Streamers with jobs

I'd be much happier with Amazon owning Twitch, if only because it prevents one company from controlling both on-demand and live streaming simultaneously.

My question is what would Amazon get out of Twitch? It doesn't seem to fit with their business. Google would get another place to put ads, but that isn't Amazon's game and I don't see how it would help them sell product.

It could be that Amazon is looking to make a variant of YouTube of their own and Twitch would be a nice place to start, or something to that extent. I believe Amazon owns other services that don't quite fit their typical online retailer image.

I'll be interested to see if this changes Twitch's recent rules about muting audio on archived footage for copyright reasons. Wasn't that based on technology that Google created/owns?

ButtonMasher wrote:

I'll be interested to see if this changes Twitch's recent rules about muting audio on archived footage for copyright reasons. Wasn't that based on technology that Google created/owns?

No, actually it was an entirely different service/tech than Google uses for Youtube, and I would also bet them working to eliminate copyrighted material in hosted videos is a big prerequisite for any sale like this actually occurring.

I know their setup doesn't currently work very well but it was inevitable. I'd expect them to work out at least some of the kinks and reduce the false positives over time. If you think there's ever going to be a service that gets this popular that doesn't get forced to filter out copyrighted content from hosted video... well that's not the real world.

I'm still surprised they aren't trying to filter it out of live streams.

It's official. Twitch acquired by Amazon.

Twitch CEO wrote:

Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.

OK, here's what may be going on

But Twitch's real mind-bending potential has to do with framework that can hold up under the weight of so many drooling gamers. There's been no shortage of live-streaming services before—Ustream, Justin.tv, YouTube has tried more than once, but none of them caught on broadly, thanks to either crumby execution, the lack of consistent, magnetic events to watch, or some combination of both.

Twitch, on the other hand, has nailed the balance. It's not perfect—live-streaming never is—but it works on everything and it works consistently, and there's always something to watch. Those strengths that helped it solidify its reign gets even more enticing as the esports world continues to explode, or as Twitch slowly starts opening its doors to other types of live-streaming. Twitch is poised to be the channel-surfing yin to Netflix's binge-watching yang. The future of video is streaming, and streaming is Twitch.

Thin_J wrote:
ButtonMasher wrote:

I'll be interested to see if this changes Twitch's recent rules about muting audio on archived footage for copyright reasons. Wasn't that based on technology that Google created/owns?

No, actually it was an entirely different service/tech than Google uses for Youtube, and I would also bet them working to eliminate copyrighted material in hosted videos is a big prerequisite for any sale like this actually occurring.

I know their setup doesn't currently work very well but it was inevitable. I'd expect them to work out at least some of the kinks and reduce the false positives over time. If you think there's ever going to be a service that gets this popular that doesn't get forced to filter out copyrighted content from hosted video... well that's not the real world.

I'm still surprised they aren't trying to filter it out of live streams.

Ah, ok. I thought they were using the same thing as Google so might have to reverse out of that into something else.
And, of course, no way any large service is going to be able to avoid dealing with copyrighted material.

I don't know if anyone else uses Roxio Game Capture HD Pro, but they now have YouTube Live support, as well as a whole other bunch of features that allow you to set flags for favorite moments during your stream so you can find the clips more easily, as well as "pre-roll" functionality.

The YouTube Live functionality is something I'll be testing soonish, because that sounds like a great and convenient alternative for me since I'm not much a fan of Twitch.

Oh, it also supports Xbox One and PS4 now, though I imagine that's more useful for recording locally than streaming (unless those platforms lock you to UStream or Twitch and you want to use another service).

Are some streamers going to dual stream or switch to Hitbox?
Am curious what the pros and cons are for you guys.
I am getting near being done with Twitch. Using iOS app I get
real Dutch commercials before a stream. Not an ad done by the streamer.
Find that intollerable, combine that with delayed chat....makes Hitbox a better
choice as a viewer for me, for now.

Manach wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Happy to help out. What kind of issues are you running into?

I just don't know how to use the software.

Well, I might be somewhat sleepy when I go thru the tutorial, gaming/pc time is late at night...

I just want something that somewhat easy to just click, and it goes live.

Now, it's late, gonna go catch some ZZZ

Video tutorial ftw!

Now, I know how to stream. It's somewhat easier than I first thought.

I'm leaning towards switching to Hitbox. I like the shorter delay. I was watching Xeknos' stream the other day and the 30 sec delay made interaction pretty difficult.
I also did a few tests with YouTube Live. Couple things there that I noticed.
First, you have to set up a new live event every time you stream. You can't just run your streaming software and hit GO from there. You have to create an event on the YouTube page then start sending your stream and then start the actual stream from YouTube. And once you end the stream that session is done. If you want to start streaming again you have to create a new event. Perhaps there's a way to automate this, but I didn't find it in my (albeit, brief) testing.
Also, the delay on YouTube is a full 60 seconds! Might as well forget all about interacting with your viewers. On the plus side, your stream is immediately available as a YouTube video once you end the event and they have a ton of tools and metrics available (in true Google fashion). IIRC, there is a 4 hour limit to your recorded file, which could be prohibitive for some.
Hitbox is still a little raw, but it seems to track current viewers better than Twitch, it has some nice built-in tools for handling polls, giveaways (if you do that sort of thing) and sticky chat posts and the delay is about 10 seconds.
In the end, I will most likely stream to Hitbox and record locally so I can edit and post a cleaned up version of things to YouTube.

I can't interact with my audience as it is. I'm on a single monitor which is also what I use as a TV for my games, so I'm either using the computer or playing a game, but never both.

I didn't get many viewers last year and don't expect many this year in regards to Extra Life, though, so it doesn't really bother me.

Just created an account to weigh in on this. I'm also considering Twitch vs. Hitbox. However, I personally would choose Twitch based on some things I've noticed. Though the lag on Hitbox is next to nothing compared to Twitch, streamers aren't taking advantage of this. And of course, that makes sense. They're playing a game, so they can't constantly read chat, can they. Otherwise it would just be a chat with one-sided video. In addition, Twitch naturally has the better architecture and viewer base. The only pro that I can think of that would cause me to move to Hitbox then is that it's a young site with a good amount of opportunities, as Justin was back in the day.

As I just mentioned though, Twitch has most of the viewer population of streaming websites right now. Contrarily, Hitbox doesn't really have that population to empower the youth and possibilities that it has currently. So unless there's suddenly a fairly sizable, fast (and that's the key thing, in a short amount of time) movement, I'm going to stick with Twitch.

Also, hi.

moromis wrote:

Though the lag on Hitbox is next to nothing compared to Twitch, streamers aren't taking advantage of this. And of course, that makes sense. They're playing a game, so they can't constantly read chat, can they.

If you're only watching people playing LoL, Dota 2 or some other competitive multiplayer game, then sure. I watch plenty of people playing single-player games, whether it's a streamer I like or a game I'm interested in, and they interact with chat very well. And that's on Twitch with the 20-30 second delay.

Also, welcome.

Well, I finally decided to try and see if Roxio GameCapture HD will stream to my YouTube account tonight.

The answer is yes, but I forgot about a couple of issues that I might be able to work around. The one that really bugged me, however, was that the stream is automatically set to begin on January 29th, 2015 at 9pm. Why that day? I don't know. Honestly, the user interface in regards to everything YouTube in the Roxio software is terrible. I'm hoping I can essentially write up an in-depth post as to all the problems, but it seems like I'll have to do it on their forums. The only way to really contact anyone on their support team is through Facebook, and they don't even seem to understand their own software.

I'm going to try some other experimentation, but for the most part Roxio's addition of YouTube streaming, while welcome, is also half-assed.

Also, as was observed earlier, the YouTube stream ends up being a minute behind, but this might be a setting I can edit. I'll double check since you can tell YouTube not to have any sort of lag in the stream (though Roxio defaults to about 5 seconds I think).

I'm finally getting back to some streaming tonight - having finally settled into my new home (GUIS! I own a HOUSE now! I feel all. . . grown'd up!), and figured out why my computer was hating me (protip - make sure your CPU fan/heatsink is making contact).

Gonna ~try~ to stream to both Twitch and Hitbox while running some D&D for my friends tonight. Hitbox has some nice features built into the chatroom (Sticky message for the top of the room (to set a topic), polls, giveaways, etc. Pretty cool.

Plus, competition is good, right?

+1 for Hitbox

Now if I could just stream my PS4 to Hitbox instead of Twitch I might switch.

Guess now I can add my name to the streamers.

http://www.twitch.tv/manachgwj

Currently, when streaming, it's Payday 2. Mostly between 10pm and midnight.

Just to let you know the delay has gone down considerably on Twitch. It's now sitting at around 10-11 seconds for most streams.

As for Twitch or Hitbox it totally depends on your goals. If it's to monetize or to gain new viewers Twitch wins hands down. Hitbox has at most 10,000 total viewers on their entire site. Alone the League of Legends section of Twitch regularly has over 100,000. If it's to just stream gameplay to some friends then Hitbox might be better. I streamed to Hitbox a couple times before I was partnered and personally there was nothing about it that made me feel like dropping my time invested in Twitch and starting over from scratch.

For the sake of argument let's say Hitbox somehow really takes off and becomes popular. They're using the old streaming protocol that Twitch did. They'll run into the exact same problems and will eventually have to switch because of the costs. So that 4-5 second delay that they tout, gone. They will also be behind on streamlining so you'll most likely be stuck at the 30 second delay that Twitch had.

I am biased in that I'm partnered with Twitch, but Hitbox from the beginning has seemed incredibly unprofessional to me. From unclear or misleading press releases, typos and broken links on their blogs, to their demeanor in general really turned me off. There is also the somewhat shady history of the owners of Hitbox being from Own3d, which folded and never paid a bunch of streamers money that was owed them. In the end I guess I'll just say caveat emptor.

Thanks for the inside information there as a streamer. Definitely changed my view on hitbox there.

About twitch. I stream directly to it. It does keep my videos for 14 days now.

But can I edit the video itself from it? Seems I can export to my YouTube channel, but can I export it to a file? Then resubmit the file, maybe put it as an highlight? Or must I tell my program to keep a file as well on my PC?

Manach wrote:

About twitch. I stream directly to it. It does keep my videos for 14 days now.

But can I edit the video itself from it? Seems I can export to my YouTube channel, but can I export it to a file? Then resubmit the file, maybe put it as an highlight? Or must I tell my program to keep a file as well on my PC?

Are you asking if you can upload a separate video file to Twitch? If so then no. You can't upload videos to Twitch. You can only edit recorded VODs. If you're thinking about perhaps making an edited highlight reel of the day's events then your best option would probably be to save your recording locally then make edits to that and upload to Youtube directly.

Trainwreck, you're probably the perfect person to ask this. Do you know of a good external dashboard app for Twitch? Among the many jank-ridden problems with that site is it's awful to have to keep a shrunken web browser window open to manage the channel while streaming. I used to use Twitch Dashboard Lite but Twitch made some changes recently that broke it and the author is no longer updating it. I haven't managed to find any other alternatives. I found one but it needed Adobe Air (yuck!) and was in super early alpha.

Also seriously, why is it every time I go to the say, it says I'm logged in but once I change my stream title, it fails to apply, then says I'm logged out, requiring me to authenticate again before I can finally change it? It's been that way for months.

Manach wrote:

About twitch. I stream directly to it. It does keep my videos for 14 days now.

But can I edit the video itself from it? Seems I can export to my YouTube channel, but can I export it to a file? Then resubmit the file, maybe put it as an highlight? Or must I tell my program to keep a file as well on my PC?

You can download the flv files using this webpage: http://www.twitchtools.com/video-dow...

Then you can convert it to another format and make whatever edits you want locally.

You cannot upload videos to twitch. Most people upload to YouTube. I guess if you were really dedicated you could stream the edited file to your channel and get it up there that way, but that seems kinda silly IMO.

Edit: If you are really serious about your stream, you will probably want to save a local recording instead of relying on twitch's servers.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Trainwreck, you're probably the perfect person to ask this. Do you know of a good external dashboard app for Twitch? Among the many jank-ridden problems with that site is it's awful to have to keep a shrunken web browser window open to manage the channel while streaming. I used to use Twitch Dashboard Lite but Twitch made some changes recently that broke it and the author is no longer updating it. I haven't managed to find any other alternatives. I found one but it needed Adobe Air (yuck!) and was in super early alpha.

Also seriously, why is it every time I go to the say, it says I'm logged in but once I change my stream title, it fails to apply, then says I'm logged out, requiring me to authenticate again before I can finally change it? It's been that way for months.

I'm using Twitch Monitor but it seems that you can't find it anymore, or at least I couldn't with a cursory search. If you can't find it let me know I still have the installer on my computer and it works fine.

I'm not sure what the second issue you're having is due to since I haven't had that problem. Perhaps clearing your cache and cookies and relogging in might solve it. The dashboard page creates a memory leak in Chrome for me so I haven't used it in a couple months.

Re: External dashboard app. Has anyone tried Twitch Dashboard Lite?

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads...

Sadly, it looks like the developer has quit supporting it.

There's also reference to TeeBoard

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads...

What do the external dashboards do?

About the onnly "dashboard" thing I really do much of is setting my stream title/game. I can currently do that via Chatty or the MooBot panel.

Is there something more I should be looking to utilize?

tanstaafl wrote:

Re: External dashboard app. Has anyone tried Twitch Dashboard Lite?

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads...

Sadly, it looks like the developer has quit supporting it.

There's also reference to TeeBoard

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads...

Does those tools can show you in-game the name of the peeps watching your stream? Or even the chat?

When I alt-tab, seems OBS is lock out of streaming. Even when I put the game in window mode. I have 2 screens and put the chat up on this monitor, but sometime I want to reply to someone, which I can't without leaving the game.