- If you're looking to produce
professional looking live streams
then there's some great
tools around these days
to help you do it.
In this video, we're going to cover
the three most popular
live streaming platforms,
OBS, XSplit Broadcaster and Wirecast,
and I'm gonna share my
thoughts on each of them
to help you make the best decision
for which one is right for you.
Hey, it's Justin Brown
here from Primal Video.
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Let's jump into it.
Okay, so the top three
live streaming platforms
are, as we said, OBS, XSplit
Broadcaster and Wirecast.
Now, the three of them
have a lot of similarities.
All allow you to create
professional looking broadcasts for one,
they'll also let you
live stream to platforms
like Facebook Live, YouTube
Live, Twitch and to an RTMP
or to a custom source.
They'll also all let
you do screen recording
or local disc recording
of your live stream
so you can use them as
screen recorders as well
or you can create a local
backup of your live stream
so that you've got it
for re-upload for YouTube
or another platform.
They'll also have things like
built-in color correction
and green screen effects.
So a lot of common
areas between the three.
But the biggest difference
between the three
is the pricing, the features
and what they allow you to do,
and how easy each piece of software is
to get up and running.
Make sure you stick around to the end
because I'll share with you
which live streaming platform I use
and which new one
I think you should
definitely keep an eye on.
Okay, so the first piece of
software that we're gonna cover
is Wirecast studio and
it sells for $495 U.S.
So it's the most expensive
piece of software
that we're going to cover in this video
but it's also got the
most amount of features
and the most amount of
control over your live stream.
Now there is a free version
of Wirecast available.
It's called Wirecast Play
or Wirecast for YouTube.
It is a really, really cut
down version of Wirecast,
so you're missing a heap
of the important features
to be able to get
professional live streams
and you can also only
live stream to YouTube.
So for the purposes of this video,
and talking about software
that will allow you
to create professional
looking live streams,
it doesn't cut it in my opinion.
So Wirecast Studio, it's cross platform,
which means you can install
it on both Mac and PC.
It's also probably the most powerful.
It gives you the largest
amount of features
out of the three pieces of software.
So it's really easy to use,
it's really easy to set up and navigate
and the interface is really intuitive.
So for anyone that's just jumping in
and hasn't used any of
these three programs before,
you'll be able to get up to
speed quickest with Wirecast
and if something goes wrong, god forbid,
then you'll be able to find the problem,
at least in my experience,
much, much quicker in Wirecast
and fix the issue,
especially while you're live
than with the other two.
Wirecast also has direct
integration with Facebook Live,
meaning that you can view your comments
and see how many people are on
and look at all the
hearts and the thumbs up
directly from within Wirecast.
So that is huge.
And in addition to that,
there's two other key features
that Wirecast has that the others don't
that really make it a stand out.
The first is that it gives
you multiple output options,
so you can broadcast live
to multiple platforms
and multiple RTMP
streams at the same time.
So that's really powerful.
And the second is the
live streaming presets
that Wirecast has built in
for your output options.
So just a matter of selecting YouTube
and then you've got all the
different preset options
for the different qualities and bit rates
that you can stream at.
Both of the other two,
XSplit Broadcaster and OBS,
you'll have to manually
key in the bit rates
and key frames and resolutions
that you wanna broadcast at.
So especially for anyone new,
or even for someone that
knows what they're doing,
it's so much easier just
to be able to select
a pre-built template, or preset,
for the different live streaming options.
So that's a massive feature
and it's something that adds
to the overall usability
and experience of using Wirecast Studio.
Okay, now onto XSplit Broadcaster,
which is quite a bit cheaper
than Wirecast Studio.
This one you've got options
of monthly subscription
or an annual subscription.
So technically you don't
really own the software,
you're just licensing the software,
either monthly or annually,
and currently a monthly subscription
for the standard or the personal version,
is around $5 per month.
If you want the professional version,
then it's up around $8.30 per month.
XSplit Broadcaster is Windows only.
There's currently no Mac
version available for it.
But what it does have
is a really, really powerful
scene creation tool,
where you can easily drop your graphics
and move everything around,
even your titles, in 3D space.
So you can create some
really good looking scenes
and some really professional live streams
and literally drag and drop
and reposition everything
to how you want it more
so than the other two,
more so than Wirecast and OBS.
They'll both give you those
features to some degree,
but XSplit has it hands
down on scene creation.
Now in regards to the interface
and usability of the program,
it is really easy to use.
It may not be as polished or as seamless
and as intuitive as Wirecast,
but it's still really easy to use
and to navigate through
and find everything you
need to get set up easily
and to have your shot looking good.
You will need to have some understanding
of bit rates and codecs
that are recommended for
your internet connection
and the platform that
you wanna broadcast to
in order to get the best
results out of this software
because you will be
manually keying them in.
There are no presets.
But that's really not
a big thing to overcome
or to learn and to lock
those settings down
so that you only have to do them once.
Now another really powerful
and really useful feature
in XSplit Broadcaster is
the Skype integration,
the connectivity with Skype
so you don't need to
worry about setting up
an external monitor and
screen sharing that monitor
and cropping the area down
that you normally have to do
in other broadcasting software.
Having the tight integration
means you can literally
just sign in with your Skype account,
when you make your calls,
they're all brought directly in
as a video source to XSplit Broadcaster.
So that's really powerful
and really seamless
and it makes creating live video content
or broadcasting your interviews
live really, really easy.
Okay, so now onto the
third piece of software,
which is OBS, or Open Broadcast software.
Now this one is the
cheapest because it's free.
Now, just because it's free
definitely doesn't mean
it's not capable of creating
professional looking live streams.
It's actually probably the most popular
or the most used piece of
software for broadcasting live.
And it could have something
to do with the price tag,
but the feature set in it is really solid
and really good as well.
Now just like Wirecast,
OBS is cross platform,
which means you can get a Windows version,
a Mac version, but there's
also a Linux version of OBS
available as well.
In my opinion, it's got the hardest to use
or the least intuitive
interface of the three,
but it is something that
once you get your head around
and get used to using,
you will be able to get
quite proficient in it.
And just the same as XSplit,
there are no presets built in
for your live streaming.
So when you choose the platform
that you wanna go live to,
you'll then have to
sort out the key framing
and your bit rates and your audio quality
in order to get the best
results for your bandwidth
and for the location you're
going to be broadcasting to.
Now besides the price tag of nothing,
and still having all the
power and performance
to create a really professional
looking live stream,
one of the key features of OBS that I like
is the plugins that are available.
There's a plugins directory
on the OBS website
with a heap of plugins in there
to really help you expand functionality
and really customize OBS to
work the way that you'd like.
So that's pretty powerful.
So those are the three most popular
live streaming platforms.
You've got Wirecast, which
is the most expensive,
but probably has the
most amount of features.
You've got XSplit, which
is much, much cheaper.
It's Windows only but
it's still easy to use.
And then you've got OBS,
which will run on everything,
Mac, Windows and Linux.
It is the most complicated to use,
but once you get your head around it,
it's really, really powerful as well.
So the software that I personally use
and highly recommend is Wirecast Studio.
Yes, you can create great live
streams in OBS and in XSplit
but Wirecast Studio is definitely
worth the $495 price tag
based on everything I've
just covered in this video.
Based on the fact that you
have multiple output streams,
based on how easy it is to use,
how logical it is to use.
You don't have to get buried deep in menus
to find things and to fix up
any issues if there are any.
For me it is the most powerful,
most professional solution
for live streaming and it's
definitely worth considering.
Now with live streaming currently
being a rapidly growing,
rapidly changing industry
with heaps of stuff going on,
one new platform or new service offering
that's definitely worth
checking out is BeLive.tv.
It's currently just for Facebook Live
but if they branch out
to YouTube Live as well
and to other platforms,
then this will be an
absolute game changer.
All ready to create a
Facebook Live stream solo
and bring in your Facebook comments
and even to bring in an interview,
to have two people live
on a Facebook Live,
there's no easier way to do it
than just simply logging
in to the website.
Threes no software that you
need to maintain or update.
It's all done by them.
So that's a really interesting
one to keep an eye on
and if you're only looking currently
to broadcast to Facebook Live,
then definitely check it out.
Okay, so those are my thoughts on Wirecast
versus XSplit Broadcaster versus OBS.
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