How To Use OBS

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is one of the best programs for recording our computer screen and also open source, that is, free. With OBS we can capture and broadcast our screen and then edit the recorded videos or show the world our games, then we will show you how you can use it.

The massive increase in users who have decided to start uploading content to platforms such as YouTube or Twitch , among many others, has led to the search for the best programs so that we can make those broadcasts or recordings.

There are many programs with which we can start to record our screen or make broadcasts in the previously mentioned services, among them we can highlight the programs of Twitch Studio, Streamlabs OBS, XSplit, XSplit Gamecaster and many others, but today it is the turn of OBS.

How to get free Bits on Twitch

OBS, the definitive software to record our screen

As we have mentioned above, OBS is a program that is free , and with it we can record and broadcast our screen. We can control all aspects of recording, the quality of the videos and even make a small edition of them.

OBS has many advantages over other screen recording programs , as one of its greatest advantages is the small amount of resources it consumes from our equipment, among other advantages we highlight the following:

  • Lower CPU consumption while recording or playing games.
  • Complete interface configuration.
  • Adjust the frames to which you want to record.

Regarding the broadcast, when we configure OBS to broadcast live on platforms such as Facebook Gaming, YouTube or Twitch, we can control the quality of the live, the resolution of the game and even a small delay to improve our connection in addition to using our own overlays to that we can have more public.

Get started with OBS

When we have downloaded OBS for the first time, we will have to configure it to obtain the best recording or broadcast quality , follow these steps to configure OBS and start recording your screen or your most fun game sessions:

  • Open OBS and click on “Settings” to start configuring the quality of our content.
  • In the window that appears you will be able to configure all the parameters that you want, but we will focus on “Emission” , “Output” and “Video” .
  • In the “Broadcast” tab we will have to configure the service that we will use to make our stream, in our case we will use the Twitch platform.
  1. Now we go to the “Output”tab and first we will have to change the output mode from basic to advanced.
  2. Then we can modify all the parameters of our broadcast, the most important option will be the bit rate, as this will depend on our Internet connection and is what will determine the quality of the stream, in our case we will use 5,500 Kbps.
  3. In the “Video”tab we can adjust the screen size that will have and therefore the resolution at which we will make our broadcast, in our case we have chosen a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 and a frame rate of 60 fps.

You must remember that all these parameters are configured for the performance of our equipment, but it all depends on the equipment you have and the Internet connection , more specifically on the upload speed.

Add scenes and sources

Once we have configured the quality of our streaming or of the videos that we are going to record and then edit them, it is time to add scenes and elements to be captured in our OBS.

Follow these steps to create scenes and later add sources to capture games or your webcam:

  1. At the bottom left you will have a created scene by default, but it is empty, you can rename it and create more scenes.
  2. A little further to the right we see the “Sources”window , where we can add the content to be captured by OBS.
  3. Pressing the “+”button we can see a list with all the content that we can add to capture.
  4. The one that interests us the most will be “Game Capture”.
  5. Once we click, a window appears where we will have to choose what type of screen you will have to capture, in our case we select “Capture specific window”.
  6. Now we choose the game that we have open to start capturing it and we can change its size.
  7. Now we will have a new source added that whenever we open the chosen game it will start recording it (never before you press the record button).
  8. The next and last step will be to start our recording or broadcast, for this you will have to press the buttons you have in the lower right part of OBS.
  9. You can see that, when you are live, the main parameters of your stream appear below and inform you that your stream is good or bad.

Once all the previous steps are done we will be ready to start recording our games or start broadcasting them to the outside world and above all have fun while we do it, we can always add our own custom overlays to have a much more striking stream.

We can get to get a very striking overlay if we add several elements such as the webcam, or looped video effects and obtain results like the one you will see below.

How do you see using OBS is not difficult at all , it just takes a little time and patience to understand a little how it works and to configure it, because it may take you some time and you will have to do several tests so that the quality of your broadcasts is adequate .

by Abdullah Sam
I’m a teacher, researcher and writer. I write about study subjects to improve the learning of college and university students. I write top Quality study notes Mostly, Tech, Games, Education, And Solutions/Tips and Tricks. I am a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue.

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