How to Live Stream using OBS Studio in YouTube

To live stream a youtube video there are many ways. Let us see how can we do that using OBS Studio.

Pre-Requisites:

  • You need to have your email verified for live-streaming.(applicable for first time users). It usually takes around 24 hours for your email to get verified. To get verified click on + symbol in youtube and select Go Live. You will be asked to enter your email id. Check back after 24 hours you will probably see that your email id is verified.
  • OBS Studio software that helps us in streaming the content into youtube. Download it and install it from here https://obsproject.com/download

When you are ready, follow the below steps:

Now to go live YouTube provides two options, one is to schedule a live streaming session with this you can share a URL with your audience in advance to be prepared. Other option is to go live instantly,. Click on Go Live. Then you will be redirected to YouTube studio where you can manage all the settings related to that particular stream.

Here there are many things like Title, description, Live chat, shareable URL link etc which can be edited out.

For us the important thing is the stream key. Click on COPY for this key to be copied into the buffer.

Now Open OBS studio. In the pane under Sources click the + icon. From the list available select Window Capture(Xcomposite). Selecting this option means that you will select list of available open applications in your machine and you can select on of them. Suppose I want to stream my google meeting, I will select a browser dedicated for this. That is open a browser for example Google chrome and start an instant meeting using GMeet. In OBS Studio select this Chrome window and there you can set some options like Crop the top, bottom, left right etc to crop unwanted things. When you are set just click OK.

OBS STUDIO Controls

Now you will see that the selected source has been added to list of sources. You can edit out the settings anytime by clicking the Gear icon present in the sources pane. With this your visual content is set.

Now its time to set your audio and stream settings.

At the bottom right of OBS Studio you will find some options. From the options available over there select settings click on Audio. From their in the list of devices select Desktop Audio -> Default. And make the remaining disabled. If you want your mic to be enable select the Mic/Auxillary audio and select the appropriate device.

Also Go to Stream settings and paste the key that you have copied from Youtube studio and then click OK. You can use the same key for many videos and you can also change whenever you want to in the Youtube studio.

Now in the pane right next to Sources you will see your audio settings selection under Audio Mixer. Here you can mute the audio devices and mic whenever you want and adjust the volume also.

After this step now you are ready to GO live. For this click on Start Streaming in the OBS Studio, this is present right above the settings in the bottom right of the software.

Now get back to YouTube Studio. You will find that after about 5 to 10 seconds YouTube will be able to catch the live streaming of the window you selected in Sources section of OBS Studio. If you are live streaming a scheduled video you might need to click on Go live in YouTube studio.

Now you can stream whatever you want from your computer using the same steps.

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