OBS Studio

Introduction

OBS Studio is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. The sofware is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

OBS Studio is the software tool of choice for YouTubers and Twitch streamers, whose thousands of followers voluntarily watch their videos / live streams every week. As teachers new to online learning, we can learn a lot by watching how streamers engage their audiences.

You can download OBS Studio here: https://obsproject.com/

Scene setup and video recording

The simplest usage of OBS Studio is to record your computer desktop – anything you show on your computer will be recorded, whether it is presentation slides, a browser window, or whiteboard software. You can record as you give your lesson during a live class, or you can pre-record a lesson.

More importantly, OBS Studio lets you compose scenes, and switch between them during your video recording / streaming. OBS Studio makes it easy to add a video feed, images, and text to your scenes. Live streamers include a video feed to help engage with their audience, and they create a brand for their stream with graphics and logos.

Live streaming to YouTube

Streaming to an online service like YouTube or Twitch is almost as easy as recording a video. The most important thing is to obtain a “stream key” (a random password) from your YouTube/Twitch account, and copy this stream key to the OBS Studio stream settings.

You can also use OBS Studio to control what you share over a videoconference (e.g. Zoom, Google Meet, Jitsi Meet, Big Blue Button) by opening a preview window in OBS Studio and sharing that window over the videoconference.