How the Playstation 4 dynamically regulates its streaming bitrate

I’ve been having some trouble with my internet connection lately. Up until two weeks ago I had an upload speed of about 20-25 Mbps, but since then it tanked down to an unstable and unpredictable 1-4 Mbps. I have my best technicians working on it (i.e. my internet provider). Needless to say, this put a damper on streaming at a constant bitrate of 5 Mbps like I usually do. I couldn’t even get OBS to deliver a stable 1Mbps connection.

My wife however was quite happily streaming FORTNITE directly from her PS4, and aside from a bit of blockiness every once in a while, the connection was stable for hours. I on the other hand couldn’t make anything work with OBS, no matter how hard I tried.

So what gives? There has to be some kind of magic in the way the Playstation consoles deal with streaming, on top of everything else. How come it works when OBS does not? I took a look at the data rate while I was test streaming, and found some interesting results.

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MAHDI M9 Plus – MP3 player Review

It’s hard to believe, but there’s a regular no-frills non-WiFI MP3 player available in this day and age! Can you believe it? When I read about this I wanted to take a closer look at the MAHDI M9 Plus MP3 player gadget. Here are my thoughts on this thing.

It’s very small and lightweight, about the size of an iPod Nano, which has been discontinued since 2017. If you’ve been looking for a replacement for yours, or always wanted one, then this device might be a good fit for you.

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Jelly Comb Foldable Bluetooth Keyboard Review

If you’re like me and do a lot of writing on the move, you’ve probably often wished for a super compact travel keyboard that can go anywhere with you. While I’ve tried many, they’re often just toys and not real keyboards. Using those is often less efficient than just using an on-creep keyboard. 

Then I discovered this Jelly Comb Travel Keyboard. It folds in half in the centre, it’s super small when folded, has a rugged leather feel to the outside and it’s extremely light. When folded out, it reveals a full-sized QUERTY keyboard with all the additional function keys of its desktop counterpart. Let me tell you more about my experiences.

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Yemo YM-11 USB-C Hub Adapter Dock Review

I bough this little device for my wife’s Acer Chromebook. It’s her work laptop, and she uses it with an external monitor. The Chromebook only has one USB 3 port and she frequently needs more than that, for anything from memory card readers to other external devices.

She has to connect and disconnect about three cables to the Chromebook every day. This is tiresome and those laptop ports only last so long before they fail when used too often. I was interested in a tidy solution to the whole mess of cables and found this neat Yemo USB-C Hub, Model YM-11.

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Bammax BMBM01 Security Smart Camera Review

My friend Jason bought this camera for his apartment, to keep an eye on his dog Benny when he’s at work in the office. It was so impressive I had to have one myself: it’s the Bammax BMBM01 Smart Camera. This thing is way more than a security camera. It’s a two-way walkie talkie, great as a baby or pet monitor for real time interaction, or to see what’s in your kitchen cupboard. Here are my impressions.

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Shoosh, Jetpack!

I wrote a new plugin based on code by Matt Medeiro that I’ve mentioned in a previous article. This is a super quick solution to get rid of any and all Jetpack Nags at the top of your Admin Interface. I was working on a site that didn’t have a Child Theme, so it wasn’t … Read more

How to redirect a URL in NGINX

I’m a fan of easy to remember URLs, rather than long cryptic ones. For things I give our verbally or in chat I sometimes setup redirects using one of my domains and NGINX directives. So when I’d like to point users to my 3D Shenanigans channel, I can tell them to go to https://3ds.wpguru.tv rather … Read more