What equipment is needed to stream?

[DeadmanWalking]

So after getting cut back a day on work I've had more days for gaming and have been considering starting to stream on twitch and I am wondering what kind of investment needs to be made to stream. I don't want to spend a lot but want a quality stream.

I have a hand built gaming computer which is more than up to the task of streaming while gaming but I don't have a camera or a microphone. One streamer mentioned a few months ago not to skimp on microphone so I was thinking of a $150 Audio technica and a $85 Brother webcam. A youtube video also suggested a lgato hd capture card. Is the card required or mostly very nice to have but not needed?

I floated it past my wife and she asked, "Can you make money doing that?" I said, "Possibly." and now she wants to throw money at it to a point that it is kind of frightening me. =P But of course, it has to be within reason. I was very adamant that it could make absolutely no money, more likely to not make money than to actually make money and I don't want to hear for the rest of my life that we wasted $X. So the less I waste for quality the better everything will be.

Help me Obi-wan Kenobi.

[Deleted]

Well, to "stream" all you need is your typical gaming PC, and something like Open Broadcaster Software. With those alone you can start up a game and stream it to Twitch. Add pretty much any regular, decent microphone, and you've got that covered.

What your question boils down to, really, is what kind of a camera you need, and I'd say that pretty much depends on how big of a screen of yourself you want to overlay on the stream. The smaller the screen of yourself, the cheaper the camera can be.

Webcams also have microphones in them, so you might even get by with that. I would suggest borrowing some cheap gear from a friend, and just trying that software out as an example (IIRC it's completely free), and see what kind of outputs you get. And then start throwing money at the gear.

It all depends on what kind of production you're looking at. Sky's the limit, seriously. Look at Swifty. He bought a house just for streaming purposes.

[DeadmanWalking]

Well, to "stream" all you need is your typical gaming PC, and something like Open Broadcaster Software. With those alone you can start up a game and stream it to Twitch. Add pretty much any regular, decent microphone, and you've got that covered.

What your question boils down to, really, is what kind of a camera you need, and I'd say that pretty much depends on how big of a screen of yourself you want to overlay on the stream. The smaller the screen of yourself, the cheaper the camera can be.

Webcams also have microphones in them, so you might even get by with that. I would suggest borrowing some cheap gear from a friend, and just trying that software out as an example (IIRC it's completely free), and see what kind of outputs you get. And then start throwing money at the gear.

It all depends on what kind of production you're looking at. Sky's the limit, seriously. Look at Swifty. He bought a house just for streaming purposes.

Thanks, I appreciate the info. =)

[Piene]

Might want to add that you definitely need a good/stable/fast internet connection, especially if you're going to stream online games, since streaming takes up a LOT of bandwidth.

[DeadmanWalking]

If you want me to write a letter to your wife reinforcing that there's no money in streaming, lemme know.

I really could care less about the money, I figure if I am going to be gaming anyways then why not? I'm not really the star of the show, I just play the games. My cat is the star, from her stealing my password page and hiding it, hiding all of my pens, trying to rub her face on my eyes while I am gaming, standing in front of the 1st monitor, sleeping standing up with her face on my chin or trying to clean my beard while I play or beating up the male cat because god damn it that is -her- desk.

[Aurimas]

I threw another $150 on top of what you just mentioned for a mixer, handful of cables (mostly RCA to headphone and 1/8" to 1/4 adapters), and 2nd sound card.

Between the 2nd sound card and the ability of (some) applications to direct the sound output it allowed me to get a little creative.

I could have things being heard but not broadcast. I could mix together everything before it went out. I never had to rely on anyone to tell me that this was too loud or this was too quiet, since I was listening to everything on the headphone-monitor port of the mixer. Everything was just grab a knob and turn (or slider and push) instead of having to open another window on the second monitor and play with the sound settings.

Then I remembered I hate the sound of my own voice. Now I just sound really good on vent. Boy are my levels super precise.

Oh well. 300 dollar lesson, but I still make some use out of the equipment and had fun playing around with everything.

Oh yea, a boom arm and shock mount. Until you remember your physics, you'd be surprised how much noise transfers through all the solid surfaces and into your super good mic. Keyboard typing sounds like your neighbors are getting bombed by a foreign army.

I also found that a standard dynamic mic worked better (and was much cheaper) for my situation than a condensor mic. Sure, condenser mics are recommended for broadcasting speech... for a studio application. Since your house is not a studio, a condenser mic is TOO good. At least this was my case. It could pick up a neighbor's cat farting.

[DeadmanWalking]

I threw another $150 on top of what you just mentioned for a mixer, handful of cables (mostly RCA to headphone and 1/8" to 1/4 adapters), and 2nd sound card.

Between the 2nd sound card and the ability of (some) applications to direct the sound output it allowed me to get a little creative.

I could have things being heard but not broadcast. I could mix together everything before it went out. I never had to rely on anyone to tell me that this was too loud or this was too quiet, since I was listening to everything on the headphone-monitor port of the mixer. Everything was just grab a knob and turn (or slider and push) instead of having to open another window on the second monitor and play with the sound settings.

Then I remembered I hate the sound of my own voice. Now I just sound really good on vent. Boy are my levels super precise.

Oh well. 300 dollar lesson, but I still make some use out of the equipment and had fun playing around with everything.

Oh yea, a boom arm and shock mount. Until you remember your physics, you'd be surprised how much noise transfers through all the solid surfaces and into your super good mic. Keyboard typing sounds like your neighbors are getting bombed by a foreign army.

I also found that a standard dynamic mic worked better (and was much cheaper) for my situation than a condensor mic. Sure, condenser mics are recommended for broadcasting speech... for a studio application. Since your house is not a studio, a condenser mic is TOO good. At least this was my case. It could pick up a neighbor's cat farting.

Yeah.... that kind of stuff would be for if I actually make that kind of money on streaming :P

[PACOX]

If you want me to write a letter to your wife reinforcing that there's no money in streaming, lemme know.

Streaming/podcasting is the new radio.

You don't necessarily get in it for the money, its something you can make money doing. A okay person can make a few dollars from ad revenue and donations. The more money you want to make, the more you have design your shows around bringing in ad revenue (and ratings which feed ad revenue). Some people are good at that, some people become absolute shils. No matter how much money is being made, the best DJs/Streamers are the one have passion for what they do.

[Puupi]

9 replies already and nobody mentions the most crucial aspect of streaming: internet connection bandwidth.

10mbit or higher upload speed is kind of a must to do any kind of streaming unless you want to broadcast 240p potato stream.

[Caolela]

Sky's the limit, seriously. Look at Swifty. He bought a house just for streaming purposes.

If that's true, then Swifty really, REALLY needs to get a grip. That dude is way gone.

He was still fairly sane when he just stuck with macros. >_>

[Deleted]

If that's true, then Swifty really, REALLY needs to get a grip. That dude is way gone.

His Youtube channel main video is about his gaming house.

https://www.youtube.com/user/johnsju

[ttak82]

9 replies already and nobody mentions the most crucial aspect of streaming: internet connection bandwidth.

10mbit or higher upload speed is kind of a must to do any kind of streaming unless you want to broadcast 240p potato stream.

Was going to post that but I scrolled down and found this post. This is the first thing you need. I was thinking along the lines of 5 MBPS upload but if you can get 10, that's even better.

- - - Updated - - -

Pretty sure it was mentioned right there in the third reply.

The upload bandwidth is the most important part, which that post missed. I don't know where OP lives, but where I am, all the ISPs trick home users into buying low quality connections which have really poor upload speed (speed is often marketed as download bandwidth). So while you can download torrents reasonably fast or watch youtube easily, connections fail hard when you try to do video calls or try to play online games especially with voicecomms.

[DeadmanWalking]

Was going to post that but I scrolled down and found this post. This is the first thing you need. I was thinking along the lines of 5 MBPS upload but if you can get 10, that's even better.

- - - Updated - - -



The upload bandwidth is the most important part, which that post missed. I don't know where OP lives, but where I am, all the ISPs trick home users into buying low quality connections which have really poor upload speed (speed is often marketed as download bandwidth). So while you can download torrents reasonably fast or watch youtube easily, connections fail hard when you try to do video calls or try to play online games especially with voicecomms.

After using upload speed test I have 10.07 mbps upload speed.