The app I selected was Camera for OBS Studio ($15.99), which can be used both with iPhones and iPads, with either low-latency USB or Wi-Fi connections, and offers a lot of capture settings.Ĭamera for OBS Studio works with an OBS plugin that must be installed on the Mac or PC being used. There are several apps that are available for both Mac and PC that provide a way to connect an iPhone or iPad as a webcam. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to run out and buy an expensive new webcam - in fact, you probably already own a “webcam” that’s much better than those available from third parties: your iPhone or iPad. Set up another camera or two at different angles or distances from you, and switch between them frequently.
Having a number of video sources to switch between can make for much more interesting video.įor example, if you’re doing a solo show, don’t just use the FaceTime camera on your MacBook Pro as the only source. One common mistake a lot of beginning live streamers make is having just one camera - a single webcam - pointed at their face, with nothing to break of the visual tedium of looking at their talking head. Smaller 6 and 15 button models are available.Ī similar app optimized for OBS is Touch Portal, which also runs on iPad if you need to control a lot of hotkeys. An Elgato Stream Deck XL, showing the programmable LED keys. It turns your iPhone into a 15-key control box for OBS for $2.99 a month or $24.99 per year. There’s a less expensive alternative from the same vendor: the Stream Deck Mobile app for iPhone. With a tap on any of the keys, you can control OBS without needing to use your mouse or trackpad. If you know that you’ll be doing a lot of work with OBS and numerous scenes, I recommend an Elgato Stream Deck - a switch box with programmable LED keys. Here I typed Command (⌘) – Shift – S to Show and Command (⌘) – Shift – H to Hide the FaceTime scene (see image below): Setting up hotkeys in OBS Settings To create a hotkey, find the scene on the Hotkeys pane you wish to set up a hotkey for, click in the specific field for the action you want to control (for example, “Show ‘FaceTime’”, then type the keyboard shortcut. While I won’t go through a lot of detail here, just know that you can set up things like Command (⌘)-B to start (begin) recording, Command (⌘)-F to end (finish) recording, Command (⌘)-1 to bring up the Preshow Roll scene, Command (⌘)-2 to bring up the LiveStream scene, and so on.
Hotkeys are set up in the OBS Settings window, Hotkeys pane (see image above). Hotkeys are shortcut keystrokes set up in advance of a broadcast that can ease the burden of making quick transitions - especially if you’re not only the broadcast engineer, but the talent as well. One thing you’ve probably noticed by now if you’ve been working through the examples in these articles is that you can spend a lot of time clicking on items in the Studio Mode to enable your transitions - and it’s also quite easy to accidentally click the wrong button. Today we’re going to talk about hotkeys for easy transitions, additional sources for your OBS livestream or recording, and resources (plugins and tools) to extend OBS.
Open Broadcaster Software – Part 4: Recordings and Streams.Open Broadcaster Software (OBS): Installing and Configuring.Video Production with OBS: What It Is and Why You Should Use It.If you have missed the first four chapters in this online book about the free, open-source video production application, you can catch up by following these links:
To remove a hotkey from a source, simply click the trash can symbol at the end of the line.Welcome to the penultimate article in our series on Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). when ‘Unbelievable’ is visible, CTRL+U will hide it, but when it’s hidden, it will make it appear. If you program the same hotkey for both show and hide, it will act as a toggle on and off hotkey doing the opposite to its current state e.g. This will now make ‘Unbelievable’ appear on the screen when clicked. To program a hotkey to show this image, click on the empty line with your mouse and type CTRL+U simultaneously. These blank lines are where you will program your hotkey. On the right-hand side of the scene, you will see a list of all the separate sources within that scene.