Twitch Announces Multi-Encode Streaming with OBS and NVIDIA
In a significant collaboration, Twitch, NVIDIA, and OBS have joined forces to introduce Enhanced Broadcasting, a feature set to transform the streaming experience for all content creators.
What Enhanced Broadcasting Brings to the Table
Enhanced Broadcasting is an initiative that allows streamers to encode and send up to three concurrent streams at different resolutions and bitrates. This capability is a step towards inclusivity, ensuring viewers with various internet speeds can enjoy streams without buffering issues. The vision is to expand this to five streams, covering the spectrum from 480p to 4K.
Automatic Configuration in OBS: Streamers can say goodbye to the complexities of manual configuration. Enhanced Broadcasting will automatically optimize OBS settings, tailoring them to the streamer’s PC capabilities and upload bandwidth.
Why This Matters for Streamers and Twitch:
- Equality in Streaming: With Enhanced Broadcasting, streamers of all statuses can provide multiple quality settings, democratizing stream quality.
- Reduced Latency: Streamers handling their own transcoding means content reaches viewers faster, fostering better chat interaction and a more ‘live’ feel.
- Cost Efficiency: Twitch can potentially reduce the resources spent on transcoding, as streamers take on some of this workload using their own encoders.
Codec Experiments and Cost Implications
The closed beta also includes experiments with the HEVC and AV1 codecs, which could lead to higher-quality streaming at the same or lower bitrates. This is particularly relevant as Twitch aims to support higher resolutions. Additionally, this shift in transcoding responsibility could lead to significant cost savings for Twitch, following their recent decision to cease operations in South Korea due to the high costs of transcoding.
My Perspective
This collaboration marks a forward-thinking update that benefits streamers, viewers, and Twitch alike. While currently tailored for NVIDIA users, I expect Twitch and OBS to extend support to other encoders like those from AMD and Intel, making Enhanced Broadcasting more accessible. However, the current combined bitrate cap of 10 Mbps does raise some concerns. With the integration of more efficient codecs like AV1 and HEVC, I’m hopeful for an increase in this limit to truly harness the potential of these advanced codecs.
Join the Beta and Shape the Future
Enhanced Broadcasting is currently in closed beta, and Twitch invites creators to contribute to its development. Interested streamers can sign up through the Creator Dashboard.
Twitch’s Attire Policy Update
In the ever-evolving landscape of live streaming, Twitch has once again updated its content policy, marking the third significant change in just a month. It’s clear that Twitch is on a mission to find the right balance for content on its platform, navigating between creative freedom and community standards.
The Latest Policy Shift
The recent update is Twitch’s answer to the ‘topless meta’ and other tactics that create the illusion of nudity, which have led to disruptions and concerns, especially considering the younger segment of Twitch’s audience.
Under the new policy, content that suggests nudity is off-limits. This includes using censor bars or camera angles that imply nudity. Twitch’s guidelines now require streamers to avoid showing or implying certain body parts, with exceptions for contextually appropriate settings like beaches or pools, which should be tagged accordingly.
My Take on the Changes
It’s worth emphasizing that Twitch is clearly striving to refine its policies, reflecting a strong commitment to fostering a space that is welcoming for both creators and viewers.
I particularly favor Twitch’s initiative to implement thumbnail blurring and content filters—innovations that enable viewers to tailor their browsing experience. For these features to be truly effective, it is crucial that Twitch enforces the requirement for streamers to categorize their content accurately.
Moreover, Twitch must ensure consistency in its rule enforcement, applying the same standards to all streamers.
🔥 Pete’s Content Corner
Delve into my weekly selection of content creation highlights—handpicked videos, podcasts, and tweets that promise to captivate, educate, and entertain.
- Stream – I thoroughly enjoyed watching the golf collective Good Good’s first live-streamed golf challenge, complete with an impressive wireless multi-camera setup and real-time scorecard overlays. Viewers were able to engage with the event by participating in polls.
- Video – Marques Brownlee’s Blind Smartphone Camera Test revealed the public’s verdict on photos from 20 recent phones after over 20 million votes and an ELO rating system. It was a fascinatingly geeky method to crowdsource an objective tech comparison.
- Tweet – Twitter/X Engineer @natemcgrady’s prediction that X will be a major streaming competitor in 2024, sharing a revenue split comparison with Twitch, YouTube, and Kick.
