Get Into Streaming: Twitch
Over the last three years, I have been a very small Twitch streamer. I have never made much money, but that does not mean that everyone is a really bad streamer that can not get an audience. If you want to get yourself into Twitch Streaming, and try to be the next big thing, then keep on reading. This is because Twitch, is the easiest way to try and braking into the market right now.
Why am I a small streamer? Well, frankly, I probably do not have the time or commitment to take the risk at the big time. I have a young family, I have a full time job and the shifts mean that I can not commit to 8 hours a day, 6 days a week like the big streamers.
This means that I do not retain a big following like a cult soap opera on the television.
To be fair, I am quite happy playing the games I love, and occasionally writing about them right here on these pages. It is not always about having the most famous face in games.
A Quick Synopsis on Twitch
Twitch is owned by Amazon. They paid out $1 BILLION for the service and they have invested heavily in some areas of it. They already have over 7 Million active streaming channels across the world, showing gaming, art, just chatting and more.
The popularity of Twitch is across many different realms:
- It is easy to start up as a basic streamer, not earning any money, but also not being laden with Twitch advertising for anyone who wants to watch you. The boost comes though that you could very quickly amass the 50 Followers and 3 Average Viewers targets to get accepted onto the Affiliate Program.
- Twitch is increasingly advertised in plain sight by Amazon. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Amazon streamed live UK Premiership football. Advertise sport and they will come.
- If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can get a free Twitch Prime account. You will get both access to free games (okay the game are not always great… but they are free) and a free subscription to the channel of your choice.
- That subscription might be free, but as a streamer you still get your cut.
If you are big enough affiliate, you consistently stream in terms of days a month and hours a month…. and you get a rolling average of 75 concurrent viewers – Twitch can offer you a partnership which becomes more lucrative for you.
Getting Started: Getting a Twitch Account
Twitch want you to sign up for a one of their accounts. They want you to spend out on subs, bits and everything else to give them an income. That Twitch account is also your gateway into streaming as well.
Now if I remember correctly, and I am sure I do; you automatically get access to your streamer dashboard. There is no secondary sign-up page for non-revenue-based streaming. You simply go to your creator dashboard and explore the different menus.
Actually getting started is (only) slightly more complicated.
You CAN Go Live in Minutes
But You Won’t Want To
- Download and Install OBS
Get Your Stream Key from TwitchPut your Stream Key in OBS[You no longer need to do this}- Connect your OBS to Twitch [You now do this]
- Put your Game Window on OBS
- GO LIVE!
It really is, as easy as that. If you really want to do it right now…. start the clock!
Install OBS
Open Broadcast Software is a free and relatively simple piece of kit that you can rely on across many platforms. It’s open source, extendable through plugins and open source modifications and is really versatile.
If you want it to feel more professional, enable studio mode. Personally, I don’t, cueing up cards and playing budget TV studio is not what I am here for.
Oh – and it’s premier sponsors include…. Twitch
As long as you run OBS as an Administrator in Windows, you should not come across any significant conflicts and you should easily be able to get started.
You simply open OBS, go to File > Settings > Stream – and follow the easy prompts!
Set Your Scene
What do you want to stream? Game play from Apex Legends? A chat show with your mate? An immersive experience? Let’s start simple and stream some Apex Legends. No commentary, no webcam, just some Apex Legends.
So you should, on a completely fresh install, have quite a simple OBS layout. OBS does have a default demo point for you though, a single scene and a box for sources. To add the capture of whatever game you are playing, you need to as a source of – not surprisingly – game capture.
Having your game, or any fullscreen game, open right now will be really handy, because OBS needs to find it. It will eventually bring you to a box like this.
As you can see, some fairly simple options, some options that you might know about, and some that will baffle you. Frankly, as I do play quite a bit of simulation and strategy games, where the cursor is a useful pointer, I keep it captured. You may choose differently.
Click Apply and Okay and BAM you will normally find your game screen showing on OBS, you can move the window, you can resize it, crop it…. just like in Photoshop or Microsoft paint.
Set Your Webcam
Likewise, if you just want to do a chat show with a 1080p image of your face on a webcam, you will find sources available for your connected webcam, a media source like a video or even your desktop. As you can see, I already have a green screen, which hides the fact I am in a converted bedroom.
Just like the game screen, you can crop the webcam image, and move it around inside the OBS preview window on the main screen.
Top Tip: To crop your webcam screen hold the ALT button on your keyboard and then use the resize points to crop.
and a Microphone
Whether you have a USB (or wireless) computer headset with a microphone, or if you are like me and have an XLR studio mic lying around, going back into the Settings > Audio gives you the chance to make sure that you add it to your audio options.
You will probably already see the audio mixer in your OBS Studio window anyway. If you need to know how to use the sliders to adjust the volume – you would not have got this far!
You Could Go Live Right Now!
But You Probably Wouldn’t Want To!
So, you have fiddled with a few graphics, you might have a webcam and a title text.
Now the hard part…. and some articles I have read consider it a dark art or black magic. IN fact… it is just trial and error a lot of the time. This is your encoder settings. This might massively depend on how much bandwidth you get from your internet service provider, but as a new streamer, Twitch does offer you the best facilities.
Please – go to YouTube and check out the OBS Settings videos on offer. I can not remember what I started with, but mainstream thinking is not consistent. One set of settings gets mentioned more and more though.
- Video Bitrate of 3500
- using your software X264 encoder
- Audio Bitrate of 160
- Downscaling your output to 720p60 (1280×720 @60fps)
You want to stream at a lower bitrate to start with is because Twitch does not automatically transcode small streamers for viewers.
Watching on a 4 year old smartphone in the middle of the New Forest, viewers might not be able to get enough of a data connection to watch you in glorious 1080p. Only Twitch Partners are guaranteed access to the systems to help offer that downshift!
Top Tip: If you want an even easier life, StreamLabs have a fork of the OBS software called StreamLabs OBS (or SLOBS). SLOBS actually has a setting to test your connection every stream and give you the best possible chance. Almost all of the software and settings are the same, or near as damn it.
Now You Can Go Live on Twitch
But I doubt you want to!
We have only just scratched the surface of getting you to your first Stream. We have not talked about setting up to record your gameplay, we have not talked about integrating graphics and alerts.
YOU CAN go live on Twitch right now. It will be basic and it might not be balanced, but you will be live. I know though, that you want to be better than that, you want to make your stream better than me….
… and you can, because you can find a better Twitch Streamer, it’s not that hard…. like you hear me say at the end of every single one of my streams.
Next Time: We will beautify your stream with overlays, StreamLabs widgets and more.