How to LIVE stream on YouTube

by John Miller Freelancer

Live video broadcasts are becoming more and more popular, and this applies primarily to games. You can easily organize an online display of your game battles or tips for a game walkthrough. In addition, many willingly share lessons on working with various editors, for example, with Photoshop.

A browser is enough to watch streaming video. But to broadcast what is happening on the screen of your PC, you will need additional funds. The fact is that YouTube’s built-in streaming capabilities do not allow broadcasting what is happening on the screen, but this can be implemented using third-party encoders.

We recommend the free Open Broadcaster encoder, which perfectly copes with screen capture, in addition, it will be possible to expand its capabilities through plug-ins. The organization of video broadcasting includes two components: the creation of an audio-video stream and its distribution through special servers or services, for example, YouTube Live.

After setting up everything you just have to share with potential viewers the link to the page of your broadcast, indicating the time of its start.

Video encoder selection

Flash Media Live Encoder, Open Broadcaster, XSplit, and WireCast are the most popular software video encoders for generating and sending streams to stream distribution servers. A USB web camera can be used as a video source. The video encoder program captures the video signal and sound from it, encodes them and sends them to the server from which users are watching it.

For the organization of a video broadcasting, we recommend using an open source video encoder “Open Broadcaster” stream recorder.

It has a relatively simple interface and menu in many languages, and also uses H264 (x264) codec and AAC for audio for encoding.

It allows users to send streams to popular online services like Twitch, YouTube, DailyMotion, etc.

Open Broadcaster can capture desktop images as well as program interface windows. With the help of additional plug-ins, for example, functions such as adding web-pages and video files as streaming sources are implemented.

Therefore, many users often use Open Broadcaster to record video sequences consisting of a sequence of actions, for example, lessons on Adobe Photoshop. After simple settings, it remains only to send the video stream to one of the popular services or servers for distributing the streams. In our case, this is YouTube Live.

In order for the remote viewer to be able to see the stream from your USB camera in real time, he needs to provide a link to a web page with a built-in video player, which he can open in the Internet browser of his computer or mobile device.

YouTube live stream: setting up encoder guide

Enable options on the YouTube service

Create a YouTube account, if you don’t have one yet, go to the “My Channel” menu item and click on “Video Manager”. Select the Live Broadcasts option on the left. After confirming your identity, click the Schedule Broadcast button.

The "Information and Settings" window will open. Provide basic information related to the upcoming live stream. In the drop-down list on the right, select "Public Access." Set the type of video broadcasts to “Special (another encoder)”, since we plan to use a third-party video encoder Open Broadcaster.

Set up the screen saver and stream parameters

In the lower right corner, click on "Create Event". Click on the “Browse” button and find the picture for the video broadcast splash screen. Below from the drop-down list, select the bit rate (bit rate) of 1500-4000 kbps (720p). Streams of lower resolution will be created automatically.

Assign your video encoder

In the drop-down list, specify the video encoder. Our application (Open Broadcaster) is not in the list, so select "Other video encoders." A section will appear below with instructions for setting up video encoders. We are interested in the second, where the name of the stream and server URLs are indicated. The stream name must be copied and pasted into the settings of the Open Broadcaster video encoder.

Configuring the Open Broadcaster Video Encoder

Install and run Open Broadcaster. Open the Settings menu and on the Encoding tab set the maximum bitrate of the stream to 4000 Kbps (4 Mbps).

Specify broadcast services

On the Broadcast tab, in the Broadcast Service list, select YouTube. In the “Stream Key” field on the “Broadcast” tab, insert the contents of the “Stream name” field from the “Video encoder settings” section of the YouTube service.

Choosing a video capture device

In the Open Broadcaster window, right-click on the white rectangular area, which is located under the inscription "Sources", and click the "Add" button. Select the Capture Device menu item. Enter the name of the device, for example, "Webcam", and click "OK." Select a webcam.

Testing flow

To see the image from the selected camera in the video encoder window, you need to click on the “Preview” button. If you are satisfied with the quality, then you can start sending the stream to the YouTube service. Click the “Start Broadcast” button.

Start and watch live broadcast

Go to the YouTube Live streaming setup web interface again to the fourth setup item. After the “Start Streaming” button is clicked, the live broadcast will be open for viewing.

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