83 KiB) Viewed 91022 times
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
Has anyone tried these setups? Just curious how the quality/latency has been. I've been using VMB in combination with Cleanfeed to stream sounds to my players (and broadcast using OBS) and it is working really well with excellent quality and very little to no latency. Just always intrigued by what all VMB can do!
Oh...and thanks so much for the diagram! Very helpful....
Oh...and thanks so much for the diagram! Very helpful....
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
So, I was just able to stream audio through VMB to a friend of my in Washington (I'm in Denver) using VBAN. I'm not sure exactly how practical it will be for me as its a little involved for the players, (I typically play D&D 5e online using Fantasy Grounds and VMB is the audio program I use along with Cleanfeed to stream sound to my players and it works great) but I will post a video on how I did it when I have a chance. Basically, I setup a ZeroTier account at http://www.zerotier.com. Then I created a network on ZeroTier which acts like a LAN. Its a very easy, free download. Once I connect with it and my players download the small program and connect to the network I set up, we are on the same virtual LAN. As long as when you connect to the virtual LAN you select "yes" to the popup of "do you want to allow your pc to be discoverable"... then everything seems to work. The nice thing is, once someone has connected to the virtual LAN, they are assigned the same internal IP address every time. So, I can go to my "outgoing streams" in VBAN and type in the internal ip address. Once I do that and tell the player to turn on VBAN in VMB (or VM), they see the incoming stream and can connect to it. Of course they could use VBAN receptor of VBAN lite as well if they happen to not have VMB or VM installed. To be clear, I didn't have to mess with port forwarding or opening any ports and I was able to do this from my office so it should work from a hotel or wherever.
On my first test, the quality seemed good for the player (short test though) even with the net quality as "fast" on his end. He does have very fast internet at home, though. Anyway, I have other solutions that are simpler for players (as mentioned above), but this is really cool in that if I wanted to I could stream my sounds at native quality directly out of VMB. I'm going to keep testing this just for fun as maybe this setup would work for some of you.
I'll post a link here to the video of how I set it up as soon as I have a chance to create the video.
On my first test, the quality seemed good for the player (short test though) even with the net quality as "fast" on his end. He does have very fast internet at home, though. Anyway, I have other solutions that are simpler for players (as mentioned above), but this is really cool in that if I wanted to I could stream my sounds at native quality directly out of VMB. I'm going to keep testing this just for fun as maybe this setup would work for some of you.
I'll post a link here to the video of how I set it up as soon as I have a chance to create the video.
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
Quick update. I can get the VBAN to work over the network which is cool. But so far I can't get it stable enough to be better than my other setups. Makes sense as it is really intended to be used the way I'm trying. The sound is just somewhat inconsistent on the receiver. Choppy at times, at times good, etc.. I'll keep trying...
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Vincent Burel
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Re: VBAN Stream on internet
on receiver side, you may try to improve the things by changing NETWORK QUALITY parameters to "SLOW" for example.
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
Yeah, I've tried setting to slow or very slow. It works, but too choppy for trying this is a real game setting. I'll keep fiddling with it to see if I can figure something out. It works well when I'm on my "real" LAN, but given I'm trying this on a "virtual" LAN, I think I'm pushing what this is really intended to do. Pretty cool that I was able to get it to work at all! I wish I understood french as I would follow the video you linked to better! Since they are using Hamachi, I think it is similar to what I'm trying to do with zerotier.
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AtmanActive
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:11 am
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
Hi Vincent,
In these days of quarantines and lockdowns, internet becomes more important than ever.
Me and my friend were testing VBAN long distance connections between UK and Malta, and the results are inconclusive.
One day it works flawlessly, for few hours, then it starts crackling like crazy, then we reboot both machines, but no change.
After many days of testing this, it feels like, for long distances, it depends on network activity of the whole area.
For example, in the evenings, after 2AM, VBAN mostly works flawlessly. On the other hand, around 8PM it is impossible to get a clean sound no matter what we do.
So, I believe it is a matter of network jitter, since bandwidth between us two is always more than enough for one stereo audio stream.
We did speedtest.net bandwidth testing on both ends on each occasion and the network jitter problem can not be quantified that way. SpeedTest is always showing at least 15Mbps of clear network bandwidth between us at all times, be it at 8PM or 2AM. Yet, VBAN stream quality differs greatly.
From what I understand, sending stream over long-distance WANs is always a matter of balance between latency and quality.
Hence, I am now wondering: could VBAN maybe use more buffer settings? Like ASIO usually does.
As you know, ASIO offers users plenty of buffer sizes to choose from and then it is up to user to decide how much latency they can stand to avoid dropouts. I read in your posts that VBAN setting of "Very Slow" means 100ms of buffers. But maybe that is not enough for all possible scenarios. Maybe users could benefit from many more buffer options, from 1ms to 2000ms, in attempt to overcome long distance network instabilities.
In all of this testing, I am trying to understand how a network bandwidth of 15Mbps isn't enough for one stream of 1.5Mbps, and what can be done to overcome that.
What about network-layer oversampling? What would happen if we would deliberately send double the amount of data, a simple duplicate of bytes, just to discard and reconstruct on the receiving end. I mean, I would gladly use 10 times more bandwidth, if needed, just to make it work without dropouts.
I'm just thinking out loud here.
Thank you.
Cheers!
In these days of quarantines and lockdowns, internet becomes more important than ever.
Me and my friend were testing VBAN long distance connections between UK and Malta, and the results are inconclusive.
One day it works flawlessly, for few hours, then it starts crackling like crazy, then we reboot both machines, but no change.
After many days of testing this, it feels like, for long distances, it depends on network activity of the whole area.
For example, in the evenings, after 2AM, VBAN mostly works flawlessly. On the other hand, around 8PM it is impossible to get a clean sound no matter what we do.
So, I believe it is a matter of network jitter, since bandwidth between us two is always more than enough for one stereo audio stream.
We did speedtest.net bandwidth testing on both ends on each occasion and the network jitter problem can not be quantified that way. SpeedTest is always showing at least 15Mbps of clear network bandwidth between us at all times, be it at 8PM or 2AM. Yet, VBAN stream quality differs greatly.
From what I understand, sending stream over long-distance WANs is always a matter of balance between latency and quality.
Hence, I am now wondering: could VBAN maybe use more buffer settings? Like ASIO usually does.
As you know, ASIO offers users plenty of buffer sizes to choose from and then it is up to user to decide how much latency they can stand to avoid dropouts. I read in your posts that VBAN setting of "Very Slow" means 100ms of buffers. But maybe that is not enough for all possible scenarios. Maybe users could benefit from many more buffer options, from 1ms to 2000ms, in attempt to overcome long distance network instabilities.
In all of this testing, I am trying to understand how a network bandwidth of 15Mbps isn't enough for one stream of 1.5Mbps, and what can be done to overcome that.
What about network-layer oversampling? What would happen if we would deliberately send double the amount of data, a simple duplicate of bytes, just to discard and reconstruct on the receiving end. I mean, I would gladly use 10 times more bandwidth, if needed, just to make it work without dropouts.
I'm just thinking out loud here.
Thank you.
Cheers!
-
Vincent Burel
- Site Admin
- Posts: 2084
- Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 12:01 pm
Re: VBAN Stream on internet
Thanks for this report!
The VBAN stream stability is pending on 2 parameters:
1- The stability of your main audio stream (given by the output A1 device). So you may first be sure that your Voicemeeter main output device is working stable. Playing Audio track in the integrated Banana or Potato player is the way to be sure about that as it is explained in this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=451
2- the Network capabilities to transport UDP packet in time.
on the VBAN Receiver side, you may change the NETWORK QUALITY parameter to SLOW or VERY SLOW (that will increase buffering and improve audio stream stability)... but of course if the network is getting a 500ms or even 200ms delay on packet delivery, this could cut our VBAN Stream (that's why most streaming platform are usually using several second of pre-buffering...
This is a question we are currently exploring and we are planning to test VBAN connection through a dedicated server very soon... so you will be able to test it and on our side we will be able to measure different parameters and timing issues... It seems anyway there are many problems on internet today with any VOIP app because the growing traffic...
The VBAN stream stability is pending on 2 parameters:
1- The stability of your main audio stream (given by the output A1 device). So you may first be sure that your Voicemeeter main output device is working stable. Playing Audio track in the integrated Banana or Potato player is the way to be sure about that as it is explained in this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=451
2- the Network capabilities to transport UDP packet in time.
on the VBAN Receiver side, you may change the NETWORK QUALITY parameter to SLOW or VERY SLOW (that will increase buffering and improve audio stream stability)... but of course if the network is getting a 500ms or even 200ms delay on packet delivery, this could cut our VBAN Stream (that's why most streaming platform are usually using several second of pre-buffering...
This is a question we are currently exploring and we are planning to test VBAN connection through a dedicated server very soon... so you will be able to test it and on our side we will be able to measure different parameters and timing issues... It seems anyway there are many problems on internet today with any VOIP app because the growing traffic...