Company Updates Archives - Page 5 of 5

XSplit 2.9 is now available

Our XSplit 2.8 release was well-received thanks to some kickass new features like unlimited scene support, global sources, new plugin store and a refreshed user interface among many other things. With XSplit 2.9, we worked on adding even more features as well as making improvements on the existing ones based on all the feedback you gave us.

We want to announce this version release a little different and instead of going through each of the new features in text as we normally do in the past, we had our product manager, Victor Fontanez aka Spooky go through each of them in a video so you can see them all in action.

You can get the latest version through the app or from our website here. For the full list of new features, improvements and bug fixes, check out the respective change logs for XSplit Broadcaster and XSplit Gamecaster.

Enjoy this version update and let us know your feedback through the comments section below.

Improving your XSplit Experience with NewTek NDI

The latest update to XSplit Broadcaster and XSplit Gamecaster 2.8 includes some important improvements for our NewTek NDI integration. We now support NDI inputs and outputs with audio and alpha channel for video. We’ve also made a variety of stability improvements for NDI sources.

What is NewTek NDI?

NDI is NewTek’s new protocol that can allow software and hardware to interact with each other via LAN.

Why would I use NewTek NDI?

While NewTek NDI may seem like a complex feature, it can actually be used in a variety of situations by both new and experienced broadcasters. This article will outline some use cases for NDI, both simple and complex.

Using NewTek NDI to create Multiplayer Gameplay Content

One of the common requests we’ve received in the past is an easy way to allow players to display multiplayer gaming sessions with their friends. As long as you have a router with open ethernet ports, this can be easily achieved with NewTek NDI!

Say you have a friend over to play Overwatch with, and you want to share both your screens on your stream. If you are connected to the same LAN network, have your friend open up XSplit Gamecaster and go to the settings tab. In the settings tab, check the “Enable NewTek NDI Output” box.

XSplit Gamecaster settings tab enabling NewTek NDI Output box
On another PC, launch XSplit Broadcaster and go to Sources > Other > NewTek NDI Stream and select the broadcast from your friend’s PC.

XSplit Broadcaster Sources NewTek NDI Stream
Now arrange your scene as you like and create multiplayer content with your friends!

multiplayer gameplay content using NewTek NDI

Using NewTek NDI to connect XSplit Broadcaster with NewBlueFX Titler Live Broadcast

One of the biggest benefits to NewTek NDI is that it allows XSplit Broadcaster users to gain access to a wide array of high end production software. One of great piece of software is NewBlueFX’s Titler Live Broadcast. Titler Live Broadcast allows you to easily create dynamic 3D graphics similar to what you see during sports broadcasts with scoreboards and lower thirds. Using NewTek NDI, you can easy bring your Titler Live Broadcast graphics and animations in your XSplit Broadcaster scene.

First, make sure to enable the NewTek NDI output in Titler Live Broadcast. Go to Settings -> Device and select the NDI option.

enabling NewTek NDI output in Titler Live Broadcast

Now add the NDI output from Titler Live Broadcast to XSplit Broadcaster. Go to Sources > Other > NewTek NDI stream and select the machine that is running Titler Live Broadcast.
adding NDI output from Titler Live Broadcast to XSplit Broadcaster

Once you have positioned Titler Live Broadcast’s NDI output on your scene, anything you display in Titler Live Broadcast will appear in XSplit Broadcaster.

Titler Live Broadcast in XSplit Broadcaster

And that’s how easy it is to use different applications with XSplit Broadcaster via NDI. There are countless of other ways you can use NewTek NDI with XSplit Broadcaster. Make sure to follow XSplit’s social media for more NewTek NDI guides and you can read more about NewTek NDI here.

We’ve acquired Challonge! and Player.me

The #XSplit family just got bigger.

Today is a momentous day for both me and the entire XSplit Family as I am incredibly excited to announce that both Challonge! and Player.me will be joining forces with the XSplit team here at SplitmediaLabs.

When we launched XSplit almost six years ago, we set out on a mission to make live streaming and recording simple. In that time, both broadcasting and gaming changed dramatically, with the advent of new live streaming services, the birth of the Twitch Streamer, and the explosion of eSports capturing the imagination of players across the globe.

Fast forward to 2016 and the world’s top gaming personalities, eSports teams, game developers, publishers and millions of people worldwide are using XSplit to create innovative, hilarious, entertaining and meaningful content that has impacted audiences of all ages. Live streaming has helped bring people together from all walks of life, and with hundreds of thousands of new users joining us every month, that number is set to grow higher still.

Yet this is still only the beginning. Our aspirations for the future are much bigger, as we envision a world where players can seamlessly connect to one another in a dedicated space, share and create content, compete with one another and grow their own communities. To turn this dream into a reality though, we knew we needed the right expertise, technology and people to make this happen.

This is where social discovery platform, Player.me, and tournament management service, Challonge come in. Between these two services we see the potential to create a platform that connects the entire gaming community and serves the needs of all players in their daily lives.

We’re going to shake things up a bit over the coming months by combining the Player.me community and discovery engine with Challonge’s tournament bracket technology to create a future where players, content creators, eSports entrepreneurs and event organizers, can connect with one another seamlessly and beautifully.

Both Sean Fee (CEO of Player.me) and David Cornelius (CEO of Challonge), two top entrepreneurs and leaders in their field share this vision to build a connected experience, and we cannot wait to show you what’s coming in the near future. On a final note, we would like to thank our community, our partners and of course you – our users for being with us on this adventure.

– Henrik Levring, CEO of SplitmediaLabs

To see a glimpse of the future, check out Player.me on web and visit challonge.com

XSplit is now available on Steam

We are pleased to announce that XSplit have partnered with indie game publisher and chat lurkers Devolver Digital to bring XSplit Broadcaster and Gamecaster on Steam. XSplit free is available now on Steam for – well, free – and the fully featured XSplit Premium is available for $9.99 per month. Check it out here: store.steampowered.com/app/433800/

“We’re thrilled to be partnering up with Devolver Digital to bring XSplit to players on Steam” said John Howe Marshall, CMO for SplitmediaLabs “Getting started with live streaming right now couldn’t be easier, and we’re looking forward to ushering in a new wave of awesome content creators and help them shape the future of gameplay broadcasting.”

XSplit’s availability on Steam should be appealing to those who want to organize their things in one place and having your streaming software of choice accessible from the same place you access all your games is definitely convenient.

This launch on Steam goes hand in hand with the well-received XSplit 2.8 update that we pushed out at the beginning of the month. In case you haven’t updated to the latest version yet then make sure you update now either from our website/app, or through our XSplit Steam page.

Having this Steam version is also beneficial to those wanting to get a paid license but don’t have a credit card as Steam’s vast payment options can easily address the issue.

“There will never be a time in my life that I understand nerds watching other nerds play nerd games on the internet,” said Devolver Digital CFO Fork Parker. “That said, you should buy XSplit from me and then stream all sorts of nonsense and get them subs.”

We would like to take this chance and thank Fork Parker and Devolver Digital for making this happen. Make sure you guys check them out as well! Make sure to check out the full FAQ for our Steam release for more details.

XSplit 2.8 – Our Best Update Yet

It’s time! We’ve been working really hard to bring you this update that not only brings a lot of what you’ve been requesting, but also enhances some of the existing features that you love using! The revolutionary XSplit 2.8 is now available at xsplit.com but can also be installed through the application.

Rebranded and Refreshed

We know how familiar you’ve become with our brand and how our product looks but we feel like the new design aligns better with direction that we’re heading to. We implemented new splash screens, notice dialogs, desktop icons, and community window but we’ve also made great improvements to the overall user interface of both applications.

To match the ‘new look’, our website has been also updated. It looks more modern yet is simpler than the previous design with less text, clutter, and shorter loading times.

New Features

You might have been seeing us tease the new features of XSplit 2.8 on social media and chances are most of you probably what they’re about and how they work. But don’t take our word for that. Over the next few days, we will be releasing video guides for these new features so you can utilize them fully.

Additionally, we have revamped our YouTube video playlists (XBC & XGC) to reflect the new UI and features. Keep an eye on the playlists as we will be publishing more videos regarding some of the new features in the coming weeks

New Plugin Store

As part of the XSplit 2.8 update, we introduce you a brand new plugin store that looks both cleaner and optimized. The best part about the new plugin store is it also showcases a range of really great new plugins and extensions. Look!

For a full list of all the new features and bug fixes, please check out the respective release notes for XSplit Broadcaster and XSplit Gamecaster.

All these new features and improvements are your contributions. Without your feedback, none of these would be implemented so we are very appreciative of your efforts in making XSplit better, and we hope we’re able to return the favor with this update.

XSplit 2.7 is Now Available for Download

We are pleased to announce that XSplit 2.7 is now available, and there are plenty to be excited about in this update. It contains major new features, exciting improvements, and lots of bug fixes for both XSplit Gamecaster and XSplit Broadcaster. Some of these new features and improvements are briefly discussed in our summary below.

XSplit 2.7

Screenshot Support (XGC)

Support for in-game screenshot has been a highly requested feature for quite some time now, so we decided to finally add this feature to XSplit Gamecaster. Not only are you able to take screenshots in-game, but you also have the option to upload those memorable snaps to your social media accounts on-the-fly! How cool is that? 🙂

screenshot support xsplit

Social Login (XGC, XBC)

Registering users no longer need to fill out our signup form with this feature. All they need to do is login with a social media account of their choice and that will automatically be linked to an XSplit account that will be created for them. This streamlines the process for new users making it easier for them to get started.

xsplit social login

Intel® RealSense™ Support (XGC, XBC)

Intel® RealSense™ cameras enable users to do pseudo-green screen, chroma key type of background removal without actually needing a chroma backdrop. Version 2.7 of both XSplit products will have support for this type of camera. Aside from basic support, it also includes new options to perform background removal with lower CPU usage.

We are very happy to offer you this integration and we think you’ll love it! A big shout-out to Intel for being very supportive and helpful throughout the process.

Tobii Eye Tracker Support (XGC, XBC)

We announced our partnership with Tobii sometime last year, and the Tobii Eye Tracker can now be officially used in XSplit 2.7! To those not familiar, this eye tracker tool allows users to broadcast their content while displaying a visual representation of their real time eye movements on the live stream itself. This makes it easier for viewers to connect with the broadcaster as they are seeing exactly where broadcasters are looking when playing a game.

Masking Support (XBC)

This exciting enhancement allows users to use image masks to crop out different shapes and sizes from various scene sources in XSplit Broadcaster. Masking options can be readily accessed from the source properties window of a scene source. We encourage you to give it a try because we think you’ll like it. 🙂

Other awesome features & improvements

Aside from the items above, we also have the following that are as equally worth-mentioning:

Improved support for Dailymotion
Support for Yuan capture devices
Support for Hauppauge HD PVR 60 capture device
and more!

For complete details about the 2.7 update, here’s the respective release notes for XSplit Broadcaster, and XSplit Gamecaster.

As always, you can update either via the application or by downloading the new version from our download page and installing it on top of your current version. Whichever is more convenient to you.

Enjoy version 2.7 and more importantly, let us know what you think! 🙂

Download XSplit Gamecaster and Broadcaster 2.6

We are excited to announce that version 2.6 of both XSplit Gamecaster and XSplit Broadcaster are ready for download. You can update to this version either through the application or by getting the installer from the download page.

Both versions contain important bug fixes, improvements, and exciting new features. Some notable new features include:

Option to use hardware acceleration
Improved game capture for SLI configurations
Source property improvements
Improved Custom RTMP plugin (now allows username/password authentication)
Support for Wowza streaming cloud
Ability to set bitrate for XSplit Gamecaster
Localization of installers
and more!

For a complete list of changes and new features, check out this doc for XSplit Gamecaster and this doc for XSplit Broadcaster. Let us know your findings through the comments!

XSplit Broadcaster v2.5 is Now Available!

After a couple of Beta versions that you’ve helped us test, we are happy to announce that XSplit Broadcaster v2.5 is now out of Beta and is available for download. You can either update from the application via Help >> Check for Updates, or by getting it at xsplit.com/download.

If you did not get a chance to use the Beta version and this your first time upgrading to version 2.5, we highly suggest you to watch the demo of the new features below.

Aside from the Tridef SmartCam integration and favorite scene transitions, other notable improvements include:

Improved application responsiveness when finalizing recording (on NAS/Network drive)
Improvements for SLI and Crossfire
Allow drag and drop to reorder scene buttons
Improvements for title plugin (e.g. Improved animation controls, general purpose clock improvements, etc.).
Authentication support for RTMP (“Standard” Adobe authentication)

For a complete list of feature improvements and bug fixes, please refer to our release notes here.

Finally, we like to take this time to thank you for helping us test the beta versions and for reporting your findings to us. Your time and effort is greatly appreciated. 🙂

XSplit Broadcaster v2.4 is Here

When we released version 2.4 of XSplit Gamecaster last Thursday, a lot of you have naturally asked us for when XSplit Broadcaster v2.4 will become available. We’re happy to announce that XSplit Broadcaster v2.4 is now also here!

XSplit Broadcaster v2.4 now available

Windows 10 compliance, YouTube Gaming compatibility, Azubu 3.0 support and tweaked user interface are the same new features and improvements that are included in version 2.4 of XSplit Broadcaster so that’s something that you can try out immediately.

Another new feature that we’re really excited about is the adaptive bitrate technology which automatically adjusts your bitrate according to your network conditions. This means you no longer need to manually reconfigure your steam if you experience bandwidth starvation as the adjustment will be done for you automatically. We’ve written more details about adaptive bitrate here.

We’ve also implemented the ability to freely resize the main window which has been requested by a lot of you (Thanks to Gunrun for giving us an extra push on this one). This is just a small glimpse of many user interface changes that will enhance your XSplit experience in the coming near future so stay tuned!

Finally, we have other improvements and plenty of bug fixes that we cannot simply write all in this blog post so make sure to check out the full release notes here. You can update via the application (Help >> Check for Updates…) or by getting it from xsplit.com/download

Let us know what you think of this new version in the comments!

Introducing Adaptive CBR in XSplit Broadcaster V2

This blog post will introduce you to the newest XSplit Broadcaster V2 feature, adaptive bitrate!

Adaptive Bitrate is a new feature in XSplit Broadcaster 2.4+ available for CBR streams (currently only for x264 codec). If enabled, the bitrate will automatically change when network conditions fluctuate. For example if your upstream bandwidth changes midstream, XSplit Broadcaster will try to match the current available upstream bandwidth to prevent constant frame drops, and if more bandwidth becomes available later, then the system will readjust to target your set CBR bitrate.

Hopefully this feature will be able to address bandwidth fluctuation problems often experienced by user on ADSL connections.

What does it mean to “drop frames”?

When the bitrate output by the encoder is higher than your actual upstream bandwidth, frame dropping is a common known technique to temporarily lower the bitrate and avoid building up a long queue/delay. In technical terms we often talk about dropping frames before or after the encoder. If CBR bitrate settings is applied to the encoder then dropping frames before the encoder does not help much, so instead we drop frames by dropping parts of the encoded bitstream in the RTMP send/output queue. By doing it in this way we also ensure that local recordings of a live broadcast remain intact.

Hence, if your CBR bitrate settings is higher than your actual upstream bandwidth at any time, then we will allow the send queue to grow, but will eventually cut part of the bitstream corresponding to a full GOP (group of pictures) – this is the time when you will see dropped frames (in bulk) corresponding to the number of frames that we cut.

This process will continue until your upstream bandwidth can again keep up, but unfortunately there may be prolonged periods where frame drops will continue. The experience for viewers will look like small stop/resume with pieces of your stream missing. Depending on the streaming service/server and how ingest and buffering is handled, you may never see the actual stops, but there will still be small pieces missing, – gaps if you will.

What is adaptive CBR?

Adaptive CBR is one of our newest features in XSplit Broadcaster 2.4+ that we hope will improve and streamline your streaming experience. Previously, you were allowed to change your bitrate manually while streaming if you saw you were dropping too many frames and suspected that your bandwidth had decreased. Since this can be hard to monitor and even harder to change during intense broadcasting sessions, we have developed adaptive bitrate to deal with this issue before you suffer stream drops at an inopportune moment.

What does adaptive CBR do?

Adaptive CBR monitors the delay of the send queue and if the queue grows above a certain threshold then the adaptive CBR function will decrease the bitrate to slightly below the last known bitrate. Once the stable bitrate is found, adaptive CBR will continuously check to see if the bitrate can be increased back closer to the original setting or if the bitrate need to be further lowered. This loop function continues during your broadcasting and will help to ensure that you do not experience dropped frames.

Needless to say that lowering the bitrate also lowers the quality, and large changes in upstream bandwidth over short periods of time can still result in dropped frames or very decreased quality of your stream. Magic can only take you so far -:), so your internet provider need to take you the rest of the way.

How to enable Adaptive Bitrate

Go to your Broadcast Plugin. For example Twitch, head to Twitch Properties.
Under Video Encoding Section, click on the Gear Icon to open Video Encoding Setup Window
Make sure to enable ‘Strict CBR’ first and then check on Adaptive CBR.
Click OK to save the Settings.

Now you can broadcast without having to restart your stream or manually having to reconfigure settings when the going gets tough.

It’s still an experimental feature but please give us your feedback in the comments below!