Author: Akemi Trinindad

If you’re new into streaming or a seasoned streamer, a good and simple checklist can help you make streaming prep easier and faster. It also ensures that everything is ready for your broadcast and there’s a lesser chance of your live going bonkers in the middle of everything. Read on to know how you can create your own handy pre-streaming checklist below.

No matter how prevalent the streaming trend is, some might opt to be an audience more than be the streamer themselves. Why is that the case? Some people think that only tech-savvy people go into streaming/ live broadcasting, too many things to prepare and learn into doing before actually getting to the actual streaming content. They aren’t wrong, but unbeknownst to anyone in the streaming realm – it need not be complicated at all! So here’s a little pre-streaming checklist for those who are new to the industry. No need to follow this list to the tee, this aims to create a non-professional guide for new streamers and interested individuals on how they can prepare before going live on stream.

There are mainly 5 things that I think are crucial when beginning any stream, these are:

• System and computer driver updates
• Internet connection
• Software and overlays, stream presentation
• Test stream, and
• Audio. You can read more below why these 5 things are the most crucial when starting a stream.

Check for updates

One pro-tip to live by is to make sure that everything – from your laptop or desktop software are up-to-date. I cannot emphasize this enough, you don’t want an update pop-up ruining a perfectly good stream or an unavoidable restart prompt after a driver update. Or worse, the stream crashing or a black screen because of driver compatibility and system issues. That’ll definitely throw you off the mood to restart the broadcast. You also have to note that this can’t be 100% foolproof, updating everything before a stream can be risky. What if something breaks or a compatibility issue arises after the update? Here’s where doing a test stream can be helpful to check if everything is ready for broadcast or if something broke and you need to fix it. Something to keep in mind.

Check your internet connection

Who doesn’t rage when the internet speed drops? Nobody wants nor has the patience to watch a laggy and/or buffering stream. Admit it, even watching a video on YouTube at 240 on mobile and have to wait for at least 5-minutes to load – takes a lot of patience and you’ll more likely to close the tab or window than watch it.

Having a bad internet connection can also cause you to stop streaming even before you start it. Think about it, you yourself wouldn’t watch it; so what makes you think that others will? Now, don’t start blaming your service provider – slow internet can be a direct result concerning a myriad of issues.

So, before streaming, make sure that your connection can handle the broadcast – some seasoned streamers say that a minimum of 5mbps up speed is enough, but then again, it still depends on the requirements of the game you’re streaming and if your system can handle the streaming at all.

I generally use Ookla to check the internet speed but you can use whichever is available in your area if you can – you may also opt to wired internet connection over WiFi whenever possible for stability purposes. While you can still broadcast in lower bandwidth, most streamers still highly recommended having at least 3-5mbps speeds for streaming to ensure stability during the broadcast. 

Software and overlays, if any

Now, it’s time to open up your software (whichever one you choose is okay, no discrimination here; but it’ll be nice if you get to try the new XSplit Gamecaster *wink emoji* when it’s free to download and use for your streaming needs. Did we mention that there are hundreds of ready to use overlays in-app?). 

Upon opening the software, check if your sources are all on the presentation. Are the layout and design okay for you? Are the placements alright? Would you need to add more elements to make your content more interesting? If all looks good then we go do a test stream.

Test stream, always

Pros being confident of their setup, it still pays to be extra careful of everything before going live.

Before doing an actual public stream, to check if my stream is ready to go, what I do is I stream privately first (on YouTube, my platform of choice) – to preview my set up and see if there are any tweaks that need to be made. If there’s none – then I end the private stream and start the actual broadcast! But don’t ever forget about the audio! I almost left that one out, but that’s one thing that you can never ever forget to check before a live stream!

Audio

They ask why audio is part of the most crucial parts of the pre-streaming checklist – then ask them back, do you like listening to whacked music, garbled speech, and buzzy interference? Nobody likes that and so does your potential audiences. Double-check if you have the correct audio source in the presentation, and make sure that the audio monitoring is turned off or on depending on what you need for the broadcast. Check if the audio volume is audible enough for crisp sounds if you have background music on during the stream or the audio from the game you’re playing – make sure that the volume levels are in perfect harmony with each other, that no one audio source overpowers the other.

Remember, check ya S-I-S-T-A before going live. System and driver updates – Internet connection – Software and overlays – Test stream – and Audio! I hope this helps new and seasoned streamers in their pre-streaming setup. I wanted to create an acronym that’s easy to remember (and I tried to be witty on this one) and easily understood by all – maybe, but you get the idea.

Don’t forget ya S-I-S-T-A before you stream-a.

I’ve also written a few things on the blog, you can find those here. If you have more questions about live streaming and techy stuff then join our official Discord server. We’re also on Twitter and Facebook, technical support is here and most tutorials are on YouTube as well. Let us know if you need help with anything and happy streaming!

most tutorials are on YouTube as well. Happy streaming!

This will be a different topic to discuss on the blog, we usually talk about the community and software updates on this space but for this article – we shall tackle something else that is e-commerce but still in the realm of live streaming.

Late September 2019, Samantha Cheh wrote an article on Tech Asia on how live streaming is enhancing the eCommerce experience. This live stream shopping trend has been slowly growing in popularity in these recent years. It started in China and has been slowly creeping into the US market via Amazon Live. Before we go further with this discussion, let’s start from the beginning.

Back in the day, consumers have always bought merchandise from either a physical store or a merchant. This is the normal retail shopping that we know of, where you go to a physical store to inquire about an item and its selling price, maybe haggle a little, maybe purchase the item and then leave. It might be a simple process back then, right? When you like an item you saw on display, then you will most likely purchase it. But these days, we most likely do not have the time to go to a physical store and look for the item you’ve been meaning to purchase for whatever purpose it might serve.

Through the years, the shopping experience has evolved to be able to cater to our fast-paced lifestyles and has a huge emphasis on convenience. Thus, the creation of the home TV shopping channels in the late ’70s. This trend has steadily grown in popularity in households over the years – with the popularity of television use for distribution of news and some sports updates until the launch of cable TV in the 1940s. 

In this article from 2008, Isabel Isidro mentioned that if you want great exposure to your product then home shopping networks can be for you! One advantage is that once a product is featured during a timeslot, there is also a demonstration involved showing what the product is, what it does, the benefits of purchasing and owning one, and the value for money – response and purchase may be instantaneous but you’ll need to have a huge inventory to keep up with the demand. Another thing is, showcasing your product on the show might not necessarily mean that it’ll be a hit so there’s also a huge risk involved.
But who has time to watch TV these days? We’re all almost always on our mobile and browsing social media – with 5.11B unique mobile users, 4.39B of which are internet users, and 3.48B are on social media. With the growing internet and mobile consumption, it is not far that commerce will progress online to offer more convenience and accessibility to the people who need it. We also need to note that for the past year, Amazon and Taobao have been named the top websites visited – that says a lot for our online content consumption.

E-commerce has boomed through the years, with earnings surpassing most of the current retail stores causing the recent ‘retail apocalypse’ as shoppers are now shifting to online shopping for their needs.

But we need to step it up further, what makes online shopping more interesting is the thrill of doing the sale on live stream! Taobao does it best, as one of the most competitive live commerce platforms in China.

Who says live streaming is just for broadcasting video gameplay? For other parts of the world, like China, IRL streaming takes 80% of the total streaming population. Similarly, the landscape of live stream commerce has become a massive trend in China and slowly transcending into other countries – another advantage of live streaming in e-commerce is that you can interact with the merchant and receive a realtime response. The immediate response or engagement from the seller tends to have a positive impact on the curious audience – making them want to buy the product more during a live sale broadcast, that’s a sale right there!

It goes to show that live streaming can be used not just for entertainment purposes but can also uplift and advertise a business or product in real-time. To most in the western countries, we see live streaming as a means of entertainment, whereas in our Asian brothers – they have been utilizing the power of live broadcasts not just for entertainment but also for business. It might be odd so some people, but this is an emerging trend that will truly be widespread in the near future making e-commerce platforms more competitive and entertaining.

XSplit has recently been active in participating in local events and workshops in the Philippines. Usually, the team sponsors bigger community meet-ups abroad and it’s seldom that you hear about the local events scene here in Manila. In its drive to have more social and community visibility – the team strives to be as active in being physically present in the events that we support whenever we’re able to.

Streaming being mainstream these days has presented a new wave of curious onlookers who would want to know more about what streaming is and how brands like XSplit can help with the knowledge transfer. More often than not, to non-streamers, streaming can be a technical and arduous task; some might not be interested in streaming games but is interested in what streaming live content can do for their businesses.

In the new age of online media, we have the constant bombardment of content on whichever social platform that we are on – whether we’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, etc. – we are constantly faced with a problem that is too much information. Not everything is entertaining and fun anymore, thus more and more people are opting for a new detox trend of going offline for days, weeks and months at a time.

The stress of our fast-paced internet lifestyle has taken its toll and now people have delved into creating content that they want to consume themselves as a counter-measure, thus the birth of content creators and influencers.

But one does not become a good content creator by just wanting to be one. Thus, supporting this kind of workshop is valuable to the growing demand for learnings for the aspiring content creator. Although locally in Manila, these workshops are supported by companies and brands who believe that new-age content can come from these talented individuals who have good vision but lack the how-to in making their ideas into reality.

In full support for the newly anointed gaming content creators of Collab Asia in the Philippines in partnership with BrenPro TV and XSplit brought the first of many content creation workshops in the country.

We hope that these small steps create a ripple of encouragement for those wanting to enter the streaming realm – whether for video games, business or education. We hope that XSplit can be part of your content creation journey from here on and beyond – the current offer in our suite of software is geared towards those who want to create content and share it with the world. If you have any questions, simply join our Discord server, chat with us on socials or connect with our support team via xsplit.com/support.

Do you create content on YouTube and you want to improve your searchability ranking? You know, we can’t all keep track of all the algorithm changes when it happens – it’s totally out of our control, what we can do as creators is to make sure that our content can easily be searched and optimized for search engine results.

There are many factors that can affect your searchability ranking in this platform. With great content comes great responsibility, in making sure that you have enough information attached to the video that you’re uploading to the internets.

As a content creator, I also struggle with SEO aka “search engine optimization”. But, what does SEO have to do with YouTube? Whether if you’re creating content for fun or for educational purposes – getting more views and people to see it is our main goal. How do you get your content to more people without paying money to boost it? Simple, optimizing it for searchability. Your content has to possess certain words within the title, description and… and…

No need to feel overwhelmed, here are some things that we do to make sure that you can easily search and watch our content.

When you click the upload button, you can already set the visibility of your video – you can set it to public right away if you don’t have a set schedule or schedule it anyway if you have the timeline. You can also set it to private and change the visibility whenever you feel like it.

Okay, now for the good stuff.

Always check your title

The title has to have the essence of what your content is about – does not need to have too many words, it needs to be precise and concise with no bullsh*t nor clickbait-y words (if possible) that deter to the content of the video. It should clearly summarize what it is about and what the audience can expect from it.

Create an informative description

From the title, the audience has gathered more or less the essence of what the video will be about. Here is where you can do in-depth with your description, you can add your sources and references as well. You do know that on the internet that plagiarism is quite rampant and you don’t what to be that person who does not give credit when it is due, right?

Create a thumbnail

Let’s get visual. We all know that people don’t like reading stuff on the internet, they prefer to listen and see whatever is on the content. Here’s where the thumbnail comes into play. It has to be visually appealing, not overly decorated. It has to have an impact and an outlook on what your content is about. It needs to have something that will have people linger on the visual or take a second glance. The more people you get to stop and look at your thumbnail, the more likely are they to click and watch it, does that one make sense?

Don’t forget the tags

Tags are, to put simply, keywords whereby one searches on the engine to look for certain topics or content pertaining to the keyword.

Add it to the appropriate playlist

Adding your videos to a playlist is crucial when you want to segregate your content into categories. It makes it easier for your audience to watch more content of the same category at one go.

Optionals but good to have

The End screen

If you have more time to spare, add a few more elements at the end of the video to direct your audience to another video or playlist. This ensures that they get sucked into the youtube playlist-video loop rabbit hole, if you know what I mean.

Annotation cards

Ever wondered what the little “i” icon on the top right of the video means? We know it as annotations, where you can add a website link or video to direct your audience to another content – this is especially helpful for those who might not be interested in the current video they’re watching and might want to switch to a new one. This you can direct the audience to a video of your own, making them still stay on your channel for a period of time.

Closed captions

This feature brings in more possibilities for a wider audience. Yes, sure you have a dedicated audience that can understand your content with your native language but – someone else from another nationality could’ve been looking for the same content but they might not understand it due to the language barrier. Having closed captions or translated subtitles can be a hassle to work with for every video but it does pay ten-folds in the long run.

Call to action within the video

Use a call to action within the video, usually, content creators add it to their intros and video outros. Here’s an example:

Hey friends! Welcome to the channel if you’re new, hello I’m (insert name here) and I usually upload (what content you usually create on the platform and your schedule, if there’s any). If you’re a returning subscriber, welcome back! For today’s episode, you’ll be (insert a quick summary of content) and if you’re interested in these kinds of videos consider subscribing and click the bell button to get notified every time I upload.

I hope that this helps you a bit with improving your YouTube searchability ranking. If you have other tips not mentioned above, please let us know in the Disqus comments and in our socials.

In recent years we’ve seen the popularity of streaming reach a record high, with the expansion of streaming platforms and the evolution of social websites into offering streaming services for their users.

Facebook Gaming, for one, has grown in popularity since June of 2018; a seemingly big challenge to streaming platforms like Twitch, Mixer, and YouTube – to offer the same platform with the ability to stream easily without leaving the comfort of the website. Recently, Twitch and Discord have announced the impending launch of their own streaming abilities to their followers.

From the front runners of streaming software, XSplit alongside OBS and many more – has sparked a debate of whether content gets uploaded online or you do a live broadcast. With the growing popularity and demand for visually appealing and accessible content – video more than anything has possessed the top ranking for the most likely candidate to entice viewers to linger more, consuming content more than the average image or status posts. Doing live broadcasts or streaming, in general, have its pros and cons. Here are some of the pros that might get you into streaming your content this 2019.

As a (low-key) content creator like myself, there is an existing struggle to create online content consistently as we fight against the algorithm – YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and etc. have ‘em and we have to be consistent in uploading content to make sure that our audiences see it. So, why choose streaming over the usual “plan, edit and upload” cycle.

It’s innovating and creative

Just like normal online video content, it takes a lot of innovating and creativity to make sure that your content is different from the rest. It’s a challenging endeavor but also a rewarding one when you formulate your own style and presentation. More than the visuals, it also takes a lot of personality and charisma to attract and maintain a following. That makes streaming so enticing, it’s so fascinating to see more than just characters on screen but seeing personalities IRL.

Engaging and interactive

I’m not saying that the usual upload content is not engaging nor interactive – depending on what kind of content you might have, live broadcasts are more interesting and entertaining than the usual video content. As you stream, a variety of emotions and reactions cannot be faked or recreated. At the same time, the kind of engagement and interaction varies because audiences can be different for every stream.

Time-sensitive

The hype dies down if you’re not in the moment yourself, the interaction is simply too interesting to pass out for a replay run of the stream. Someone might feel an instant FOMO (fear of missing out) when you miss the streaming session itself. It’s never the same emotions when you’re on a live broadcast and interacting with the audience and merely seeing their comments/ reactions and engaging after. Be there when it happens as it happens, exclusive content and experience on every stream.

It’s fun

No two streams are the same – which makes it more exciting and fun. You have a different mix of audiences every time you do your live broadcast which makes every session interesting. Some might be outspoken, some might be more technical on the way you stream, it can be any mix of personalities.

If there’s anything you want to share with us and the XSplit Community, don’t forget to join our official Discord server here: discord.gg/xsplit and follow us on our socials. For any technical and account related questions, chat with us at xsplit.com/support

Ever fancy making your own gaming videos? Or editing videos for content? These days, you can log into social media and see multitudes of players broadcasting and uploading highlights of their gameplay. How do they do it? Let us teach you a simple way that you can create your own videos.

But wait, a disclaimer before anything! Setting up and prep time will take most of your time, but once you’re set and you’re happy with your setup then its a one-time thing (unless you want to switch things up in the set up). Here’s to setting expectations! Okay, let’s begin.

Choose a game

The initial step to creating awesome content is finding what it is that you’re interested in. If you’re not interested in it, then there’s no point in creating content for it; right?

So, what game are you interested in and would want to broadcast?
Will it be a mobile game, PC or console game?

This step is crucial before doing anything else, make sure that the game you choose to create content on is something that you truly enjoy playing – because the audience can easily tell that you’re merely creating this piece of video for the heck of it. There’s no use of creating content about games that you don’t really care about. Or playing a game for the only reason that it’s mainstream and it can incur views eventually. Pick something that you can play for long hours and truly enjoy the experience. Your future gameplay viewers, potential audiences and future self will thank you for it.

Choose a recording or broadcasting software

Depending on what kind of game or content you’ll be creating, there’ll be some add-ons or accessories that you’ll need to record game footage. If you’ll be creating content on console games, you might need a capture card to get footage on the gameplay and connect it to your software, for XSplit Broadcaster – you can check out the list of compatible capture cards here or if you’re using Gamecaster, check this out. If you have your game on the PC or laptop itself, then it’s only a matter of preparing the scenes. Here is a detailed guide on scenes, once done with setting up the scenes then we can move to the next step. For those looking into creating and editing game highlights after streaming, we highly recommend choosing a software that can simultaneously do local recording whilst broadcasting – you’ll know why in a bit.

Do you need a facecam?

No really, do you need one? For beginner content creators, having a face-camera or webcam might not be a priority on your streams. It’s good to have it eventually so that your audience can see your face and expression during a gameplay session, but as beginners – this can be optional. If you’re at a phase where you feel that adding a facecam is necessary for your set up, you can refer to this blog by our buddy Luis as a guide on how to choose your first face cam. Optimizing your webcam input is also easy with XSplit, here.

Let’s talk about audio

Surely you’d like to add the audio from your game and add, maybe, a microphone for when you’ll be doing commentary on the game from time to time; right? Or for when you do add a Skype or Discord VoIP with your team. We have a few guides available for when you want to
set up the audio and how to configure your audio in XSplit Broadcaster, and the most notable audio feature has to be the multi track audio for those who’ll be editing their footage and would want separate audio tracks. Multi-track audio is most helpful when after streaming your game and you’d want to edit the footage and omit/edit/enhance the audio – you’ll be able to edit accordingly without the hassle of combined recordings.

This is also beneficial for content creators who listen to their music players during game plays and would want to re-upload these on other social platforms. This will surely aid in avoiding capturing or omitting copyrighted music on your video. Speaking of editing your footage and uploading on socials, nobody has time to watch 4-hour long gameplay – you might want to edit the game highlights and post this monumental gameplay instead.

From here, you’re pretty much set to start recording and broadcasting your gameplay. After the session, we’ll talk more on how to get your game highlights as fast and easy as possible.

So, you’re done with your game broadcast (taking note that you also have this on local recording file) and it took you more than 4-hours before ending a game stage. It was an awesome game and you’d like to highlight the parts where you made the winning move! Nobody has time to watch all 4-hours, here’s where we teach you on the easy and least tedious way of editing your highlight reel.

Edit game highlights for socials

Our newly-released XSplit Express Video Editor is perfect for this! Its main benefit is allowing many content creators to easily edit and upload game/stream highlight reels faster than most complicated video editing software used today.

Here’s a short clip on how you can use the XSplit Express Video Editor in creating your highlight reels:

If you have other questions about the XSplit Express Video Editor, you can check out our blogs, search for FAQs or chat with our 24/7 customer support.