starting off as a live streamer can seem really scary if you look at the
expensive gear that your favorite personalities are using
but i'm let you know a little secret no come here
as someone with over 12 years of experience in this industry it is not
about how high resolution your camera is or how crystal clear your audio is it's
about the content and engaging your audience you can deal with the rest of
that stuff once you start generating some income so today we're going to show you guys
how for really cheap or even free if you're willing to get a
little bit hacky you can create a complete streaming slash video recording
setup to kickstart your hobby or even a career in online content creation
once you're streaming you're going to want some sick visuals to accompany your content which brings us perfectly to
today's sponsor owned tv they provide
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stay tuned for more later in this video
for today we're going to assume that you're looking to live stream and that
you intend to use a facecam if you're planning on filming vod content or if
you want to stream without a camera you shouldn't have a problem adapting these
tricks for your specific setup or just skipping over the portions you don't
need most people's first thought when it comes to video is the ubiquitous
logitech c920s but at nearly 70 dollars
it's not the kind of thing that i would consider to be an impulse purchase now
you can go all the way down the product stack where logitech c270 can be had for
around 25 bucks but with image quality reminiscent of a laptop webcam it's kind
of like throwing money away because you will have to replace it eventually
fortunately there's probably a camera that's better than most webcams sitting
in your pocket right now your phone
now i wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this forever due to wear and tear
on both your battery and your device from the heat and it is a little
annoying to set up every time but using your phone is an awesome way to get
really high quality visuals without spending any extra money if you rock an
Android phone download the ipwebcam app from the play store and once booted up
enter the listed ip for your device into your web browser copy the url and paste
it into obs as a browser source while adding forward slash video to the end
set it to refresh the source when the scene becomes active so you have a quick
way to reset the feed if need be and we'd also recommend setting the
resolution to 720p under advanced along with turning down the stream quality to
make sure you're not pushing your phone's CPU too hard that'll at least
help keep heat under control on iOS you can achieve practically the
same thing with an app called droid cam you'll have to download their software
and install it on your pc enter the ip there and then you can just add it as a
video capture device in obs it should default to 480p so run their
hd mode program as admin and select 720p
if you so desire now comes the question of how to mount
the phone if you have a code hanger kicking around
you can do some bending and make a simple desktop stand or if you have a
shelf or a desk ledge above your monitor some tape or a clamp can work pretty
well as well if you're willing to spend a few dollars phone tripods can be had
on aliexpress for just a few dollars and
are a little bit more user-friendly
and bam there you go video
well mostly relying on just your monitor
to light your face can be a little jarring for your audience because dark
scenes in your game will make it hard to see you and sudden bright lights can
blow you out a common fix for this is a set of cheap soft boxes like this newer
kit on amazon but it's got a problem it's almost 90 dollars and it requires a
fair bit of space to rig up so once again we've got a free or at
least nearly free option try using an old lamp that you have
kicking around the house paired with ideally a halogen light bulb these are
better than fluorescents for getting consistent and true to life colors out
of your camera but beware if you put them right next to you the light will
probably be too harsh so try using wax paper or some other kind of
translucent material as a diffuser or
alternately you can just bounce them off of a wall to soften the light just be
careful when you're setting it up because halogen bulbs can get pretty hot
and you don't want to start a fire for that reason this is actually one case
where we'd recommend spending a few bucks clamp lights like these from our local
hardware store can make things a lot easier because they can clamp right to
your monitor stand or a nearby shelf and they're powerful enough to penetrate a
diffusion layer or bounce off the wall alright so video streams looking great
so far but what about audio well if you have a
gaming headset that has a mic attached to it that's a great starting option if
you don't and you aren't looking to spend any money both of the apps that we
mentioned earlier have audio streaming options through your phone for the ip
camera app copy the opus audio stream url and paste it into obs as a media
source and if you're using droid cam it will
register as a system audio device so just set it up as a mic in the obs
settings finally you'll need to implement a
render delay filter on your video feed to get them synced up
now that's decent but because of the style of microphone
built into most phones chances are that you're going to pick up a lot of
keyboard and background noise it's probably fine for when you're just
getting started but one of your first investments should be something like the
fine k669 which we actually featured a
while back in our cheap mic roundup for just 34. it's pretty hard to beat and
look it even comes with a cute little standy stand
put all that together then and bam you've spent somewhere between zero and
fifty dollars on what i think is a fairly competent streaming setup here
all that's left is to get your stream key fire up your games get some snacks
and put some liquids in your lttstore.com water bottle and of course
check out today's video sponsor owned tv
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they offer complete overlay and stream design packages as well as sub emotes
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link below to learn more now if you'll excuse me i've got to get back to my
gaming gaming like a gamer
that's pretty sweet i mean
you know you don't want anybody you don't want you don't want anybody to see
your lighting set up you got your your light pointed at the wall you know you
got your uh you got your whatever this is
hold on a second what is this here's your lamp you know oh oh i i
might have derped it i stopped the bit oh did i click it i
don't know i clicked it i think i clicked it see you later see you later