OBS is an awesome program and it can do a variety of things, including offer you multiple ways to do the same thing. Similar to how in Photoshop you can remove the background from an image in 5 different ways, OBS let’s you go live via different encoder types or even API connections.
By default your OBS is going to be setup to have you stream using a ‘Custom RTMP’ destination, and while that will work for YouTube creating the API connection will not only make it easier but will also unlock some YouTube specific features.
So I’m going to help you change your OBS so it shows you this
This now gives you three docks that will let you:
- manage, schedule and start your stream
- access your YouTube Control Panel (without having to have YouTube open)
- watch and interact with your chat live
This is especially useful for single monitor streamers.
So let’s get started, first head to the OBS Settings button and once the settings pops up select ‘stream’
Your Stream service (top drop down menu) will default to Custom
Click the Service drop down and select YouTube
Your OBS stream settings should now look like this:
Leave Server as Primary YouTube Ingest Server and CLICK ‘Connect Account’
This will run you through Google’s YouTube prompts to login to your google profile and connect your YouTube channel account. Select your YouTube Channel
Once your YouTube is connected OBS will open the 2 pop out windows for chat and control panel, you can drag and drop them wherever you’d like them to sit on your OBS layout. If you want to change where they are click the double window icon in the top right of the panel and it will pop back out.
Start Streaming!
You are now ready to schedule or start streaming, almost, first you need to create a Stream Event on YouTube. You’ll do this by clicking the ‘Manage Broadcast’ button
This will bring up a pop up window that will ask you for things like YouTube stream’s Title, Description, and allow you to schedule it for a future date and time as well.
Once you fill in the required fields (denoted by *) click ‘Create Broadcast’ to save it for a future date OR click ‘Create broadcast and start streaming’ if you’re ready o go live right now
If you scheduled a stream prior click ‘Start Streaming’
