It’s probably awesome at it, but I’m not really sure why it’s set up that way. Being I have next to zero interest in streaming I think it’s worth buying just for the recording.
Depending how it stacks up to other streaming options I could imagine paying for the subscription if I cared about such things.
For pure shits and giggles, I just tried the streaming option to Twitch that Action offers now. It didn’t take a lot of tweaking, and I was streaming like a boss with zero effort and as with recording, could barely tell it was running. If I ever give enough of a crap to stream regularly, I think I’d bother to pay the sub fee. It’s not quite hit a button and go like PS4 or something, but it’s damn close. I don’t seem to have quite the bandwidth for 1080p streaming, but 720p is straightforward and smooth.
Twitch streaming directly from Minecraft and Age of Empires II HD works flawlessly as near as I can tell. OBS does it nicely, even though the actual client is fiddly and open-sourcey. Streaming from Origin also works well.
It all makes me wonder why Valve still hasn’t implemented it in Steam yet. Even through their own games which have heavy ties to Twitch. I’m beginning to think that Valve may be working on their own streaming service. Wouldn’t that be something?
That’s encouraging. I do plan to stream more, but I love OBS so much I dunno if I could switch to anything else.
As a recording tool, I still love it. I am starting to like occasionally streaming, but I can’t see paying for any extensive subscription as of yet.
But, so far the streaming has been just as easy as the recording.
Just tested recording using PlayClaw 5 with BF4 on max quality settings 1920x1080 @ 85% MJPEG 60fps, the gameplay while recording runs 40-60fps. The footage is 1GB/minute.
this tottally reflects the need for faster processors, so that it can record compressed formats in real time thus saving a lot of space…still too far away from that tough
Bumping this with a question. OBS records in .flv format, which Windows Movie Maker does not accept. If I want to do some post-production editing in WMM, is there a solution that does not involve buying FRAPS or another non-free recorder?
Use Handbrake to convert? (or one of any number of scammy online converters that are probably just shoddily made GUI frontends for handbrake, so, you know, just use Handbrake)
Thank you kind sir. I also found this page at the OBS project forum, which addresses the issue, although their solution looks pretty complicated to a newb.
Then I found a youtube video suggesting that WMM users install a package of encoders called k-lite. I am not sure if that package is shady or not, but if not, it would eliminate the need for a conversion, saving one step. Armando, have you heard of k-lite? It is on cnet, so perhaps its legit. If you say to avoid, I will try handbrake. Many thanks.
K-Lite is reasonably well-known, though it sort of tends to be an “atom bomb for cockroach removal” type solution, insofar as it installs dozens of decoders all at once, overriding a lot of software’s base assumptions about how video should work.
That’s mostly a good thing! (“I can’t play this” turns into “Oh, I know how to play that after all”) but at least a few years back, I did occasionally hear of software or edge cases that didn’t work right immediately after a K-Lite install and would require a little bit of tweaking of codecs to get back in working order.
If you don’t do a ton of weird stuff with video, it will almost certainly never crop up. Just worth noting that if suddenly something that always worked fine is acting weird, consider including “K-Lite” in your Googling of the issue :)
As for, “Is it shady?” Well, video encoders/decoders are a big legal grey area in a lot of ways. I work for the state of NC and we’re not allowed to install VLC, of all things, because it uses some codecs or workarounds that take advantage of obscure loopholes in foreign laws that aren’t applicable in the US. If you want to play–much less encode into–a ton of different video formats, accept that you may enter somewhat shaky territory at least sometimes.
Sorry, probably more of an answer than you needed. I used to use K-Lite for some things years ago and it was mostly A-OK.
Thanks, and I don’t mind the detailed answer at all. I found a site that had a k-lite variant package:
The basic variant contains everything you need to play all the common video file formats. Such as AVI, MKV, MP4, OGM, and FLV. This pack is for those who like a small no-nonsense pack. It is small, but powerful.
Hopefully the DL of those codecs wasn’t full of creepy crawly stuff to worm through my PC! But its working great in WMM. So I should be set to go. Many thanks for your help and prompt replies Armando!
Whut? I thought OBS saved in MP4?
How? The default for me is .flv. I just installed it this morning and the default settings have videos pop out that way. I have no idea how to set it to get .mp4. I’m using the 64-bit version.
Just thought I’d mention Dxtory because it is fucking amazing and let’s you do things like save audio to separate tracks, but it is likewise not free.
Christ, you’re right Brian. All you have to do is go into settings and change the default output suffix from .flv to .mp4. That’s it. There’s no explanation of this anywhere, so idiots like me would never know its as simple as that.
I don’t want to think about how much time I wasted today on this. But thanks!
I’m quite happy with OBS, so would there be a compelling reason to pay for Dxtory?
Sweeeeeeet!
It depends and I should note that I quite like OBS myself. Dxtory is more for folks who have friends who tend to yap on Skype as you capture your gaming footage. As I noted above, you can capture each audio input (mic, game, skype) to a separate track, clip directly on capture and take advantage of a variety of codecs. For folks who are using FRAPS, Dxtory offers significantly less of a performance hit. But if you’re happy with OBS, stick with OBS.
Totalbiscuit and Angry Joe use dxtory. That’s all I really know about it.