Learn Open Broadcaster Software - OBS Live Streaming Course

Now it's time for the fun stuff! Let's start to add video and audio inputs to OBS including: webcams, video clips, audio, microphones, text and more.

The OBS Audio and Video Sync Tool has been designed to answer the important question of how much audio delay an Open Broadcaster Software user should apply in their live streaming system. The tool is a video that combines a visual scale of time with a countdown timer looping in sync with audio blips every second. OBS users can capture a video and audio recording of this tool to accurately determine the amount of audio delay they should apply to their live streaming system to sync up their audio and video streams.   

The OBS Audio Video Sync Tool includes a color-coded time scale to quickly measure the amount of time needed to sync your video and audio. The tool also includes an audio syncing bar accurate to one-thousandth of a second. To use this tool you simply need to record the video and audio from the video with the system that you wish to test. This would be your OBS or other video production software with all of the included hardware you are testing. Therefore you will need to record this video with the camera and microphone that you are attempting to sync up. Once this video has been recorded you can import this recording in a video editing software so diagnosis.

Once your recording has been made and imported into your video production software you will be examining the audio section of the recording. Because OBS allows us to delay the audio of our microphone sources, we will be examining the audio sync reading from our video and determining the amount of delay we need to add to our audio sources to sync up our video. Using the video recording you can scrub through the video looking for your audio blips. Generally, the audio will be recorded faster than the video. Therefore you can use the audio sync reading as a guide to adjusting your system.  Once you have determined the amount of audio delay your system will require it’s time to apply that audio delay in OBS.  You can open up the Advanced Audio Properties in OBS by clicking the settings cog next in the audio section of OBS.

One of the most common issues users have with the OBS software is simply syncing up the audio and video streams coming from multiple pieces of hardware into their live streaming computer. It is possible to sync up audio and video sources “upstream” from your video production software by using a capture device such as a Magewell USB 3.0 pro capture card. In this scenario, the audio, and video by a single device which uses the same drivers to connect to OBS. One of the main culprits with audio and video sync issues is the fact that different products use various drivers with differing latency for conversion.  

In this video, we walk you through how to use Open Broadcaster Software to record videos. One thing that a lot people don’t realize about live video production is it’s great ability to capture produced content. Depending on your level of skill many people can create live video content with a produced feel that is very similar to post-production video. Using live production software like OBS with multiple scenes and layouts, you will learn how to create dynamic video presentations. When done correctly you include intro videos, lower thirds, picture in picture layouts and more that will reduce your need for post-production. 

In this video, Paul shows us how to add a webcam to OBS and talks about the ability to create fun dynamic OBS presentations with multiple cameras. If you have been following along with our complete 2019 OBS video production course, you know that these cameras are set up in scenes inside open broadcaster software. The OBS software organizes all of our cameras and media inputs into switchable production scenes that we can assign hotkeys. With the included transition effects inside OBS we can switch between multiple cameras using this PC or Mac-based live streaming software. 

As we have uncovered throughout this Open Broadcaster Software live streaming software course, you can create high definition video recordings as well as live streams to your favorite content delivery network (CDN) with this software. You can even control PTZOptics pan, tilt, and zoom cameras with a free OBS plugin.

The OBS “Video Capture Device” input allows users to bring in any live video devices available to your operating system. You can have Open Broadcaster Software installed on either Mac, PC or Linux computer. All video drivers that are available to the computers operating systems should be available to the OBS software in a selection menu. Once  you make a live video capture device selection you will be able to view the live video feed coming through an OBS preview screen. 

Once your live webcam feed has been selected inside OBS you can choose to “configure your video”. This option may provide different information depending on whether you are using the Windows or Mac version of OBS. In the Windows version of Open Broadcaster Software, you can adjust most webcam settings available using the UVC (Universal Video Codec) video drivers. Most cameras will allow OBS to access UVC camera settings that include brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, sharpness, gamma, white balance, and backlight compensation. These camera settings may not be available on all USB video devices. Keep in mind that most USB capture cards cannot change camera settings. Once you have selected your webcam inside the video capture device properties window in OBS you can choose a camera resolution. For this video presentation, we have chosen 1920x1080p video resolution at 30 fps (frames per second). 

Finally, in this presentation, we review how to set up and lock a picture in picture multiple camera setup in OBS. First all, you should create a scene inside OBS where you can store two camera inputs. For this video tutorial, we will create an OBS preset called “Webcam Picture in Picture.” Inside this OBS scene, we will add one new video capture device and one existing video capture device. Keep in mind that you should always have access to additional video inputs inside your OBS scenes that are already part of other scenes inside OBS. Therefore you can create multiple layouts of the same video resources OBS has access to in other scenes. This is an intelligent way for your OBS system to only select the video audio sources to process that you require in your video production processing. Now that you have both video camera inputs inside the same OBS scene you can rearange their position in the layer stack and resize each input. Perhaps you want to keep one video feed full screen and move a layer on top of our backgroung to be a picture in picture sytle layout. If that’s what you want to do with OBS, this is the right video tutorial and course for you! Thanks for checking this out and don’t forget to subscribe to the StreamGeeks. 

Creating a ticker is a great way to keep your audience informed with extra information. We design a simple ticker and show you how to use scrolling text in OBS. I have attached a PNG file you can use as a black bar for your scrolling text in the lecture resources. 

OK, we are finally ready to start our first live stream. We will live stream to Facebook using OBS. This is a great way to start becoming familiar with the RTMP Server and Streaming Key Basics. 

Audio is perhaps the most important portion of your video production. OBS has always had some decent tools for handling audio, but now it's time to really take this up to a professional level using free VTS plugins. Here are the plugins used in this video - http://reaper.fm/reaplugs/

Let’s start by optimizing your default audio settings for your microphone as it comes into Windows. Keep in mind this process could be slightly different for Mac and Linux users. Also, if you have a professional audio mixer, many of these settings can be handled in your hardware audio system. In order to optimize our default audio device in Windows, you need to open up the sound control panel. Go over to the recording section and make sure the microphone you want to use in Open Broadcaster Software is set to “default”. Now you can select that microphone and click properties. This will open up the advanced properties of the microphone and allow you to tweak your microphones boost and levels.

Using VST Plugins in a Chain

As you are building out your audio processing chain it’s important to consider the order you are adding your plugins. You don’t want to compress your signal before you add a noise suppression plugin. Therefore it’s best practice to use the following chain in your VST plugin order:

1. Noise Suppression

2. Noise Gate

3. EQ (Equalization)

4. Compression / Limiter

OBS Noise Suppression

Once we have added our noise suppression, we want to set up our noise gate VST plugin inside our OBS source audio properties. In order to use this, we want to listen to the noise in the room and set up a gate to mute our microphone at a certain level. Most rooms have ambient noise that produces a certain level inside our microphone. We can use our noise gate level monitor to determine the correct level to set our noise gate too. Once this is done you can choose an attack and release that fits your voice and move one.

VST 2 EQ Plugin for OBS

Next, we want to EQ for our voice. Equalization can take some time to learn how to do properly. Start with a low cut (aka high pass) to remove any low hums in your room. The human voice generally will not produce volume below 80 Hz on the EQ so we can cut these bands out to remove the sounds of low humming volume. Next we can apply a high cut (aka low pass) which will cut out any high pitched noises that we do not need inside our microphone pickup range. This in itself will make your production sound a lot better. Finally, you can decide to enhance your voice in the low, middle or high-end ranges of the EQ.

VST 2.0 OBS Plugin for Compressor and Limiter

Finally, we want to add our compressor at the end of our audio processing chain. The compressor may have the most noticeable audio effect (depending on how your EQ turned out). The compressor can smooth out your entire performance and help stop your audio from peaking. If you use too much compression your voice will sound like it’s coming out of an announcer bull horn. If you use just enough, your voice will clearly cut through any other audio or background music. The compressor also includes a limiter which will limit the portions of your audio that are compressed and help your audio from peaking overall.

THE EASY WAY TO CONNECT OBS AND ZOOM

1. Just connect video and your mic. Leave the audio with your regular settings

2. Only requires 1 free virtual audio cable for PC

3. Use Loopback for Mac – https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/

THE NEW BEST WAY TO CONNECT OBS AND ZOOM

1. Connect your webcam with the virtual video camera

2. Connect your microphones from OBS to Zoom

3. Connect the Zoom audio output in OBS

   1. This is ideal for recording and streaming the content

4. Use new Audio Monitor plugin – https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/audio-monitor.1186/

   1. This plugin allows you to choose each audio output you want to send to Zoom individually. This way you can still use your monitor output for your headphones.

First of all, why would you want to connect OBS and Zoom? By connecting OBS to Zoom with video you can use the virtual webcam feature of OBS to power Zoom. In this way, your webcam source in Zoom can have all kinds of awesome video sources that you can manage in OBS. You can use this to use lower thirds, show overlays, mix together multiple sources, display countdown timers and much more. The only limitation is your creativity.

Next, why would you want to connect your Zoom audio through OBS? First of all, in OBS you can enhance your audio with VST2 plugins and you can mix together multiple sources of audio and output that into Zoom. Want to play a video clip and have everyone see it in Zoom? Sure, you could use the Screen Share feature, but it’s much cleaner to manage everything in Zoom. Want to record and stream your Zoom conference on YouTube and Facebook using OBS? Well, you are going to need the audio from your Zoom guests into OBS to do that properly.

So, the easiest way to get started is to start with video. You can bring your webcam into OBS and then output into Zoom using the “Virtual Webcam” option. This button is in the right hand corner by default right below start recording and streaming. Next, in Zoom you can select “OBS Camera” as your webcam in Zoom. Now everything you see have in the output screen on OBS will show up your webcam source in Zoom. Easy right?

Next, you can bring your microphone into OBS and use a virtual audio cable to transport that audio into Zoom. Audio is a little harder than video because it requires a virtual audio cable but don’t worry, you can do it. If you are using a Mac you can download Loopback to create and install the required virtual audio cables. If you are using Windows, you can download the virtual audio cables from VB audio.

In order to send audio to zoom and receive audio from the far end, you will need two virtual audio cables. One to send audio and one to receive audio. If you want to keep things very easy you can use just one audio cable to send audio from OBS to Zoom, and skip receiving the audio back into OBS. Let’s start with this and then build up to the complete set up.

Once you have installed your virtual audio cables you can use a brand new plugin called “Audio Monitor” for OBS. This plugin will allows you to select any audio source in OBS and send it to any output using the filter feature. For this example, you can select any sources in OBS that you want to send audio back into Zoom for. For example, if you have a video clip that you want to share audio with Zoom in, you should add the filter. To add the filter, right click the audio source and click filters. Then you can click the plus button to add the filter. Select the “Audio Monitor” filter and you will see a dropdown list of places where you can send your audio for this source. Choose the virtual audio cable you are using to send audio to Zoom for each source that you want. You can repeat this step for your microphones, and other sources.

Next, you can test this, by selecting your virtual audio cable as your “Microphone” source in Zoom. Play some audio in OBS and you should see the microphone levels going up. Great job, you have connected your audio sources in OBS to Zoom. This setup will work great, and you keep your headphones connected to Zoom in order to hear the far end callers. But, you can also bring the audio coming out of Zoom into OBS. This will be required to make HD video recordings in 1080p and live stream your OBS productions with the audio from your video callers.

To do this, you need to select a second virtual audio cable as your speaker output for Zoom. Then you can bring this source into OBS as a microphone source. It’s actually that easy.

Pro Tip: Want to make your Zoom callers sound better? Try using some of the audio filters available in OBS to enhance their voice quality. You can apply some compression and a little bit of noise cancellation to increase the quality of their voices.

CONCLUSION

This is the easy way to connect OBS and Zoom together. Plus, you have also learned the complete way to bring video and audio together between Open Broadcaster Software and Zoom. By connecting a microphone and a speaker virtually from OBS and Zoom, you are able to increase what you can do with Zoom with video and audio. Once you have this setup there should be little you need to do to change your setting. But I have included a few troubleshooting tips below.

NDI is a powerful IP video connectivity option now available for OBS. It's a technical topic and I have included a free copy of my companion book called The Unofficial Guide to NDI to cover this in more detail.

Instant replays are incredibly popular in sports broadcasts. Here is a unique new feature inside OBS that I think a lot of folks are going to enjoy!

Ever want to use a green screen and chroma key in OBS? It's actually quite easy with the new video filters feature built into OBS. No need to install any plug-ins!

Virtual Sets in OBS? Yes, I am including a free download for some files you can use to create a 1 scene virtual set. Use the course knowledge we learned about chroma key and green screens to set up a great virtual set in OBS!

Controlling your PTZ camera with OBS has been a game changer! Ever since PTZOptics released an open source plugin for Open Broadcaster Software live streamers have had the ability to quickly take pan, tilt and zoom control of their PTZOptics camera directly from inside OBS. PTZOptics has made some significant improvements to the plugin over the past few months. Here is a list of new features for camera control using the PTZOptics OBS plugin:

1. xBox Joystick Camera Control Support

   1. New ability to quickly switch between multiple cameras

   2. New ability to zoom in and out with joystick triggers

   3. New ability to pan, tilt and zoom with multiple controller joysticks

2. Control up to 8 cameras using IP

3. New Advanced Camera Control Area

4. Control cameras Pan, Tilt and Zoom Speeds

5. Complete control over camera exposure - Iris, Shutter Speed and Brightness

6. Complete control over camera image and color - Luminance, Contrast and Hue

7. Control over White Balance - Modes include, Auto, Indoor, Outdoor, One Push and Manual

8. OSD (On Screen Display Menu) Access

9. Image Flip and Image Mirror functions

With all of these new features, OBS users can add more video production capabilities to their live streams. But there is more! PTZOptics has just published a new list of HTTP camera commands that are available for use with OBS and other video production software that supports web browser inputs. These new HTTP camera control commands allow OBS users to automate camera pan, tilt and zoom movements based on a selected OBS scene. OBS users can simply enter a web-browser input with e HTTP camera control string to control advanced PTZOptics camera operations including pan, tilt, zoom, focus, preset positions, and OSD menu navigation. The new HTTP-CGI Command Sheet is now available for use at PTZOptics.com/Downloads.

Learn how to use and setup virtual sets in OBS.

In this video, we will demonstrate how to set up an Elgato Stream Deck as a live streaming control surface for your favorite live streaming software and PTZ camera controls for PTZOptics cameras. Once you have unboxed your StreamDeck, go ahead and plug it into your computer which will provide the unit with power and connectivity. Your computer should recognize the USB connection almost immediately. The StreamDeck should light up showing you that everything is working. You are almost ready to go!

Now you need to download the latest software to setup your StreamDeck at, https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/downloads.

Note: If you are planning to use your StreamDeck to control OBS, make sure that you have OBS already installed. The StreamDeck control panel installs a plugin for OBS when it downloads. It will not load properly if OBS is installed after you install the StreamDeck control panel.

Once you have downloaded the software for either Mac or Windows you can go ahead and launch the program. You are now ready to program your stream deck.

On the bottom right corner, there is a button for more actions. This is where you can install custom action such as a CPU usage monitor, an analog clock and support for 3rd party streaming software such as vMix. Support for OBS, Mixer, StreamLabs, Twitch, Twitter, xSplit, and YouTube are built in by default.

You can add commands to your stream deck by dragging and dropping the commands you would like to appear on your StreamDeck to the buttons represented in this application. For each button, you should see that you can customize the name of the button. You will also be presented with options for configuration.

The physical device will show your changes as you are making them. A unique feature for the StreamDeck allows users to create profiles that allow you to open up new sets of buttons. For example, you can have a home profile and then you can have a profile for each PTZOptics camera in your studio or each social media platform you would like to control. You can add website shortcuts, application shortcuts, camera controls, audio buttons, and much more.

For this example, we will create a unique profile for a PTZOptics camera in our studio. You can also automate your live streaming software such as vMix, xSplit, and OBS. For this example, we will also demonstrate how you can use Open Broadcaster Software. You can control your PTZOptics camera directly inside OBS or you can create custom buttons to call PTZ camera presets.

Let’s start by setting up OBS. Go ahead and create a scene for each PTZOptics camera with that we want to use with a built-in camera preset command. We will use a web browser input to automatically control our PTZ cameras when we switch to our OBS scenes.

Start by opening up OBS and adding a scene for your first camera. Add your camera source and a browser source. Inside the browser, source uses the HTTP command for calling a camera preset. Set up your camera preset in the location you would like the camera to be at in this OBS scene. Don’t forget to click the “Refresh Browser when the scene becomes active” button to make sure OBS sends the PTZOptics camera a preset command every time you switch to this input. You can now duplicate this scene and change the HTTP command to represent a new camera PTZ preset.

Now back in Elgato Stream Deck software, let’s create a profile for OBS to store all of our OBS specific button commands. Click the top left-hand corner dropdown menu and click “edit profiles”. In the preferences, window click the plus button to add a new profile for OBS. We can now access this profile and create a new set of buttons that we can access from our home screen. It’s a good idea to also create a button to go back to the home screen at any time in these newly created profiles.

Let’s start by adding a stream and record button inside our OBS profile. Then in the OBS studio dropdown menu found in the right-hand sidebar, add a scene for each scene you have created inside of OBS. You can drag a “Scene” into any button in this profile. You can then name and configure which scene this button will trigger. Because our OBS scenes have built-in HTTP commands being sent to our PTZOptics camera, the cameras will move automatically when a scene is called. You can go ahead and test this by pressing the buttons.

Optionally, you can send PTZ camera preset commands directly to PTZOptics cameras. This may be a better option for remotely controlling your cameras. To do this, set up another profile in your StreamDeck for each PTZOptics camera you would like to control. In your newly created profile, choose the “Website” option under the systems tab. Here you can name your preset and enter the HTTP command from the list available on ptzoptics.com/downloads.

Note: You will need to know your cameras IP address in order to use HTTP commands. Generally, an HTTP command contains multiple variables used to communicate with your PTZOptics camera over IP.

You can customize the variables in the HTTP command to perform various video production actions with your PTZOptics robotic camera. Do not forget to click “Access in Background” option so that your StreamDeck does not open up a new web-browser every time that you use the button.

And that’s it! You now know how to set up an Elgato Stream Deck to control OBS and PTZOptics cameras. Setting this system up with other video production systems will be a fairly similar process. If you have questions please let us know in the comments below. We are really enjoying this new StreamDeck and look forward to sharing more in the future! So don’t forget to subscribe!

You may have seen our recent video about using transparent video overlays for your Zoom Meeting Countdowns. Transparent video overlays are a fancy way to add countdown timers to your OBS production but they come with some limitations. Using the new Advanced Timers script for OBS you gain more flexibility for starting and stopping timers with custom times. The Advanced Timers Script available for OBS and you can use it to build custom timers for any time you like.

In the StreamGeeks Pro Zoom pack available at StreamGeeks.us/countdown you can download the sample images used to make your timers look even cooler.

Here is the step by step process.

1. Download the Advanced Timer Script for OBS here - https://github.com/cg2121/obs-advanced-timer/releases/tag/5.0

2. Download Countdown Timer Resources from StreamGeeks.us/countdown

3. Open OBS and click "Tools" and "Scripts." Inside the scripts manager click the "plus" button and choose "advanced-timer.lua".

4. Next create your OBS scene with a layer of text called "TIME." The background images are optional.

5. Inside of the scripts manager you can choose the countdown mode, the countdown duration, hours, and minutes. In the "Text Source" choose "TIME" or whatever you named the text file.

6. You can then click "Start/Stop Timer" to start your time.

7. You may need to crop the text input to remove time that is not necessary for your setup.

8. To connect this countdown timer into Zoom or another video conference software like Skype, you can use the "Start Virtual Camera" button. Then you can select "OBS-Cam" as your webcam source.

So that’s it. You can use the OBS custom scripts function to manage custom countdown timers. You can also use it for counting up, showing the time you have been streaming or recording. There are a few other countdown scripts available in the OBS forums, but I have found the advanced timer to be the best overall.

Did you know that you can now pause OBS recordings! With the latest version of OBS 24.0 or later you can pause a recording in OBS and then restart the recording when you want to. This is an awesome new feature available in the latest OBS 24.0 release candidate.

OBS recording formats that support pause and restart

In this video, we review the video formats that you can record in with OBS and pause the recording to be restarted. Currently, you can record video in Flv, Mkv, ts, and m3u8 for use with this new pause recording feature. When recording video, just remember that you cannot pause your live stream. But it is nice if you are recording video content of your live stream during the broadcast for later use. In this way, you can record short clips from your live stream and save them in one file with start and pause feature. One requested feature is the ability to pause a recording with the hotkeys. We will bring this up in the OBS user group.

New OBS 24 pause button during video recordings

Remember the popular Mp4 and MOV video recording formats do not support this new feature. OBS recording formats that support pause and restart are only Flv, Mkv, ts, and m3u8. The reason these video formats have this feature is that OBS has the ability to store this video without being finalized even if the computer is turned off due to a power outage. Assuming you have the latest version of OBS and your recording format selected properly you will see the pause button available once you start recording.

What are the other new OBS 24 features?

• The long-requested ability to pause recordings

• A new option to use dynamic bitrate adjustment while streaming instead of dropping frames when the internet is congested for whatever reason

• The ability to control browser source audio volume with the audio mixer, as well as apply audio filters, and output audio to stream only rather than desktop audio

• The ability to create custom browser dock widgets so you can have custom web pages opened whenever OBS is opened

• Hardware-accelerated decoding of H264 media files in the media source

• Updated x264, FFmpeg, and CEF versions on Windows. x264, in particular, has a number of new optimizations that should improve performance for anyone using software encoding

• A whole lot of minor optimizations to the program

Join the OBS User Group on Facebook here – https://www.facebook.com/groups/OBSUSERS/

In the latest version of OBS 24.0, there is a new feature to dynamically change the bitrate to manage bandwidth congestion. in this video, we review how to stop getting dropped frames in OBS during your broadcasts using this new feature. Remember this feature is still in BETA. So it's worth testing this feature with various bit-rates to see what gets the best results for your live stream. This new feature allows OBS to use dropped frames as a way to judge what the ideal bit rate should be.

If you are just learning about OBS, bitrate is essentially the quality of your live stream. You can have a 4K resolution live stream with a low bit-rate and it look poor quality. And you can have a 720p resolution live stream with a high bit-rate which could look great. So giving OBS control over your bit-rate is an easy way to optimize your broadcast as congestion in your network connection changes.

GitHub download here - https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases/tag/24.0.0-rc1

OBS 24 is now available and in this tutorial, you are going to learn how you can set up dockable PTZ camera controls inside of your OBS interface for PTZOptics cameras. Once you have downloaded the latest version of OBS (which should be 24.0 of later), you should make sure that you uninstall any previous version of OBS. Once you have uninstalled a previous version of OBS you can go ahead and install the latest 24.0 or later version.

The new feature you can use to create custom PTZ camera controllers are called “Custom Browser Docks” and it can be found under the main “View” dropdown menu nested in the “Docks” area. If you have never ventured into this area of OBS, you will notice you have the ability to reset and lock the current OBS user interface. You also have the ability to quickly open or close any of the dockable modules inside of your layout. Go ahead and play with your layout and determine which modules you want to access before moving forward.

Next, go ahead and download the custom “PTZOptics OBS Browser Docks” at PTZOptics.com/OBS. Once unzipped, you will find all of the PTZOptics open-source control software with a folder called “PTZOptics OBS Controllers.” Here, you will find small, medium and large controllers you can open up in any web-browser. You will see that the current designs look very nice in either the dark or Ranchi themes. Everything is completely customizable via CSS if you ever want to alter the look and feel of these dockable controllers.

Once you have downloaded the pre-designed PTZOptics OBS Browser Docks, unzip the files and put them somewhere safe on your computer. Next, you can go ahead and open up the docks that you plan to use. Go ahead and open up the small and medium-sized controllers in Google Chrome Web-Browser. From here we just need to copy and paste the HTTP URL information into OBS. Inside the “Custom Browser Docks” area you will find a table with two fields per item. You can name your custom browser dock and you can enter the URL.

Here you can enter the name of your first PTZ camera dock and enter the URL. You can have multiple docks for the same camera so you can have one small PTZ dock for quick controls and another medium-sized dock to quickly click on a preset image. Once you have added your docks name and URL click “apply”. This will create your browser window you can drag and drop into any module area of the OSB interface. For convenience, you can drag the small PTZ controller over the Scene transitions area. Notice that if you layer one dock on top of an existing one it will create a tab at the bottom of each docking area. You can now rearrange the order of these docks and add as many as you would like.

Now let’s set up this controller to work with our PTZOptics camera over the network. You should already have your cameras static IP address. If not, please refer to your camera setup video to learn how to set this up. Click the “Preferences” button and notice all of the options we have for this controller. You have the option to set pan, tilt, zoom, and focus speeds. You also have an area to enter the camera's unique static IP address. Go ahead and type your cameras IP address into this area and click “Reload Camera”. Once you have entered this information you need to refresh the OBS browser window. To do this, go ahead and delete the dock and re-add it.

Next, you can add the medium-sized ptz controller dock to the area next to the main program output of OBS in studio mode. You will notice that this will give you an area to have quick camera presets that you can customize. Each of the preset buttons will recall PTZ camera presets that are stored in the camera. You can customize these buttons by replacing the 90x90pixel images inside the “images” folder that came with your download.

So, lastly, what if you have multiple PTZ cameras and you to have controls for each available in the OBS interface. No problem. You will notice in your PTZOptics OBS Browser Docks that there are multiple folders for cameras 2, 3, and 4. You can go into each of these folders and get unique URLs for different cameras and import them into OBS just like we did with the last cameras. Just make sure to use the “Preferences” area to store your next cameras IP address into the browser. Also, make sure you are using one of the unique set of folders we have setup for you in the download.

So that’s it. You now have simplified your PTZ camera control setup inside of OBS. Please note that more advanced PTZ functionality is available via OBS plugin. But, for most users, this layout is more than enough to take full advantage of their PTZOptics and OBS live streaming setup.

It’s time to review two of the top live streaming and video production software solutions available today. In this video, we will compare Open Broadcaster Software and vMix, two software solutions that are quite different but important for many video producers.

First, let’s start with the obvious. Open Broadcaster Software or OBS is free and open source. vMix on the other hand, does have a free version and generous free 90-day unwatermarked trial, but for extended HD use, it’s going to cost you $60. In fact, the Professional version of vMix costs $1,200 so buckle up, because in order to understand why many people purchase vMix for over one thousand dollars, you are going to need to understand some of the industries most popular video production features.

Now the first important difference between vMix and OBS is support for Mac and Linux systems. vMix is only available for Windows. As you may learn, Windows is the preferred operating system for video production professionals around the world. There are many reasons why, and even the Windows OBS version generally receives the first updates and maintains the longest feature list.

Comparing OBS versus vMix

Note: If you are Mac user, check out OBS, MimoLive, ECamm Live and Wirecast. But let’s now dig into a side by side comparison of OBS versus vMix.

For the sake of this comparison, we will compare OBS with the HD version of vMix. But keep in mind that, vMix can scale all the way up to 4K and Pro editions that include tons of powerful features. When you choose a video production software, it’s important to realize that there is a learning curve. Because this learning curve can take anywhere from 20-40 hours, you could be wasting an entire week learning software that eventually won’t have the capabilities you need. BUT… Let me stop you right there. Because of NDI and the ability to connect vMix and OBS together. You will likely end up using your skills with OBS setting up remote machines that run can connect OBS to another OBS or vMix system anyway. So learning OBS, is not generally going to be a waste of time. It’s an amazing live streaming software and it’s always getting better with every new release.

OBS vs vMix the Interface

Let’s start this comparison by looking at the OBS and vMix interfaces. OBS starts out with a single output screen in the center of the screen. vMix on the other hand, starts out with the preview and output screens side by side. Luckily, OBS has a studio mode that can show preview and output side by side the same way as vMix. So, if you are considering using OBS like vMix, turn on studio mode and use it.

Now, from an interface standpoint, there are some major differences here. OBS is in general, more customizable because you can have a single video panel in the middle, which is great for beginnings and streamers who don’t need a preview monitor. In fact, OBS can be set up to simply click a scene and have it go live. You can also create hotkeys to have a source go live and if you are running your live stream with a handful of scenes and sources this is an incredibly simple way to have a one-man production. Another awesome new feature available in OBS 25 or greater is called Dockable Browser sources.

Today we are showing the PTZOptics camera control software docked directly into the OBS interface. So we can control our studio cameras directly from inside of OBS. This can also nest important information like the YouTube chat room or a StreamLabs controller. This has opened up a whole new world of buttons and internet/network connected control options. vMix does not have this feature. Dockable controllers can be nested all throughout the OBS interface, in fact you can move around almost all of the OBS elements and rearrange them to fit your production style.

vMix has the preview and output windows by default but underneath these you can see every source that you have live. This is really nice because you can simply click any source to put it into preview. vMix also has an option to click a source to send it to the output automatically. vMix also has an advanced hotkey system that can be used with USB connected controllers like the Elgato StreamDeck but others as well include MIDI and Bluetooth controllers. So, from an interface perspective, OBS has the simplest most flexible layout options. vMix packs the most power into a single interface. OBS wins for the basic user, vMix wins for the power user.

Audio Interface and Controls

This is an area where vMix really shines. Yes, OBS has a usable audio mixer that is available right in the bottom of the interface by default. It works great and has some cool features. For example, you can decide which audio sources will go to which video recordings by managing multiple tracks. You can also apply audio filters which are super helpful, and OBS supports VST 2. VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology and VST plugins can be used to add advanced audio effects to your audio sources in OBS.

Vmix supports VST3 which is a huge level up from an audio standpoint over VST 2. VST 2 plugins are generally free at this point and many of them are no longer supported by their creators. This is because the industry has moved over to VST 3 and in general, they are much better and easier to use. Take a look at two of our favorite VST 3 plugins we use in vMix. One is called Renaissance Axx and the other is called NS1. NS1 is super easy to use, and it’s the most popular noise reduction solution I have yet to find. Renaissance Axx is an incredible compressor that makes your voice sound fuller and easier to understand.

From an audio perspective, vMix wins in every category. An important difference is an interface. With vMix you can see levels and quickly mute and un-mute sources. Also, you can choose which sources you want to see inside of the audio mixer. Finally, vMix offers a ridiculous amount of audio busses which can be used to route audio into other applications. We will get to the NDI section of vMix next which supports audio as well, but vMix offers 7 audio busses which are super ideal for recording podcasts with software like Audacity or passing audio back and forth with an application like Zoom video conferencing.

For audio outputs, OBS basically supports two. One is for monitoring the audio and the other is for the stream or recording. You can hack the way OBS is used to select a virtual audio cable output from OBS using the monitor channel but it’s not ideal and you lose your ability to monitor OBS properly. Vmix has a separately selectable audio monitoring channel outside of the additional audio outputs.

Streaming Controls

Next let’s compare the streaming with OBS and vMix. Vmix offers three simultaneous video streams, which could save you a lot of money if you are paying for a service like Restream with OBS. OBS only offers one stream. With that being said, OBS can produce beautiful streams and you can adjust the bitrate to whatever you want. Both software solutions offer a long list of CDN (Content Delivery Network) integrations that allow you to log in to a CDN like Facebook and stream directly without having to retrieve your secret key every time you want to live stream.

With OBS, if you want to stream to multiple destinations you have to pay for a third-party service. So, purchasing vMix HD can pay for itself in just a couple of months. Also, with vMix you can a bunch of extra control over toggling on and off the various streams that you can send out. But, keep in mind that there are advantages to streaming a single high quality stream from your computer and having the cloud distribute it for you. First of all, you need a pretty powerful PC to be able to output multiple streams at the same time. Secondly, you are increasing your upload bandwidth requirements every time you add another source. So, if you don’t have the computing power or bandwidth to handle these features, don’t use them.

Graphics

Next let’s talk about graphics. Now, I have seen some of the most beautiful live streams and productions done with OBS. OBS streamers especially on Twitch are generally really good with Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. With OBS you can pretty much do anything, trigger any source, and overlay HTML graphics from the cloud. Cloud based graphics in particular are really incredible and they can be added to OBS with a transparent background using the HTML browser source input. So, from a graphics perspective, there are a million things you can do. In fact, StreamLabs and StreamLabs version of OBS make this process even easier.

But, OBS does not come with any stock graphics. vMix on the other hand, comes with plenty. In fact, vMix comes with two tools that makes graphics and animated titling simple. First is the stock list of virtual sets (which we actually won’t be covering in this video but is a super powerful use of vMix), titles, animated graphics and more. In vmix, you can click add source and choose titles to bring up a long list of stock title options to choose from.

This is actually a funny industry insider joke in a way, because once you know all of the vmix title options you can totally pick out who is using vMix titles by watching their live streams. ANYWAY… vMix comes with two awesome applications to make title creation even easier. One is the GT Title editor. This application allows you to create titles with animations and overlays every quickly. You can then import your custom animated titles directly into vmix.

The next amazing software that comes included with vMix is vMix social. vMix social allows you to integrate YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Twitch comments directly into your titles using title mapping. We usually use some of the stock vMix social titles and they integrate the data mapping directly into your production. vMix social is a small tool but it’s super powerful. It can host an IP address on your local area network which allows anyone to control it and manage a Que of questions. This is ideal for sorting through the chats and just selecting the best ones to display on your screen and answer.

Color Correction Tools

Okay, here is another area where vMix is leading the entire industry. Yes, OBS has decent options for adjusting the colors coming in through video sources. You can add a list of effects to any video source and one of these is actually designed for color correction. The color corrections include Gamma, Contrast, Brightness, Saturation, Hue, and an overall opacity. You can also apply a LUT which stands for Look-Up Table and this will apply a consistent color grade over multiple cameras. It’s similar to a snap chat or Instagram filter. But when you compare these tools to what vMix has to offer it’s pretty primitive. vMix's professional color correction tools allow you to use three unique color wheels just like you would see in the industry's most advanced solutions such as Davinci Resolve. You can apply color corrections to any camera or input with three color wheels, one for lift, one for Gamma, and one for gain. You can also decide to use these tools with color bars which are easier for beginners who are just getting used to professional color grading. This is because color wheels are always adding some color and taking away others with every adjustment. With color bars, you can just adjust red, green or blue independently.

Beyond color correction, vMix include Waveform monitors and Vector scopes so that you can really dig into the data of your video sources. You can click the monitor option to view your video with a preview directly next to a waveform or vectorscope monitor. This is where professionals in the video industry go, yup, exactly what I need… If you are just learning about color corrections, this is a tool you can gain access to for ONLY $60 with the HD version of vMix. If you care about how your production looks, this is an invaluable resource. The vectorscope is used to measure color information and the waveform monitor is designed to measure exposure.

PTZ camera controls

So, in the area of automating PTZ camera controls inside of OBS and vMix, yes, vMix is superior. But it’s worth noting that PTZOptics has a great PTZ camera plugin available for OBS. The plugin allows you to control up to 8 cameras inside of OBS and use an Xbox controller. Now that OBS offers dockable browser inputs you can also dock controls into the interface which you cannot do with vMix. But, vMix has had PTZ controls built into the software since version 17 and their interface overall lends itself to PTZ camera automation better than OBS. This is because vMix can create little thumbnails for each PTZ preset that you would like to set. Therefore, you can quickly set up presets by clicking little thumbnail pictures that will go exactly where you assigned your PTZ preset. Click one of these PTZ presets is designed to que up your next camera shot in the preview window before you go live with the take.

NDI

OBS supports NDI and that is the main reason why regardless of whether you get vMix or OBS, you will likely use OBS in one-way shape or form. Here’s why. OBS is free, and it supports NDI inputs and outputs. NDI which stands for Network Device Interface is a royalty-free IP video production protocol that allows you to send and receive high-quality low latency video over your network. This means that you can send the video from one computer like a presentation laptop for example, to another computer like perhaps your main production PC running vMix. You can install NDI to work with your OBS system very easily and OBS will support NDI auto-discovery allow you to find any NDI IP video source available on your network and use it as a source inside of OBS. You can also take the output of an OBS system and bring that into another system.

So, OBS has a pretty basic, buy 100% free way to use NDI effectively. It’s great for Esports, mini production set up and much more.

But when you look at what vMix has to offer in the realm of NDI. It’s pretty incredible. First of all, you get four unique outputs with vMix all of which can have NDI turned on or off during your production at any time. Vmix also built into a little settings cog allowing you to quickly change the resolution and settings to best suit your network. You can also very quickly turn all cameras, calls, and audio outputs into NDI. Yes, you can turn all camera sources in your vMix production into unique NDI sources. Yes, you can turn all audio sources in your vMix production into unique NDI sources. And furthermore, if you are using vMix call which is vMix’s built-in video calling system, you can make all of these video inputs into NDI video outputs.

vMix gets it. And I have been hanging out and chatting with these guys for years at NAB (well not this year due to COVID) but these features are super important and they come from users who make feature requests in their forums. Ok, we have been going for a while here and there is still so much to cover. I’m going to just drop a few more of my favorite vMix features here at the end.

1. The vMix Web Controller. This feature is amazing because it allows you to control the entire vMix system from any web-browser. I use a touch screen windows tablet to host many of the live streams that we produce 100% by self. Yes, all through the COVID-19 quarantine I have produced these online live streams with this little Windows Tablet. I switch between vmix social and the vmix web controller in order to run the entire show myself.

2. Next is Tally lights. I love Tally lights, they allow us to know which camera is live and vmix supports lighting up these little lights when they are live.

3. Shortcuts are great. OBS supports shortcuts but vmix takes it step further integrating thousands of shortcuts, with triggers and much more…

Okay, I have been using vMix for 5 years. Maybe, I am a little bias. But, I still use OBS all of the time. I like to familiar with it because so many of my friends, colleagues and peers use the software as well. I actually wrote a book called the Unofficial Guide to Open Broadcaster Software and I teach an online Udemy course about OBS as well. So, with that being said, I hope this video was helpful to you. I couldn’t fit every feature in here but I would love to hear from you about which features you use the most.

Also, I have met Hugh Jim Bailey and the team over at OBS. You guys rock. We have been contributors on Open Collective since the beginning and we continue to support the project. I am working on some new plugins for OBS to make it even better. So if you guys have ideas please let me know. You can get a free copy of the Unofficial Guide to Open Broadcaster Software below. Okay, that’s it for now! Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel because we have so much more coming out soon.