- This is a complete updated roundup of the best
live streaming software for Windows PC right now.
We're gonna look at all the leading options,
what's new, talk the pros, the cons,
and then we're gonna finish up
with my top recommendations no matter your use case.
Hi, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video,
where we help you grow on audiences,
scour your revenue with online video.
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and all the links to everything we mention in this video.
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So, let's jump into it.
So, it's a great time to be a live streamer right now
with a ton of awesome options,
whether you're going live on YouTube,
Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn,
or insert your other live streaming platform here as well.
But all those options make for a hard call
and a lot of wasted time trying
and testing what's out there,
to see which one is the best one for you.
I know, because I've done just that.
So, in this video, we're gonna run through my short list
for the leading options right now one by one,
including the strengths, the weaknesses, the pricing,
and my recommendations.
So, everything that you need to know.
So, the overall landscape for live streaming software
is getting very saturated.
You've got things like OBS Studio, Streamlabs OBS,
Xsplit, Ycast, vMix, Nvidia ShadowPlay, LightStream,
StreamYard, Zoom, BeLive and there's others well.
So we're gonna jump straight into the short list,
which is my top options.
I'm gonna ignore the options that aren't worth your time.
So, let's go ahead and bring out that progress bar
and start off with option number one.
The first option then, is OBS Studio.
And this one is probably one of the most popular options
out there when it comes to live streaming software,
because of the price tag.
This one is 100% free.
And what you get for free is pretty amazing.
There's a lot of advanced features and controls
and everything in there, to really help you customize up
and dial-in your live stream.
But I will say that the overall interface
and the user experience in OBS really isn't that intuitive
or that easy to navigate through and find everything.
So, if you're an absolute beginner
and you've never done anything like this before,
then there is going to be a fairly steep learning curve
for you, given all of those features and controls,
and given that pretty unintuitive interface.
Now, in regards to which platforms you can stream to,
all of the options I'm covering off in this video
will have support for all of the major platforms.
And they've also got support for RTMP,
which means that you can pretty much broadcast anywhere.
Now, with OBS being such a popular option,
it means that there's a lot of support
that you can get access to if you need help.
Places like that YouTube are a great place to go
to help you get set up,
but yeah, there's also the OBS community forums
and places like Reddit as well.
So, even though it is more on the complicated end of things,
it's pretty easy to get access to support,
to help you get it all set up.
Now, I'm someone who does like having access
to these advanced features
and being able to dial in a split specific bit rate
for the audio, for the video, based on the computer
and based on the connection that I'm live streaming from.
But OBS isn't my go to or isn't my top pick,
because I really think that the overall interface
is not intuitive enough to be able to quickly fix things
and apply settings on the flight when you're actually live.
You're still gonna have to dive into menus upon menus
to quickly be able to make those changes.
Now, one of the other things popular features
with OBS is its recording capabilities.
So, you're able to directly record your live stream
while you're live streaming.
But also, you have the ability to use OBS to record a video
without actually going live.
So, you are gonna do a screen recording
or you want to record your webcam, you can actually use OBS
for these as well.
But that feature also exists in the next two options
that I've got for you as well.
So, besides the overall complexity with the settings
and the interface,
one other thing that you need to be aware of is
if you are looking to bring guests into your live stream
to run the Q and A session or a live interview,
this isn't a feature that OBS actually has natively.
It is still possible, but it's definitely not simple.
And that's where the next two options really shine.
So overall, I'd say OBS is
for someone who doesn't want to spend any money
because it's free.
Also, someone who is probably at that intermediate
to advanced level because of all those advanced features
and controls and things that are in there,
but also because of the complexity in getting it all set
up and managing it all while you're live.
Or for someone who's happy to invest some time
in figuring all of that stuff out to get it set up.
Now, that brings us to option number two,
which is StreamYard.
Now, this is a completely different offering.
This isn't something that you download
and install on your computer.
This one would just run in your web browser,
which means that you don't need to
have a powerful computer to be able to run it
and to be able to run it well.
So, in a lot of regards,
it's almost the complete opposite to something like OBS.
The interface is so intuitive, it's so easy to use.
If you're an absolute beginner,
you're gonna be able to
figure this out really, really quickly.
You won't have to spend the time configuring out
different scenes or different layouts
to use in your live stream.
There are literally presets
that you can click on to switch between different views.
Now, what you won't find in StreamYard
is all of those advanced settings,
things like being able to really dial in
your bit rate for your video or for your audio
or really have access to things like video layers.
StreamYard just makes live streaming so simple.
And there's a couple of big standout features
that I really, really like about StreamYard.
The first one is the ability to bring in guests.
We said that you could do it with OBS, but it was difficult,
bit of a nightmare.
With StreamYard, it's literally click of a button.
You're generated a URL that you can then send out
to whoever you'd like to bring in as a guest,
and StreamYard manages the whole process from there.
Your guests can join from any device, their phone,
their iPad, their computer,
and it supports having up to 10 people on screen at once.
The other big standout feature with StreamYard
is how easy they make multi streaming or similar casting.
If you want to broadcast live to Facebook and YouTube
or Twitter, all at the same time, you don't need to run
through an additional service like Restream or switchboard.
It's actually all built into StreamYard itself.
You just select which destinations you'd like to
broadcast live to.
You can even customize up the title and the description
on each of those platforms,
and then when you go live, it's automatically pushed out
to those places for you.
And all the comments and interactions,
they're all aggregated back into StreamYard for you.
So, you could feature comments on your screen
from YouTube, from Facebook,
all in the one live stream with no extra work from you.
So, that is a really powerful feature,
and it's something that they've actually implemented so well
to make it so intuitive
and so easy for you to be able to do it.
Now, while I've said it doesn't have all the
advanced features as OBS or even the next option
that I'm gonna cover,
it does still have more than enough in there
to help you create an amazing live stream.
You can still bring in videos,
you can still bring in images,
or animations as overlays to help you create
a more professional live stream.
But I would say the biggest thing that StreamYard right now
is missing for me, is keyboard shortcuts.
So, being able to switch between the different views
or different scenes, just with a keyboard button press.
If they had that functionality,
it would make it so much easier to use StreamYard
with things like the Elgato Stream Deck to really help you
control and run your live streams without needing
to rely on moving your mouse cursor around and clicking
on the right thing while you're live.
Now, I'm a big fan of StreamYard.
These guys are actively listening and engaging
with their users, to help build this thing out .
And where it's already come in
the last 12 months is amazing.
So, I'm really looking forward to seeing
where they take this.
Now, in regards to pricing, you've got three options.
There is a free plan, which gives you access to a lot
of the features, but it does have a stream yard branding
or streaming out watermark on your live stream.
So, I would recommend to remove that by jumping onto
one of their paid plans,
either the basic plan at $20 per month
which is going to give you access to bringing
in those 10 guests and the multistream feature as well.
Or if you need to broadcast in full HD 10 ADP
and you want to restream or rebroadcast up
to eight platforms, then that's when you'll you be jumping
on their pro plan for $39 per month.
So, I think StreamYard is an awesome option for someone
whether you are an absolute beginner
Never live stream before,
maybe identify as someone who is tech averse,
right through to someone who is more at that advanced level.
But someone who's not looking to be able to
dial everything in and configure everything up,
but someone who's probably looking
for that happy medium of control versus simplicity.
And also, it's probably the best option right now
for creating a live stream where you are gonna bring in
guests and to have up to 10 of them on screen at once.
So, that brings us to option number three, which is vMix.
Now, vMix is probably the most professional
and most advanced live streaming software on PC.
It packs in an absolute ton of features,
and you could really customize this up.
Anything from a simple one camera live stream
right through to multiple camera broadcast solution.
The overall interface and the usability is definitely
on the more complicated end of things.
But I will say I do prefer this interface far more,
than the interface inside of OBS.
Even though you've got so many more features
and advanced controls in here than you do have in OBS,
I do think it's easier to go through and find them
and to change things and make adjustments
while you actually are live.
They've got great built in support for
live streaming hardware.
From top level professional grade hardware
that you can use to control and run
and manage your live streams,
right down to consumer grade hardware
like the Elgato Stream Deck.
And I like this because it really bridges that gap
and gives you the best of both worlds.
You don't need to just be doing
pro level top broadcast grade productions.
You can use vMix and set up something pretty amazing
from your home setup as well.
Now vMix does have a guest feature, which is pretty good
if you want to bring guests into your live stream.
It's not as good or as simple as StreamYard,
but it's a lot better than a lot of
the other options out there.
And depending on which version you go,
you can have up to eight guests on your live stream.
Now, I'm someone who likes users
and appreciates having access to advanced features
and controls, and really being able to dive in
and customize everything up for the specific computer
that I'm using, but also the amount of bandwidth
that we've got access to as well.
So, be able to dial in the specific bit rates for the audio
and the video, right through to customizing the look
and feel of each individual video source or a video camera.
So vMix for me, tick all of those boxes,
especially when comparing it to something like OBS.
vMix feels much more like professional grade
live streaming software which it is.
But probably the biggest standout feature for me with vMix
is ISO recording or isolated channel recording.
So if you've got multiple cameras
that you're bringing into your live stream,
you're switching between multiple video inputs,
you can actually have an isolated recording
or an individual record quoting of each one
of those camera angles or video tracks recording directly
to your computer as an individual file.
So this way, if you want to edit down your video afterwards,
you're not just left with the completed recording
of whatever it was that you broadcasted.
You've actually got all of the individual video assets,
video cameras there, that you can actually use
to edit something custom afterwards.
So, this also makes vMix a really
powerful video creation system, not just live streaming.
Giving you the ability to record a top down camera
if you're going to be writing something,
your primary camera to record you speaking,
maybe even your iPad as well,
if you want to bring that in, too.
But recording all of these in sync all at once
with one program to separate video tracks
that you can go and edit up afterwards or at a later date.
So, I think that's an amazing feature
and it's something that's going to be really powerful
if you are gonna be setting out for
a professional live stream solution,
or even content creation solution as well.
Now, in regards to pricing,
there's actually quite a options.
There is a free version available
which is heavily restricted.
So, you've got a maximum recording resolution of 768x576.
But then depending on your needs,
you've got the basic HD license for $60,
the HD version for 350.
Now, this will unlock that guest feature
but it will let you only bring in one guest.
Then there's the 4K version for $700,
which will unlock a lot more features.
And this is probably where most people would probably sit.
This will give you access to bring in
up to four guests onto your stream,
and this is also where you unlock the ISO recording feature
or the multi recorder.
And then if you want to unlock all of the features,
then the pro version sells for $1,200.
So, depending on your needs and the features
that you're after, it's awesome to see that they've got
quite a few different offerings to make it more achievable.
So, I think vMix is a great option for someone
who is looking for that most professional solution
with the most amount of features
and the most amount of customizability,
but also having things like the guest feature built in
and also having the ISO recording
or the multi-track recording as well.
And if you are someone who is at that beginner stage
but is interested in vMix,
I don't think it's a stretch to be able to get up
to speed relatively quickly in there.
Once you navigate round and figure out where everything is
and how it all works together,
it's actually fairly intuitive to use
and to get great results with.
So, for me personally,
my top two are vMix and StreamYard.
And which one of those two I'll use we'll come down
to what I'm looking to achieve with a specific live stream.
So, if I do need all of those events features, controls,
and really want to configure everything up,
it's going to be vMix.
And if I want to do something simple and quick
and bring in guests without needing
to configure anything up,
then it's going to be StreamYard, hands down.
So, those are my picks for best live streaming software
on windows right now in 2020.
Now, no matter which one you choose,
you can easily take the quality of your live streams
up a notch by adding in some simple graphics and animations.
Check out the video linked on the screen,
where we'll show you how you can create these things
for use in your live streams.
I'll see you in the next one.