Learning the ins and outs of OBS Studio can be nice, but sometimes you just want to jump
ahead to the best possible settings.
This is the video for that.
I’m going to skip over creating scenes and sources and all that, let’s tackle setting
the right bit rates and settings for a high quality live stream or video recording!
Let’s jump in!
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I’m EposVox and this is the video where we will cover bit rates, resolutions, frame
rates and so on.
If you need to know how to set up OBS Studio in the first place, or aren’t understanding
some of the lingo – consider checking out the rest of my OBS Studio tutorial course
videos for more information.
When adjusting your OBS settings for streaming and recording, there are three main number-y
things that you need to worry about, so it’s important you really understand what they
are and which ones you need.
Those numbers are: Resolution, Frame Rate, and Bit Rate.
Real quick for those who don’t know what the numbers mean, let’s summarize…
Resolution refers to the dimensions, in pixels, of your video feed.
This is usually 1920x1080 or 1280x720, but if you have monitors of different aspect ratios
or sizes, your resolution could be different.
On newer Windows versions you can right-click your desktop and choose “Display Settings”
or “Screen Resolution” to find your monitor’s resolution.
Alternatively, you can create a “Display Capture” scene in OBS and when you choose
your monitor it will tell you your resolution across all systems.
When setting your base resolution in the Video Settings tab, this should be either your computer
monitor resolution or the input resolution of an external capture card if you are recording
from a console or external video device.
Change the “Scaled Resolution” setting to be the same as your base resolution, as
we will scale for streaming in the Output settings later.
Choosing frame rate is fairly straightforward – either 30FPS or 60FPS.
You can choose 25 FPS instead of 30 for better performance if your computer is struggling
to stream, but for a recording this would not look very good.
30FPS is easier to stream and record, and will look much better for lower bitrates while
streaming.
60FPS looks a lot smoother for most games and is often preferred by viewers, but takes
a more powerful PC to stream.
Next go over to the Output settings tab.
Here we will adjust your bitrates for streaming and recording, and tweak a couple advanced
settings.
At the top of this window, Click the dropdown where it says “Output Mode” and change
it from “Simple” to “Advanced.”
“Simple” mode may look easier to manage, but the settings don’t always work the best
and I never mess with it.
Advanced mode makes sure you can set everything perfectly.
Ready to follow along?
If you set your base resolution to 1080p, you’ll want to check “Rescale output”
and choose “1280x720” or “854x480.”
The lower resolution you choose, the better your video can look for lower bitrates.
Think of image quality like filling a bowl with water.
The width of the bowl is your resolution, the height of the water is your image quality
per your bit rate.
The smaller of a bowl you put your water into, the higher water and image quality is.
However, if you play games with a lot of text, you may want to focus on 1280x720 or 1920x1080
if you can push higher bit rates, as that will make text sharper.
I stream at 1280x720.
For “Rate Control” - choose CBR.
This is a requirement for Twitch.
YouTube Gaming and other services don’t require CBR, but it’s still easier to stream.
CBR means that no matter how much action is happening on-screen, OBS is pushing the same
bitrate.
The other option, VBR, stands for Variable Bit Rate.
This means that if your stream moves to a still image or less action scene, it will
lower the bit rate to match.
This might seem like a good idea, but on Twitch it can cause issues for some viewers to keep
loading the stream.
Make sure “Keyframe Interval” is set to 2 seconds.
This is a requirement of both Twitch and YouTube.
I recommend setting the CPU Usage Preset to “Faster.”
This setting can affect your image quality.
The higher you set this, the less CPU usage will be required for the streaming process,
but the worse your image quality will get.
Lowering this setting will improve image quality, but put a lot more strain on your computer.
“Profile” should be set to “Main” and Tune should be set to “None”.
Leave VFR unchecked and leave “x264 Options” empty.
Let’s go back up to your “Bitrate.”
Twitch has recently update their broadcast requirements to allow streamers to stream
up to a full 6 megabits per second.
However, not all viewers can view such a high bitrate.
There’s a lot of controversy about claims that not everyone can watch high-bitrate streams,
but I personally have had plenty of people complain about stream buffering for high bitrates.
If you are not a Twitch partner, or do not have transcoding enabled on your streams,
I recommend setting the bitrate around 2000 or 2500.
This is generally viewable by everyone.
If you have transcoding for your stream – the option to change from Source quality to High,
Medium, Low, and so on – then you can stream the full 6000 bitrate and viewers can select
a lower quality to match their internet speeds.
Not all streamers get transcoding.
Transcoding is guaranteed for partners, but only allocated to non-partnered streamers
based on availability of Twitch’s servers.
It’s also worth noting that not all viewers know about the quality selection menu and
thus even a high-bitrate stream with transcoding may inadvertently turn some viewers away.
I stream at a bitrate of 5750, as I regularly have transcoding enabled on my streams.
If you’re streaming to YouTube, you can push virtually as high of a bitrate as your
connection will allow.
Obviously, you need to keep your internet upload speed in mind.
Go to speedtest.net or openspeedtest.com and run a speed test to find out your connection’s
upload speeds.
Keep in mind that this is the available upload speed for your entire home, so you cannot
push the full upload speed of your connection for a stream.
Generally you want your stream bitrate to be less than 70% of your total upload speed.
You will also want to make sure that your streaming rig is on a wired ethernet connection
to your router, and that nothing else on your network is doing any serious uploading while
you stream.
Click the Audio tab.
Twitch supports a max audio bit rate of 160.
Set your streaming audio track (typically track 1, and assigned in the Streaming tab)
to 160.
If you’re streaming to other platforms and can support higher bitrates, change this to
whatever you like.
I have my main mix track for streaming set to 160, and the other tracks for recording
set to the full 320.
If you also want to record while you stream, or are just recording in the first place,
click the Recording tab.
Set your recording destination – preferably a secondary hard drive or SSD inside your
computer, though the normal C:\ drive is okay.
For “Recording format” choose MKV.
This will work the same as MP4 recording, but prevent the file from getting corrupted
if something goes wrong during the stream.
You can convert it to MP4 with OBS later by going to File and “Remux Recordings.”
If you just want to record the exact copy of things that you live streamed, for “Encoder”,
choose “(Use stream encoder)” and this will allow you to record an exact copy.
If you want to record a higher-quality copy, however, proceed with the video.
Most people will want to leave the “Encoder” alone.
X264 is the default and most widely-supported.
However, if you have a dedicated Nvidia or AMD graphics card in your system, then you
will likely be able to change x264 to either “NVENC H.264” for Nvidia or “AMD Video
Coding Engine H.264” for AMD.
This will utilize the built-in video encoder on your graphics card to allow you to record
a full-quality recording without using up system resources.
It’s really neat.
For “Rate Control” I use VBR.
However, if you’re recording on a low-end computer that is having hiccups with VBR,
record CBR with a low bitrate and it should go much better.
Again, Keyframe interval should be set to 0.
When it comes to recording, the world is yours depending on your hardware configuration.
For my Stream VODs, I use the Nvidia encoder recorded to a bitrate of 30000.
This is about the quality of the original Elgato Game Capture HD and provides a good
balance of high quality and lower file size for me.
For my normal recording sessions, I use a bitrate of 250000 or higher.
However, I have a dedicated SSD specifically for just recording.
If you’re just recording to your C:\ drive, you will have limitations on how high of a
bitrate you can record to, especially on a laptop.
Absolutely make sure you do recording tests and figure out what works for you before jumping
in a full let’s play and realizing the whole recording is trash.
That never feels good.
And that’s the gist of it.
Recording and streaming settings hopefully made a little easier.
Again, if you’re confused about anything, check my full OBS Studio education course,
linked in the video description, for more in-depth videos.
I hope this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course has been helpful for you.
If it was, drop-kick that like button and subscribe for awesome tech videos.
If you like game streaming, come follow me on Twitch and drop a message in chat.
Until next time, I’m EposVox, Happy Streaming!
Thanks for watching this episode of my OBS Studio tutorial course.
More videos like this and a full master class are linked in the playlist in the video description.
Click to learn more.
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