Open Broadcaster Software

Last updated
Open Broadcaster Software
OBS Studio Logo.svg
OBS 26.1 Screenshot EN 2020.12.27 - 15.28.46.07.png
OBS Studio 26.1.0 running on Windows 10 Giving The Droste effect.
Original author(s) Hugh "Jim" Bailey
Developer(s) Community
Initial releasev0.32a / 1 September 2012;8 years ago (2012-09-01) [1]
Stable release
27.0 / 1 June 2021;23 days ago (2021-06-01) [2] [3]
Repository
OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Written in C, C++ [2]
Operating system Windows 8 and later, macOS 10.13 and later, Linux [4]
Platform IA-32 and x86-64
Available in59 languages [5]
List of languages
  • Afrikaans
  • Albanian
  • Arabic (Saudi Arabia)
  • Azerbaijani
  • Bashkir
  • Basque
  • Bengali
  • Bulgarian
  • Catalan
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • Chinese (Traditional)
  • Croatian
  • Czech
  • Danish
  • Dutch (Netherlands)
  • English (UK)
  • English (US)
  • Estonian
  • Farsi
  • Filipino
  • Finnish
  • French
  • Gaelic (Scotland)
  • Galician
  • Georgian
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hebrew
  • Hindi
  • Hungarian
  • Indonesian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Kurdish (Turkey)
  • Lithuanian
  • Malay
  • Mongolian
  • Norwegian (Bokmål)
  • Norwegian (Nynorsk)
  • Polish
  • Portuguese (Brazil)
  • Portuguese
  • Punjabi
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian (Cyrillic)
  • Serbian (Latin)
  • Slovak
  • Slovene
  • Spanish
  • Swedish
  • Tagalog
  • Tamil
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukrainian
  • Urdu
  • Vietnamese
Type Software vision mixer, streaming media
License GPL-2.0-or-later [6]
Website obsproject.com   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) is a free and open-source cross-platform streaming and recording program built with Qt and maintained by the OBS Project. Since 2016, the software is now referred to as OBS Studio. [7] There are versions of OBS Studio available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions. OBS Project raises funds on Open Collective and Patreon. [8] [9]

Contents

Overview

OBS Studio is a free and open-source software suite for recording and live streaming. Written in C, C++ and Qt, OBS provides real-time source and device capture, scene composition, encoding, recording, and broadcasting. Transmission of data is primarily done via the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) and can be sent to any RTMP supporting destination, including many presets for streaming websites such as YouTube, Twitch, Instagram and Facebook. [10]

For video encoding, OBS Studio is capable of using the x264 free software library, [11] Intel Quick Sync Video, Nvidia NVENC and the AMD Video Coding Engine to encode video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format and the H.265/HEVC format. [12] Multiple tracks of audio can be encoded using the AAC codec. Advanced users can choose to use any codecs and containers available in libavcodec / libavformat as well as output the stream to a custom ffmpeg URL. [13]

User interface

The main user interface is organized into five sections: scenes, sources, audio mixer, transitions, and controls. Scenes are groups of sources like live and recorded video, text and audio. The mixer panel lets the user mute the audio, and adjust the volume through virtual faders, and apply effects by pressing the cogwheel next to the mute button. The control panel has options for starting/stopping a stream or recording, a button to transform OBS to a more professional Studio Mode (see below), a button for opening the settings menu and a button to exit the program. The upper section has a live video preview, used to monitor and edit the current scene. The user interface can be switched to a variety of themes, including both dark and light themes, depending on what the user prefers.

When in Studio Mode, there are two canvas preview windows, the left one for modifying and preview of non-active scenes, while the right window is for preview of the live scene ("Preview" and "Program" respectively). In the middle there is a secondary transition button, allowing for transitioning to the non-active scene in the left window using user-defined "quick transitions".

There are some simple tutorials on the Internet that show how to use Open Broadcaster Software, [14] [15] [16] including more in-depth tutorials designed to cover every aspect of the application. [17]

History

Open Broadcaster Software started out as a small project created by Hugh "Jim" Bailey, but quickly grew with the help of many online collaborators working both to improve OBS and spread the knowledge about the program. The first version was released in August 2012. [18] In 2014, [19] development started on a rewritten version known as OBS Multiplatform (later renamed OBS Studio) for multi-platform support, a more thorough feature set, and a more powerful API. [20] In 2016, OBS "Classic" was no longer supported, and OBS Studio became the primary version. [21]

Plug-ins

Open Broadcaster Software supports a variety of plug-ins [4] to extend its functionality. Plug-ins are loaded as native dynamic libraries, [22] although a wrapper plug-in [23] is available that allows hosting of plug-ins written in the .NET Framework.

Software based on OBS

Since OBS is open source, anyone can create a customized version of it. Notable products based on OBS Studio include:

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Open Broadcaster Software - Changelog". The OBS Project. Archived from the original on 17 May 2013. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  2. 1 2 "Download | OBS". The OBS Project. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  3. ↑ "Releases · obsproject/obs-studio". GitHub. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  4. 1 2 "Open Broadcaster Software | OBS". The OBS Project. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  5. ↑ "Locales". The OBS Project. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  6. ↑ "COPYING". obsproject/obs-studio. Retrieved 13 October 2020– via GitHub.
  7. ↑ "OBS Classic is no longer supported - Here's how to easily switch to OBS Studio". The OBS Project. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  8. ↑ "Open Broadcaster Software - Open Collective". opencollective.com. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  9. ↑ "Hugh Bailey ("Jim") is creating the OBS Project". Patreon. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
  10. ↑ "How to stream games with Open Broadcaster: a fast, free livestreaming application - News - PC Gamer". Future Publishing Limited. Retrieved 2 June 2013.
  11. ↑ "x264 Home Page". VideoLan Organization. Retrieved 11 March 2011. In addition to being free to use under the GNU GPL, x264 is also available under a commercial license from x264 LLC and CoreCodec.
  12. ↑ "General Performance And Encoding Issues". obsproject.com.
  13. ↑ "Surround Sound Streaming And Recording | OBS". obsproject.com.
  14. ↑ "How To Use OBS For Streaming". Answerslave. Retrieved 7 March 2018.
  15. ↑ "What is an OBS – How to Use it for Live Streaming". Broodle. 21 December 2017. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
  16. ↑ "How to live Stream Any Video To Facebook Page Using OBS". techsite.io. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
  17. ↑ EposVox (28 December 2017), The Most In-Depth OBS Studio Tutorial Course Ever Made | OBS STUDIO MASTER CLASS 2018 , retrieved 12 May 2019
  18. ↑ Bailey, Hugh (31 August 2012). "I made a streaming application so I could stream startcraft. Now it's open source and free for everyone". Reddit . Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  19. ↑ "Releases". obsproject/obs-studio. Retrieved 25 February 2016– via Github.
  20. ↑ "OBS Homepage". The OBS Project. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  21. ↑ "OBS Classic is no longer supported - Here's how to easily switch to OBS Studio". The OBS Project. Retrieved 30 April 2017.
  22. ↑ "Plugins — OBS Studio 24.0.0 documentation". obsproject.com.
  23. ↑ Bradley, John R. (11 August 2013). "Creating a Plugin". CatchException. Archived from the original on 23 October 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016. ... All languages based on Microsoft’s Common Language Runtime (.NET) should be fine. This includes C#, C++/cli, Visual Basic and others. ...
  24. ↑ Kaser, Rachel (30 November 2018). "Streamlabs CEO describes building monetization tools for Twitch & YouTube". The Next Web. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
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