There are a few reasons why you might want to consider starting your live video
with a countdown timer, with an application like StreamYard.
It's actually extremely easy to do in this video.
We're going to first talk about why you might want to consider starting your
live video with a countdown timer.
And then I'm going to show you four ways that you can actually do so using
StreamYard. Hey everybody,
my name's Mel, before we get started,
I just want to remind you to make sure that you're subscribed to our channel and
click on that notification bell so you don't miss any of our new content.
All right. So, as I said, in this video,
we're going to talk about countdown timers.
So what are some reasons why you might want to consider starting your live video
with a countdown timer? Now, before we get started,
I will say it does seem like this is one of those debatable
concepts, starting your video with a countdown timer.
So some people are not big fans of them. Some people are.
We're going to talk to the people who want to start their stream with a
countdown timer, but maybe you've not even considered this before. Now,
one of the reasons why you might want to start your video with a countdown timer
is because if you are multi streaming,
many times there is a delay in when that stream actually starts publishing
to various channels. For example, YouTube,
it may actually start streaming sooner than it does to Facebook or LinkedIn.
Now there's really no rhyme or reason why these all are at different times.
But if you want to start your video in-sync at the same time and not have
anything be cut off,
then you might want to consider starting your stream with a countdown timer.
Now,
another reason that I like using countdown timers is it gives you an opportunity
to kind of get warmed up, get your audience a little bit settled in,
get them a little bit warmed up and ready for you to start your live video. Now,
another reason is some people like to use that countdown time as a time for them
to do a few things like share your live video to a DM to somebody,
maybe share it to another channel.
Maybe go ahead and let your guests for example, if they,
if you have a guest on your stream,
they can share that live stream to their audience at that point.
During that countdown, it's kind of a good time to do a few of those things.
Now I do not recommend that you use your countdown to prepare or get ready for
your live video. You should absolutely start your live video,
ready to go and prepare it ahead of time. Now,
the other reason that I like to start some of my live videos with the countdown
timer is to actually warm my audience up. Now,
I like to provide a little bit of entertainment. I like to dance,
play some music during my countdown.
This does require a little bit of some extra things.
I am going to show you how to do that in this video.
So first let's start with the easiest way to start your live video with a
countdown timer.
Here we are inside of the beautiful StreamYard studio and you will notice in the
video clip section that you have a 30-second countdown timer provided for you.
This is actually included in all StreamYard accounts.
So we all have this countdown timer for us to use.
So the way that this works is once you click on that video clip,
it's going to play and when it hits the end of the video clip,
it will automatically remove itself from the stream.
So I always like to start my live videos with a blank screen or
an image up on screen and then I click on the video to start the countdown timer
and just before the end of that countdown timer a few seconds before I
go ahead and add myself to the studio. Now, no one will be able to hear me.
No one will be able to see me because if a video with audio sound is playing,
your microphone is automatically muted and yet that video plays over on top of
your camera feed. So you're,
it's kind of like you're behind the curtain of the countdown,
but once that countdown timer ends, it goes away and you are on screen.
So let me show you how this works. So, as I said,
I would remove myself from the stream and I would have,
my background is a basic image here.
I would go ahead and click go live and once we're live,
I would go ahead and start this countdown timer. And here
I am. As I said, once that video ends,
if you are added to the stream or anyone else is added to the stream,
you will be on the screen at that point. Now,
another thing that's really great when you're playing a video clip like this for
the countdown timer,
you can also be displaying your banners or your tickers and comments that will
display over on top of that video.
So that's another way to get your audience to engage while you're starting your
live video with one of these video clips. Now that's a shorter countdown timer.
Of course, it's included in all stream yard accounts.
Really great for just getting everything in sync.
You may also want to consider a custom countdown timer
video, very similar to what I just showed you,
except it's a custom video that you either hire someone to make for you,
or you make yourself using one of the super amazing applications like Wave.video
or Canva for example, even Animoto,
you could probably make one of these things.
There's a lot of applications out there that you could design and create your
own custom countdown timer video. Now you can make it short and sweet,
30 seconds, 60 seconds,
or even go a little bit longer because you're able to customize it and make it
your own. Now,
one thing I will say about longer countdown timer videos is that you're
definitely going to want to make sure that you're doing something to engage the
audience. So again, I love being able to display comments with stream yard.
So maybe display comments as your audience is showing up and commenting and put
some CTA's in your banners, give them a call-to-action.
Like tell them to say hello, tell them you'll be starting soon.
Maybe ask them a question so that you can get them going while this countdown
timer is playing. Now, the other bonus that I would say,
if you're going to design your own countdown timer is definitely add some music
to it so that it can be a little bit entertaining and have a little extra flare.
Because again,
nobody wants to look at a boring screen with just a bunch of numbers counting
down for, you know, two to five minutes or so.
So a lot of these applications will allow you to add copyright free music,
or if you have a paid subscription to a music subscription service,
you can play that as well. Now we talked about engagement.
Engagement is very important. If you're going to use a longer countdown timer,
as I mentioned,
the next two versions of the way to start your live video with a countdown timer
will give you some really cool options to have a lot of creativity and
definitely be engaged with your audience.
So the third way that you can start a live video with the countdown timer is to
use the video share function inside of stream yard.
So the way I just showed you was using a video uploaded to stream yard,
but this is actually going to allow you to share a video that's local on your
computer. So you're not going to run into any time limits or file size limits.
The other big benefit to using this version is that you can customize the way it
looks to your audience.
You can use the different view features that stream yard provides and make
yourself full-screen make the countdown timer screen.
You can toggle back and forth between the countdown timer being large on screen,
you being small, you can also bring your guests into it as well.
So you could have a little dance party. You could have a little bit of fun,
engaging your audience,
letting them see you as you get ready and warmed up for your live video. Now,
one thing I would say that you definitely want to keep in mind is that when you
use this feature, this way, your mic is not automatically going to be muted.
So if you don't want anyone to hear you while you're using this feature,
then just make sure that your mic is muted and of course,
if you have a guest with you, make sure that their mic is muted as well.
Now we have a tutorial video all about how to use the video share feature.
So if you're new to that, be sure to check that out.
It's very easy to use and you can have a lot of fun with it.
Lots of really fun ways that you can get creative with that type of countdown.
Now,
the next version of countdown timer that I'm going to show you is a little bit
more complicated, but it's pretty awesome.
This is a way for you to actually start your videos with a transparent countdown
timer, where the countdown timer is displayed over you.
The audience can see you,
but they can also see the countdown timer in a transparent aspect.
Now you can't do this with just StreamYard right now,
but we are going to use an application called OBS.
So if you're familiar with OBS, this might be a really fun thing for you to try.
If you're not familiar with OBS yet,
this just might inspire you to get to learn a little bit more about that extra
way that you can add some flare to your streams. Now,
if you're just getting started with live streaming,
I don't suggest that you jump in and try to figure this out, get going live,
use those other versions that I showed you first get acclimated and then maybe
graduate to this way later. So to achieve this version of a countdown timer,
you're going to need, of course, OBS,
you're also going to need a video that is a countdown.
You would want to consider a way to pump music into your streams.
I personally use the Wavelink app that came with my Elgato Wave 3 microphone.
Other popular options are VoiceMeeter for PCs Loopback for Macs.
There are a million ways you can actually pump music into your streams.
Now we also have a really great blog article that you're going to want to check
out because you're going to want to make sure you have the proper usage rights
to the music that you're pushing in your streams.
So be sure to check out the description where we have a link to that blog
article as well. All right. This a doozy. So hang on. Whoa, wait,
before I go any further,
I have to say this because I need you guys to be nice to me in the comments.
This is not an OBS tutorial. So again,
there are lots of videos out there about OBS.
I am simply going to show you my way that I'm using OBS to achieve this method
of the countdown timer. Okay, you're going to want to open OBS studio.
You're gonna want to be in studio mode,
which gives you both of these screens here so that you can preview what's going
to be coming next before you transition.
Now we're going to be using the OBS virtual camera.
So you want to start your virtual camera. Now, here's what we're doing.
So I am going to be transitioning with the fader.
So I'm just going to show you right now what this looks like.
So if we do the fader,
you'll notice that we can toggle the transparency.
Now what's over on this screen over here is actually what's in your program.
That's why it says that up top. That's what your audience is going to see.
This here is the preview.
So I like to start my program with a static image,
and then I transitioned to the timer and then I transition to me,
which I will show you in just a moment. Okay?
So now that we have our OBS virtual camera turned on,
you can then open StreamYard. And when you go to select your camera source,
you're going to select OBS virtual camera.
And now you see that what is shown here is what was in that program window.
So we are entered in, now I haven't added ourselves to the stream just yet.
You would add yourself to the stream, of course. And again,
there's that static image you would then want to get ready to go
live. Now,
something I want to point out is that you are going to need to select your audio
source as well. So again,
I am using the Wave Link software that comes with my Elgato Wave:3 microphone.
It allows me to control various audio inputs and so I'm able to play
music through this application and push it,
just like my microphone into the stream. So that is what I have selected here.
Now you're probably gonna want to make sure that you're also wearing a pair of
headphones if you are incorporating any other audio into your stream.
Okay? So now to really help this kind of concept, come to life here,
I have both applications displayed at once. Now. I use two monitors.
This makes it a lot easier, but if you don't have two monitors,
you would probably want to have your monitor set up somewhat like I've shown you
here. But as you can see in OBS here,
we have our preview and our program and what's displayed over on the StreamYard
stream is what's displayed on program in OBS. But if you watch, as I transition,
you will notice that it changes over on StreamYard as well. So again,
whatever is displayed in your program window on OBS is what your audience is
going to see for you and your webcam.
So I'm going to go ahead and show you what we do here for our countdown.
Now we have different scenes set up here. Again, this is not an OBS tutorial.
You're going to want to have a scene with countdown video.
I have that ready to go and set. So again,
I start my stream with a static image,
and then I slowly transition to my timer. And as I do that,
that timer video is going to start playing. Now I would have already clicked,
go live at this point. So I'm live right now.
There's music pumping into my stream.
I probably would pull up a few banners that say, Hey,
we'll be live in a few minutes. You know, dance party, whatever.
But then the next thing I'm going to do here is I'm going to go down to my
scenes and I'm going to pick my actual scene of what I want to be
most of my stream to be and right now it's me using my, my Sony camera.
So here's where it gets fun. We're going to use that same fate effect.
And we're gonna fade in to our stream to go about
60%, 70% in here so that they can see me, but they could still see that timer.
Now at this point, this is where I have found that it's super fun.
My audience loves it. They like the music. I play it, change it up all the time.
I might dance a little bit. I dance a lot. Sometimes I get worked up,
I get warmed up. My audience just really enjoys it.
And so you use this fade effect. Now here's where it gets kind of tricky.
You're probably going to want to make sure your mic is muted or whatever audio
software you're using.
You're making sure you're not pumping your microphone audio into the stream.
You wouldn't want to be talking while the music is playing. You can.
But the other thing is that you're going to have to be ready because when this
countdown timer inside OBS is done, it is a video file.
So when it gets to the end,
it's not going to do what StreamYard does and just kind of all of a sudden go
away. And you're all of a sudden on screen. So when it gets close to the end,
you actually want to fade yourself all the way over and get yourself back so
that where we are here is over into our program.
So we'll just skip ahead to that part of the countdown, of course.
So right about now, actually, when it hits about five seconds,
I just start to slowly transitioned myself all the way over to the edge.
And then at this point, as you can see,
we are fully transitioned and I am on screen, no countdown timer anymore,
nothing in the way and at this point I start my show and I am fired up and so is
my audience. Well there, you have it four ways.
You can start your live videos using a countdown timer with StreamYard.
So the first way was super easy just using the 30-second countdown timer that's
provided to all of us in StreamYard's video section.
The second way was to go create your own countdown timer video,
and use that video section.
The third way using the video share feature so that you can decide how you
want to be on screen.
Maybe your guests can be on screen while that countdown timer is displayed.
And then the fourth way was duct-taping. Two applications together,
pulling the OBS virtual camera into your StreamYard stream so that you can
customize the look and feel personally,
I like the transparent look so that my audience can see me behind my countdown
timer as we get warmed up and fired up.
I hope you found this video super helpful and maybe inspiring so that you can
consider how you want to start your live videos with a countdown timer.
As always make sure you're subscribed to the channel as well as click on that
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channel right here. That's all I've got for today. See you later.