Somebody Else's Problem wrote:How does one go about streaming? I want to get set up and make sure everything is working in plenty of time, and get some practice in.
Assuming you're talking about streaming from a PC to a site such as Twitch here's a
quick guide to setting up OBS.
Here's some more in depth stuff about OBS settings, with respect to Twitch.This will help you choose the best bitrate settings for your connection speed.I'd spend plenty of time doing test streams and getting the hang of what you can do with OBS. It's free and quite versatile. There's loads of ways to tweak the stream.
Test each game you want to stream individually. Different games can "hook" into streaming software with greater degrees of success than others so make sure you know how to get each game working properly.
If you're going to be playing multiple games over the course of your stream, test out the transition from game to game. If you have a second monitor you can set it as a "projector" which shows exactly what image you're sending out.
Learn how to load images, text elements and so on into your stream. Plugins can be extremely useful for adding in dynamic elements such as timers, chat logs etc.
If possible have another PC, or tablet next to you, that you can view the stream on. That way you see what your viewers will see along with any problems you might not be aware of on your end.
Finally, do a dry run before hand with everything in place. Make sure you can transition between games, all your elements work properly and that it streams to the site ok.
If it's console games you want to stream then you have two options.
1. On PS4/XBOne you can use the built in streaming capabilities, but you lose the higher resolutions and all the customisation options.
2. Get a capture device that takes the signal from the console and feeds it to the PC, where you can run it through OBS, complete with all the same abilities as PC games. The Elgato HD60 is pretty good from what I hear.