Open Broadcaster Software


Open Broadcaster Software is a free and open-source cross-platform streaming and recording program built with Qt and maintained by the OBS Project. As of 2016, the software is now referred to as OBS Studio. There are versions of OBS Studio available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux distributions. OBS is funded on Open Collective.

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 and can be sent to any RTMP supporting destination, including many presets for streaming websites such as YouTube, Twitch, Instagram and Facebook.
For video encoding, OBS Studio is capable of using the x264 free software library, 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. 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.

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, 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. 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, including more in-depth tutorials designed to cover every aspect of the application.

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. In 2014, development started on a rewritten version known as OBS Multiplatform for multi-platform support, a more thorough feature set, and a more powerful API. In 2016, OBS "Classic" was no longer supported with OBS Studio becoming the primary version.

Plug-ins

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