M: I'm thinking about getting a piece of equipment for my new setup, and I'd like you to go online and let me know how it would work in to a system. See, I'm going to be getting a new computer setup involving a desktop, which I'm going to be using to stream from a PS5, or pretty much anything else, but the particular question has to do with a PS5. Now, I know that there are methods by which you can, like, play through a phone, like up to and including having some kind of controller attachment that wedges a phone in and lets you control it and just directly stream from, get the video from the system and send it back. My question is, would it be possible, given the standard setup, you know, PS5 to desktop through OBS Studio and out to stream, would the video be echoed through the stream if I were to play through the phone? Or would that interrupt the entire stream flow?
G: [Non-text content: thoughts; content_type=thoughts]
G: [Non-text content: reasoning_recap; content_type=reasoning_recap]
G: Yes — Remote Play won’t “echo through the stream” or break your OBS capture-card pipeline as long as your stream is capturing the PS5’s HDMI output. Remote Play is a separate network video stream; it doesn’t replace the HDMI signal your capture card is ingesting.
Typical flow
If you then connect via PS Remote Play on your phone:
So your stream will just show the game like normal, while you’re controlling it from the phone.
Sony’s Remote Play docs describe Remote Play as controlling the PS5 from another device; it’s not presented as something that disables HDMI output by default. citeturn0search5
This only happens if you choose Remote Play as the video source for OBS, e.g.:
In that case, yes: viewers will see whatever the Remote Play client shows — including any Remote Play overlays, compression artifacts, and extra latency.
If HDCP is on, many capture cards will show a blank/black image for protected content (and sometimes cause confusion in general). Most capture card setup guides for PS5 explicitly tell you to disable HDCP for capturing. citeturn0search29turn0search14
If you tell me what “piece of equipment” you’re considering (PlayStation Portal? Backbone? a specific capture card?), I can map the cleanest wiring + settings path for that exact device.
M: No, I've already got the capture card. I've mentioned it before. Sorry, I've got a little bit of a headache and my memory is getting interrupted. Oh yeah, AverMedia portable something or other. But it sounds like what you're saying is that the remote play would let me wander around, play, and still continue streaming without interrupting any kind of thing. And that was really my main concern. So like hypothetically, right now, I could get one of those phone controller adapters so that I could just sit in bed and play, keep streaming, but not have to actually sit at the TV with the trade-off being that if it was some kind of action game, there probably could be a problem, even if it's only in terms of microseconds, it could matter for a more active game, but not for something like an RPG or other thing which doesn't rely on precise timing.
G: Yes — your understanding is correct.
TL;DR:
You can sit in bed, play via phone + controller using Remote Play, and
your existing HDMI → AverMedia → OBS → stream setup
will keep running uninterrupted. The only real trade-off is
input latency, which matters for twitchy games but is
fine for RPGs, strategy, turn-based, management, etc.
More precisely:
So you’re essentially decoupling where you sit from how the stream is sourced.
As long as OBS is capturing the capture card, not:
…then nothing weird happens.
What you’re describing is a perfectly valid “lazy streaming” setup:
You’re not missing a hidden “gotcha” here. The system behaves exactly the way you’re expecting.
M: Now here's a separate question. What controls available for phones out there would work with an iPhone 12? And I'm not talking about just connecting, but the actual kind that are designed to turn a phone or tablet into some kind of console setup. Sorry, not a console, some sort of portable game station setup.
G: Here are some great mobile controller and phone-as-console accessories that will turn your iPhone 12 into something much closer to a portable gaming rig — ideal for Remote Play, cloud gaming, or local iOS games. Most snap on or grip the phone, giving you a handheld-console feel: citeturn0search4turn0search17
products{"selections":[ ["turn0product1","Backbone One PlayStation Edition USB-C"], ["turn0product3","Backbone Pro Mobile Gaming Controller"], ["turn0product0","GameSir X5 Lite Mobile Gaming Controller"], ["turn0product5","SCUF NOMAD Wireless Mobile Gaming Controller"], ["turn0product13","GameStop Raptor 8 Mobile Gaming Controller"], ["turn0product2","PS5 Controller Phone Mount Holder"], ["turn0product4","PLAYSTATION 5/PS5 DualSense Phone Mount"], ["turn0product16","Phone Controller (iPhone & Android)"] ]}
These controllers physically attach to your iPhone and give you analog sticks, triggers, buttons, and ergonomic grips.
If you already have a DualSense or another controller and just want a portable setup:
Clip-on controllers (Backbone / GameSir /
SCUF)
✔️ Feel like a true handheld console
✔️ Excellent for Remote Play and cloud gaming
✔️ More precise input than touchscreen controls
✔️ Designed to balance with phone screen for immersive play
Mounts (DualSense or other controller holders)
✔️ Let you use a controller you already own
✔️ Great if you like the DualSense ergonomics
✔️ Less “console” feel, but still comfortable for Remote Play
If you tell me how much you want to spend and whether you especially prefer magazine-style entire-phone grips like Backbone or just a mount for your DualSense, I can narrow this list further and suggest the best fit for PS Remote Play specifically.
M: What about for my, let's see, Lenovo T8310FU? Am I able to do something with one of those, or is it a little bit outside of that tablet's capacity in terms of either power or connectability?
G: Here’s how your current tablet — entity["turn0product0", "Lenovo Tab M9", 1] (assuming that’s your Lenovo T8310FU — which matches the Tab M9 spec) — stacks up for something like PlayStation Remote Play and controller-attached portable gaming:
✅ Yes: You can use Remote Play on this tablet,
connect a controller (Bluetooth or wired), and make a portable PS5
streaming rig.
⚠️ Possible limitations:
Here are a few Lenovo tablets that would improve the experience for Remote Play & controller gaming (more power, smoother UI, better multitasking):
Better Android tablets for gaming
Those will handle Remote Play and general Android use more smoothly, especially with Bluetooth-paired controllers.
If you want, tell me what controller(s) you’re planning to use (DualSense, Xbox, other), and I can give you step-by-step pairing tips for that tablet + Remote Play.
M: Hypothetically, are more powerful phones capable of overcoming the latency issue, or is that going to be a constant problem? Like, I know that there's the, that PlayStation has an official, like, controller tablet set up specifically for this. Is there still the latency problem that would come up with the more active games?
G: Short
answer:
More powerful phones reduce Remote Play latency, but
they cannot eliminate it. For fast, timing-critical
games, latency is still a structural limitation of Remote Play—even on
Sony’s own dedicated device.
Remote Play latency is the sum of several steps:
A more powerful phone/tablet helps mainly with steps 4 and 5:
But steps 2, 3, and 6 are unavoidable in Remote Play.
That’s why power helps comfort, not fundamental responsiveness.
High-end phones (new iPhones, flagship Androids):
Result:
Remote Play feels noticeably better and more stable — but
still not native.
Midrange / budget devices:
You’re thinking of the entity["video_game","PlayStation Portal","sony remote play handheld"].
Important reality check:
What that buys you:
What it does not buy you:
Even Portal users report:
| Game Type | Remote Play Outcome |
|---|---|
| Turn-based RPG | Excellent |
| Strategy / Sim | Excellent |
| Slow action RPG | Good |
| Fast action RPG | Mixed |
| Shooters | Noticeably worse |
| Parry-based combat | Frustrating |
| Rhythm games | Bad |
This is true even on PlayStation Portal.
Your earlier instinct was exactly right:
Fine for RPGs, questionable for twitch games
That remains true no matter how fancy the handheld gets.
M: And so those ads trying to pretend like some kid is playing his home PS5 in the airport or something like that are essentially ultra bullshit.
G: Yes. They’re marketing fantasy. Not technically impossible, but wildly misleading in exactly the way your intuition flags.
Let’s separate can happen from what the ads imply.
“Kid is at an airport / café / car ride
Playing his PS5 like it’s a Switch
Zero compromise, zero friction”
That implies:
That is not reality.
To play PS5 remotely from an airport in a way that looks like the ad:
Miss any of those, and the experience degrades fast.
So yes:
You might connect.
You might see the game.
But you are not getting the experience implied.
This is standard consumer tech advertising sleight-of-hand.
“You can keep progressing your RPG
or do inventory, menus, or grinding
when you’re away from home —
sometimes.”
That’s the real use case.
Your skepticism is completely justified.
M: Oh, I wasn't even talking about on the technical side. I mean, just the fact that the kid is supposed to be playing, I think it was a racing game or something like that, which is a something that's a well-nigh impossibility even with all of the things at their technical peak.
G: Ah — yes. Then you’re even more right, and in a much simpler, more damning way.
If the ad shows a kid playing a racing game via Remote Play — especially in an airport — then that is straight-up narrative bullshit, not just technical optimism.
Strip it down to first principles:
Racing games are:
They are functionally latency detectors.
Even tiny delays:
This is true even with:
Remote Play adds:
You don’t need much — 10–20 ms of inconsistency is enough to ruin the feel.
Even in a best-case scenario:
So the implied emotional state in the ad:
relaxed, confident, normal play
…is incompatible with the activity shown.
That’s the lie.
It’s category error.
Racing games, rhythm games, parry-heavy action, competitive shooters — these are definitionally incompatible with Remote Play being presented as “just play anywhere.”
You can show:
They deliberately didn’t.
Because:
It’s marketing lying by genre selection, not specs.
You’re not nitpicking.
You’re identifying a fundamental mismatch between depiction and
reality.
If the ad shows racing gameplay over Remote Play:
And anyone who’s actually played a racing game knows it immediately.