OVERVIEW
Although the TV Studio room has the same pre-configured cameras/switching feature (Camera Mode) as ROOM’s other meeting venues, its unique studio-like design featuring three onstage sets – make it an ideal venue for multimedia projects, such as streaming presentations, events or podcasts.
Its three detailed, realistic talk show set pieces are:
A one-on-one interview style seated podium
A late night-style talk show interview area (couch and desk)
A standing speaker's podium
PREPARATION RATIONALE
Because the TV Studio room was not originally conceived for internet streaming, there are a few things we need to walk through to ensure it’s up to the task and ready to meet its fullest potential.
Meeting organizers and invited participants normally use the TV Studio room’s Camera Mode feature for creating multiple camera angles and switching/cycling through them to simply get a better view of what is happening in a meeting from different angles without distracting anyone else. No two participants share these private shots. In fact, if a given participant decides to use this feature at all, no one else will see his/her camera angles switching on their own monitor. You can have as many as different 10 camera angles that you set up and save as "presets". For detailed steps on how to use ROOM's Camera mode, please see our related help tutorial called CAMERA MODE (User-chosen preset camera angles/switching).
CAMERA MODE: One Camera/ Many Presets (choice of 10 savable angles)
Streaming, on the other hand, consists of taking one person’s view and sharing it with many other viewers in real-time.
In order to make both of these dissimilar features work together, the ROOM TV Studio should be used in combination with a tested, reliable streaming software.
The basic principle is that the streaming software takes the video content from one person’s display (the meeting organizer’s or the technical helper’s) and streams that video signal to everyone on the selected streaming platform (Twitch, Zoom, Teams, etc.) watching the streamcast of the announced meeting at the scheduled time.
It takes one more step to display an additional source of video to display on the TV Studio’s large wall screens, as is often done on interview shows to demo a new project on the screen, while the guest and the moderator comment about the content. This is accomplished via ROOM’s Screen Sharing with an off-stage meeting participant, ideally the technical helper, who will manage the camera switching and play the above-mentioned demo videos behind the scenes!
Let’s walk through the 2-part preparations for our setup:
- TV Studio pre-meeting preparations
- Integration with a streaming app
After our OBS Wizard-based walkthrough, we will include an optional section titled, "ADDENDUM:
Manual selection of OBS Settings in lieu of using OBS' Auto-Configuration Wizard" with a more detailed settings selection process.
For a detailed checklist containing all the recommended OBS settings for use with ROOM TV Studio use this link:
Checklist for OBS Setup (for use with ROOM TV Studio streaming events)
PREPARATION 1: Onstage Seating And Camera Switching
Use the ROOM Change Seats feature to arrange every invited onstage guest as needed - well before the streamcast. Importantly for the sofa set: if you want your sofa-seated guests to remain seated (instead of each exiting after their interview) the only way to have everyone "slide" down one seat to make space, you will have to EXIT Camera mode briefly for the Change Seats feature to again be accessible. This is one of the reasons that a dedicated off-stage technical helper is recommended rather than having the meeting organizer/moderator take care of camera switching and other details during the streamcast.
In practice, all camera angles should be created by the meeting organizer’s off-stage tech assistant. This should be done well before the final scheduled meeting, ideally with several additional helpers sitting on-stage as proxies while the cameras focus on them, creating the preset angles that are saved and subsequently switched through during the streamcast.
NOTE:
- Preset camera angles can be moved immediately after switching to them (like pan/zoom into a Close Up during the live event), but will revert to their original “starting” position next time you switch back.
- As previously mentioned, the Changing Seats feature is automatically disabled while on Camera mode, it will keep the on-stage guests from accidentally “disappearing” from view while inadvertently moving to a nearby seat in the middle of the interview or speech. Likewise, the TV Studio's meeting room tools (usually displayed at the bottom of the screen) become invisible to the user (the meeting organizer or tech helper) to avoid other mishaps. This includes the meeting's "Exit" button.
- Camera Mode is not available on mobile.
- The detailed streaming app steps depicted here works best (optimized for) PCs. There is a brief discussion and some recommendations at the end of this article relevant to Mac users.
There will be several kinds of participants in the TV Studio in these roles performing key tasks during rehearsal and during the streamed meeting:
Before the streamed meeting:
ONSTAGE: The meeting organizer/event moderator - likely as the host of the event behind one of the microphones (desk, single podium or twin desks). There is no feature to "walk across the stage" as is common on many live events.
ONSTAGE: Several helper participants “seat fillers”, serving as proxies for the guests to be interviewed during the streamed event (seated specifically for the offstage technical helper to compose the camera angles, save them and switch through them during a brief rehearsal or walk-through).
OFFSTAGE: The technical helper, is an invitee that does not appear on stage, whose job is to compose and switch through the camera shots as described above. Unless there is a compelling reason for the meeting organizer/host to NOT have a technical helper, one should always be available for switching and monitoring the streaming app during the live streaming event. The techie would also use a secondary desktop computer/laptop logged into the ongoing TV Studio meeting to show a separate pre-recorded or live video feed on the Studio’s wall screens. As an invitee these videos would appear on these wall screens by Screen Sharing his/her own user screen with all the rest of the participants' computers while playing a pre-recorded video or live video feed going into his secondary computer.
For those of you somewhat familiar with ROOM'S screen sharing, there is no need to be concerned that the shared screen will replace the view of the stage during the event. This could only happen if the techie accidentally clicked on one of the stage's wall monitors on the primary desktop computer, which is highly unlikely to happen.
During the streamed meeting:
ONSTAGE: The meeting organizer/event moderator - s/he should not be switching cameras or in charge of any tech matters during the streaming. Doing both is untenable during important events. The organizer/moderator should be exclusively focused on interviewing, providing commentary and otherwise keeping the event's pace going. For best results a dedicated technical helper should stream from his/her own desktop device while the meeting organizer is busy on-set, moderating.
ONSTAGE: The invited interview/presentation guests, whom should all be directed to take their specific seats as per the event’s agenda by the meeting organizer a few minutes prior to going live. Their ROOM meeting invitations should be timed to ensure that they show up at least 30 minutes before the scheduled streamcast. Also, all invitees/guests should be advised ahead of time to close any apps or turn off any system notifications, reminders, alert popups on their own desktop systems. They should be reminded again before streaming goes live.
OFFSTAGE: The technical helper –
- To switch between saved/preset camera angles and monitor the streaming app to ensure an optimal streamcast.
- Likely, will also be using the TV Studio’s wall mounted screens to display a pre-recorded product/demo video or live video from someone outside the TV Studio room (say, on a remote shoot) while the seated guests and moderator comment interactively. If required to provide the stream's audience with a close-up, the techie would replace the primary computer's window content by clicking on one of the wall monitors, prompting its to go full-screen using ROOM's built-in feature.
PREPARATION 2: Streaming App
As previously mentioned, in order to stream ROOM's TV Studio meeting/event a reliable third-party streaming app needs to be used in tandem. The following third-party app has been tested by our staff to ensure maximum compatibility with ROOM for streaming into your choice of streaming platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, etc.):
OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software Studio) is a free, open-source app optimized for offline video recording and live streaming. It uses RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol), a standard that makes high-quality live streaming possible, and is currently the most commonly used protocol for ingesting video content (e.g. transporting video files from an encoder to an online video platform).
OBS Studio SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
https://obsproject.com/kb/system-requirements
Windows
DirectX 10.1 compatible GPU
Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 11
macOS
Intel or Apple Silicon CPU
OpenGL 3.3-compatible GPU
macOS "High Sierra" (10.13) or later
Quick-start articles can be found here:
https://obsproject.com/kb/category/1
https://obsproject.com/wiki/OBS-Studio-Quickstart
APP OVERVIEW and SETUP
1. Download and install the OBS Studio app from the above link.
It’s important that you select the default directory for the installation; if you do not, then you must undergo several other steps to ensure that key files can communicate with each other from your alternative directory.
2. While OBS Studio is installing in one browser window, open another window and navigate to/enter ROOM's TV Studio room from the Dashboard page
3. Once OBS is installed and opened, you'll find its practical UI layout divided into the main display screen and 5 small windows below (docked panels) that pop up for the main tasks and settings:
- Scene
- Sources
- Audio Mixer
- Scene Transitions
- Control
IMPORTANT:
OBS Studio will give you the option of using its Auto-Configuration Wizard the first time it opens. For the purpose of this tutorial (to keep things simple), we'll guide you through the choices you'll make for each step in the Wizard. After it's done, there will be some manual choices that we'll walk you through that are outside the Wizard's capabilities because they're not about technical specs; they're related to how you want key things set up to make your streamcasting easier.
The Auto-Configuration Wizard will test your system and attempt to find settings that your PC can handle. This includes all the required Settings, like streaming or recording, resolution, bitrate, encoder, streaming provider and more. You can always modify the settings manually later.
Lastly, there is an “Advanced” panel in Settings (at the bottom - see above graphic) that can help you customize your system even further, for your use after you’ve had a chance to use OBS a few times and feel confident about optimizing things even more.
If at any time in the future you need to run the Wizard again, go to the OBS screen’s top menu, then click on Tools -> Auto-Configuration Wizard.
The Wizard's first popup screen asks whether you want to optimize your settings for recording or streaming. For the purpose of this tutorial, chose "Optimize for Streaming", then click "Next".
The next Wizard screen will concern your video settings. Base "Canvas" resolution is your the same as your desktop/laptop's screen resolution, often, although not always 1920 x 1080.
For the FPS, select the flexible-sounding option "Either 60 or 30, but prefer 60 when possible".
The next Wizard screen will prompt you for information regarding which platform service you'll be connecting to. It is recommended that you "Connect Account", so you can sign into your streaming platform's account right in the Wizard's window.
After signing into your service, copy/paste your stream key into the required field, and hit "Next".
The next Wizard screen allows you to check a box to automatically estimate the video & audio bitrate that your system can handle, although it might take a few minutes for the test results to come in.
The Wizard's final screen will summarize all the recommended setting values as seen below. Its results will be based on your system's performance and will also choose the best server for your streaming platform service (regardless of your geographical location).
If all the settings seem fine, hit "Apply Settings". You can always fine tune or modify settings afterwards.
If you intend to record as well as stream, we recommend that after hitting "Apply Settings" that you then open the SETTINGS screen and select the "Output" category to make a small change in the default file format currently entered into that field.
Despite their encoding quality and portability, mp4 files are prone to corruption whenever a stream session crashes (even if connection is quickly re-established). Select mkv, instead, which will safeguard against that event.
A note about the default flv selection: this file format is unable to record from several audio tracks.
Additionally, mkv files can easily be converted to mp4 files or other file formats with intact audio files formats after the streamcast is done. Simply go to main screen's FILE menu, choose "Remux Recordings". On the Remux popup choose your streamcast's mkv file from your hard drive's directory, then enter your new/desired file type in the "Target File" field below.
POST-WIZARD REMAINING MANUAL SETUP
Here you can see that when you initially open the OBS Studio's main screen, it will not contain any scenes nor any sources (see the two leftmost bottom panels at the bottom).
For the purpose of this manually-optimized integration setup, you can skip PROFILE and SCENE COLLECTION settings (menu items found at the UI’s upper left), which are normally used to save custom settings for each streaming project, mainly for users that intend to have multiple streaming projects that you need to quickly switch between.
Back at OBS' main screen, you'll now create a Scene and add a Source from the two adjacent panels on the screen's bottom left, as seen below.
1. Click on "+" in the Scenes panel to create a new scene. You’ll then be prompted for a name for that scene.
2. Once you have created a Scene, click the "+" in the Sources panel (or right-click on the panel itself) to add whatever you want to capture.
3. (a) You'll be presented with a list of source types from which you 'll select Window capture.
3. (b) In the subsequent popup, rename the source to match your ROOM TV Studio event. Be sure to tick the "Make Source visible" box.
3. (c) The ROOM TV Studio project should appear taking up most of OBS'main screen. If you need to resize the source's video frame size to match OBS' main screen (e.g. the capture canvas size), do the following:
- Right-click the source.
- Hover mouse over Transform.
- Left-click “Fit to Screen”
Alternatively, you can CTRL+F for fit to Screen.
NOTE:
When a Source is selected in the Sources list, you will see a red box that shows up around it. This is the bounding box, and can be used to position sources within the preview as well as make the source larger or smaller using the steps listed above or manually stretching it using the bounding box's corner handles (although this is somewhat less precise).
If you need to crop a source, hold the Alt key and drag the bounding box. The edges will change to green to show it's being cropped.
IMPORTANT:
If you don't want your cursor to distract your viewers as an unwanted part of your event/presentation, here's how to omit it from view.
Go to the OBS Source dock panel at the screen's bottom, then right-click on the Window Capture Source in the list. This opens a long menu popup window, from which you'll select "Properties" (last item on list).
After the Properties window opens, you'll see a checkbox labeled "Capture Cursor". It will be checked by default. Uncheck it, if you don't need it as part of your streamed event.
NOTE: If you have unchecked the "Capture Cursor" option, and the cursor still appears, you may have to disable hardware acceleration on the application you are capturing; in other words, capturing via a capture card using the "Video Capture Device source". This means that if you are employing a dedicated streaming PC to manage your encoding, then hiding your cursor is not an option.
For Sound You need to add both your own microphone and desktop audio
4. (a) Add Audio Input Capture source and select the microphone you would like to use for your own voice.
4. (b) Add “Audio Output Capture” and select ‘Desktop Audio’ to hear everyone else in the room. This needs to be selected since the only other participants that can be heard will be the guests
When you close the Sources list, your Sources Panel will now display all your recent source additions:
- Desktop Audio
- Audio Input Capture
- Windows Capture
CAVEAT:
Audio Input/Output Capture source can cause an echo effect if you have the same device selected in Settings -> Audio. If you plan on adding audio devices directly to your scenes, make sure they are disabled globally first.
This source allows you to add an audio input or output device (i.e. microphone or headset respectively) to a specific scene. Simply pick the device you wish to capture, and the audio from that device will be captured when the source is active. These sources can be useful if you only want specific audio devices active in specific scenes, rather than globally through all of OBS.
NOTE:
By default, OBS Studio is set to capture your desktop audio and microphone. You can verify this by looking at the volume meters in the mixer section of the main OBS Studio window. If they aren't moving:
1. It's possible that the wrong device is being captured. To be sure, click on Settings -> Audio and select the devices manually.
2. If you are a Mac user, you likely need an additional software to reroute audio on your Mac, such as QuickTime or BlackHole. This is a common occurrence due to the fact that Macs don't have a native (built-in) system sound recorder of their own. Please refer to these link to learn more and sources to download your choice of sound recording/rerouting app:
How to Record System Audio on M1 Mac with BlackHole
How to Screen Record with Internal Audio on QuickTime Player
For an excellent illustrated guide on the OBS audio mixer, go to:
https://obsproject.com/kb/audio-mixer-guide
5. Go to the CONTROL panel at the OBS' lower right side and click on "Start Streaming". You can also start recording from this panel if you didn't link both commands at once in the SETTINGS panel.
Since you do not yet have a viewing audience for this particular stream, it's an ideal time to test the ROOM TV Studio pre-configured cameras to see how it feels to switch between them. It’s okay if there are no real or proxy participants sitting in the various onstage seats, yet.
Also, as a ROOM meeting organizer/moderator or Tech Assistant, you can erase your initially selected/saved camera angles (when the proxy guests finally arrive), and replace any such unwanted angles in the TV Studio room by:
1. Entering the event meeting TV Studio room
2. Going into Camera Mode by selecting CTRL + B
3. Typing in the number of the camera to be modified
4. Framing/composing a new angle
5. Typing in the number of another camera (any camera will do)
6. Exit Camera Mode (by using either ESC + Shift or Just ESC)
To test out the newly modified camera angle(s), just enter Camera Mode again and type in the corresponding camera preselect number on your keyboard.
As mentioned previously, we strongly recommend that any user reading this article who may not be familiar with the ROOM Camera Mode feature proceed to explore the details in our corresponding article:
NOTE FOR MAC USERS
Despite its remarkable performance in streaming for Window-based devices, OBS is an open source application whose rapid evolution does not seem to be optimized for Mac use, historically.
There are also some specifics conveyed by OBS to prospective users indicating discontinuation of support for certain platforms evidently due to a new framework used in the app. Specifically, OBS Studio 28 will drop support for some operating systems. This version no longer works with Windows 7 and 8, macOS 10.13 and 10.14, and Ubuntu 18.04. It's also no longer compatible with 32-bit architecture.
It also bears to remark that Macs and OBS have a longstanding performance issue concerning the recording of streams in in the mkv file format which is highly recommended for PCs to avert any file corruption in the event of the streaming crashing, however briefly. For that reason, if you would still like to employ a Mac with OBS studio, we recommend that you download Elmedia or another form of media player that can play the needed .mkv files.
TO REITERATE IMPORTANT MAC-RELEVANT AUDIO RECORDING INFORMATION PRESENTED EARLIER IN THIS TUTORIAL:
By default, OBS Studio is set to capture your desktop audio and microphone. You can verify this by looking at the volume meters in the mixer section of the main OBS Studio window. If they aren't moving:
1. It's possible that the wrong device is being captured. To be sure, click on Settings -> Audio and select the devices manually.
2. If you are a Mac user, you likely need an additional software to reroute audio on your Mac, such as QuickTime or BlackHole. This is a common occurrence due to the fact that Macs don't have a native (built-in) system sound recorder of their own. Please refer to these link to learn more and sources to download your choice of sound recording/rerouting app:
How to Record System Audio on M1 Mac with BlackHole
How to Screen Record with Internal Audio on QuickTime Player
SEARCHING FOR A STREAMING PLATFORM/SERVICE?
Streaming out of OBS it will depend on the platform you are streaming to (Youtube, Twitch, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.). Each platform has its own way of scheduling a streaming event and announcing or sharing its scheduled time for their viewers. We have listed a few guides below for your reference. Of course, said list is hardly exhaustive.
A FEW SUGGESTIONS TO EASE PRODUCTION HEADACHES
Studio Tips:
- Participants should keep their hand movements within the space of the body to keep the cutout quality optimal. Try to limit hand movement to the area within your cutout.
- Hosts should not wear most shades of green; as our tech will recognize it as a green screen and make the clothing transparent.
- Best clothing to wear are solid colors.
- Please avoid stripes and checked patterns on clothing.
- Good quality cutout and video output will depend on having good lighting. Utilize a ring light or non-direct daylight when appropriate.
For Recording:
- Steady and subtle camera movement are best for streaming events.
- Remember that there might be a preset Start/Stop streaming delay that you might have entered if your streaming doesn’t respond immediately. Or you can enter said delay if you find that you need one after testing.
- Close all applications that have alerts & notifications (remind all participants when you send their invitation).
- Prepare camera settings in advance, test them thoroughly as well as OBS’ settings to ensure they meet your requirements and are to your liking.
- Pause streaming when recording issues arise / or if absolutely necessary to change preset camera settings.
- Test and retest all settings before streaming/recording; leave enough time to make changes and test again. A planned rehearsal time, as described at the beginning of this tutorial is strongly recommended.
ADDENDUM: Manual selection of OBS Settings in lieu of using OBS' Auto-Configuration Wizard
Once OBS is installed and opened, you can choose to decline the popup's prompt asking you whether you want the Configuration Wizard to open next.
You'll find OBS Studio's layout divided into the main display screen and 5 small windows below (docked panels) that pop up for the main tasks and settings:
- Scene
- Sources
- Audio Mixer
- Scene Transitions
- Control
For the purpose of this manually-optimized integration setup, you can skip PROFILE and SCENE COLLECTION settings (menu items found at the UI’s upper left), which are normally used to save custom settings for each streaming project, mainly for users that intend to have multiple streaming projects that you need to quickly switch between.
Select the SETTINGS button at the screen’s lower right hand side (on the CONTROL PANEL).
You'll be presented with a tab with a list of seven setting categories located on the popup panel's left tray as seen below.
These are the items that the OBS Configuration Wizard guides you through with a few questions designed to test your system according to your intended use to finally provide appropriate settings.
When performed manually, the settings selection process begins as such:
GENERAL tab:
- Pick Default Language of choice
- THEME: Choose between Dark or Light screen mode.
- Also, choose whether you want confirmation popups when you start/stop streaming to avoid accidentally going live or stopping prematurely.
- Unless you must make a recording of the event, there is no need to check the "Automatically record when streaming" box. This is a convenience, however, so that the recording process starts when you hit the "Stream" button.
- Keep the other default settings.
STREAM tab: Select the following:
- STREAM TYPE should be left on "Streaming Services".
- SERVICE (Twitch, YouTube, etc.). You can check "Show all services" to see the full list in the dropdown or select "Custom Streaming Server" in the pulldown. IF YOUR STREAMING EXPERIENCE IS RUDIMENTARY, please ensure that you have an account on a streaming platform, since you'll need one to fill out its specifics here.
- SERVER is quite often the server that is geographically closest to you, but there are ways to research their current capacity even further, if needed. Please refer to this highly detailed video to guide you through the process if you feel that you need to: OBS Studio Settings
- STREAM KEY are absolutely needed, as they represent the way in which OBS talks to your Streaming Service (Twitch, YouTube, etc.).
- For a comprehensive walk-through of stream key use related to OBS Studio - including where to find them in your account screen (for copying/pasting here), please refer to:
- CONNECT ACCOUNT: If your version of OBS has a “Connect Account” box, check it to ensure you can sign into your streaming service through OBS and easily toggle back to continue entering your settings.
- OUTPUT tab:
- For Mode section: Choose "Simple"
- For Streaming section: These 2 values state the rate at which you would like to send video & audio data to your streaming platform's server.
- Set your Video Bitrate: Generally, your internet speed must be at least twice your OBS bitrate if you want to avoid buffering issues (e.g. if your internet upload speed is 2000 Mbps, then your OBS setting for streaming, audio, and video bitrates should not exceed 1000 Mbps). Go online to find an “internet speed test” to test your system's status.
- This changes according to your upload speed and the limitations of the service you use. As a new streamer, do not exceed the video bitrate over 3500, if you want your viewers watching your streamcast from mobile devices or on slower desktop/laptops to enjoy the event without glitching or frame dropping.
- Set your Audio Bitrate: Around 160 kbps for streaming, or lower (128 kbps) if you have a low upload speed.
- Set your Video Bitrate: Generally, your internet speed must be at least twice your OBS bitrate if you want to avoid buffering issues (e.g. if your internet upload speed is 2000 Mbps, then your OBS setting for streaming, audio, and video bitrates should not exceed 1000 Mbps). Go online to find an “internet speed test” to test your system's status.
- For Recording section:
- Recording Path Keep this at its default value unless you have chosen FPS settings of considerably high quality, which will consequently require more storage space (and possibly another higher-capacity hard drive to record to) See FPS settings below.
- FPS (Frames per Second) choices:
- The higher 60 fps frame rate with a lower resolution will play smoother
- The lower 30 fps frame rate can play at a higher resolution
- "Lossless" is for extremely high quality videos which require considerable hard drive space, perhaps even prompting you to choose an alternative recording path to a high-capacity hard drive.
- For a detailed walkthrough of Bitrate settings, please refer to this video: OBS Bitrate
- Select a Hardware Encoder if available - only if you use a different preset than "same as stream" and if a Hardware Encoder is available, such as from a recent AMD or NVIDIA graphics card to select this computationally-intensive option without degrading the video stream.
- Encoder option will not show up until you select a recording quality other than Same as stream
- Recording Format: mp4 or mkv (caveat: mp4 is more likely to get corrupted during streaming drops; FLV cannot handle recording audio from multiple sources)
- Recording Quality:
- Same as Stream
- High Quality, Medium file size
- Indistinguishable Quality, Large file size
- Lossless Quality, Tremendously Large File Size
- IF YOU ARE NOT RECORDING; consider checking the "Enable the Replay Buffer" checkbox at the panel's bottom. This will enable you to record a preset time (say, 30 seconds) of an interesting event that you might be streaming (for example, an interview's soundbite) at the press of a button. For this you need to also:
- Specify the length of time (Select "Advanced" at the top of this panel if checking the box doesn't automatically provide you fields to enter your time)
- Save the buffer: You must set a hotkey for Save Replay under Replay Buffer.
You can set hotkeys for Start Replay Buffer and Stop Replay Buffer, but they are unnecessary as you can start and stop it from the UI.
- AUDIO tab:
- Sample Rate: Leave at default or 44.1 kHz
- Desktop Audio Device: This represents what sounds from your computer to pick up. Note that this will typically play all the sounds your computer makes – including ROOM guests' conversations, music, chat popup sounds, etc. You should either close/disable all other necessary windows/apps and reminders. More advanced settings are available to enable you to omit unwanted sounds from your stream.
- Mic/Auxiliary Device: Select the microphone you’d like to use here, often just your computer's default mic.
Other fields are available to add multiple microphones and desktop devices if we need to.
CAVEAT:
Audio Input/Output Capture source can cause an echo effect if you have the same device selected in Settings -> Audio AND Controls -> Settings. If you plan on adding audio devices directly to your scenes, make sure they are disabled globally first.
This source allows you to add an audio input or output device (i.e. microphone or headset respectively) to a specific scene. Simply pick the device you wish to capture, and the audio from that device will be captured when the source is active. These sources can be useful if you only want specific audio devices active in specific scenes, rather than globally through all of OBS.
NOTE:
By default, OBS Studio is set to capture your desktop audio and microphone. You can verify this by looking at the volume meters in the mixer section of the main OBS Studio window. If they aren't moving, or you suspect the wrong device is being captured, click on Settings -> Audio and select the devices manually.
- VIDEO tab:
- Base (Canvas) Resolution - same as your desktop/Laptop's screen resolution (often 1920 x 1080 or 1280×720), but is determined by your Video Bitrate, which you set in the OUTPUT tab.
- Output Resolution - This is the resolution which your streaming service's servers will receive from our video feed. It can theoretically be the same as the Base Resolution (which is the default setting), but might require considerable computing power depending on your system, so you might have to experiment with the settings - perform some small tests). If you started with a Base Canvas resolution of say, 1920 x 1080, you could initially start by downscaling your resolution to 1280×720 at 60 FPS. Then try using the larger frame dimensions at 30 FPS. Also consider at the rate that you will be recording simultaneously, if that's the case.
- Leave the downscale filter at its default value.
- FPS: Usually 30 or 60 FPS, but experimenting for best results, as suggested above (on Output Resolution), should be done.
- HOT KEYS tab: Not required to map your keyboard keys for the purpose of this walk-through.
- However, IF you previously chose to save/enable the "Replay" buffer in the Output/Recording settings, you need to enable the supporting Hot Keys to Start/Stop the Replay buffer here.
- ADVANCE SETTINGS tab:
- Leave Video/Auto Reconnect at default values.
- STREAM DELAY is optional; you may use it if you want a brief delay after pressing "Stream" to provide you a safety margin, or if there is some initial content that you would prefer not to stream to your larger audience, such as countdown cues for your ROOM TV Studio guests.
- Keep all other default values.
After completing all of the SETTINGS tabs, go to the CONTROL panel at the OBS' lower right side and click on "Start Streaming". You can also select "Start Recording" from this panel if you didn't already link both commands together in the SETTINGS panel.
A FINAL WORD
Please remember that this tutorial was created as a way to walk you through streaming with the ROOM TV Studio, and as such, contains highly optimized steps to accomplish this in relatively short order.
Although ROOM offers real-time, interactive meeting venues that are rather intuitive to use, OBS is a streaming software that provides many different ways of configuring it for many more uses (even variations on setting it up for ROOM). Consequently, OBS has a bit of a learning curve, whose plethora of settings and uses cannot be mastered overnight. Despite that, you'll find that the more time you dedicate toward playing with, tweaking and testing OBS Studio, the easier it will be to take your next, more ambitious projects to unforeseen, breathtaking levels!
We hope you enjoy streaming with the ROOM TV Studio!