showstack / software / obs-studio
OBS Studio
Free video capture, compositing, recording and streaming application built around scenes and sources. It has become the default streaming encoder in venues that added a webcast to an existing show.
Protocols it speaks
| Protocol | Direction | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| rtmp | out | RTMP output is the default path to almost every streaming platform. |
| srt | bidirectional | SRT output and input, for contribution over an unmanaged network. |
| ndi | bidirectional | NDI send and receive via the NDI plugin, not in the base install. |
What to watch for
OBS speaks no entertainment control protocol on its own. Everything external talks to it through obs-websocket, which is bundled from OBS Studio 28.0.0 onward and listens on port 4455 by default.
Encoding is the load, not the compositing. A machine that previews fine will drop frames the moment you add a second high-bitrate output, so test with the real encoder settings.
Plugins are compiled against a specific OBS version. A major OBS upgrade the week of a show will silently disable the plugin the show depends on.
Typical use
- Streaming a live event to RTMP, SRT or a platform endpoint
- Multi-camera switching and recording as an ISO backup
- Screen and presentation capture into a programme feed
- Remote-controlled scene changes driven from a show control layer
Sources
- obsproject/obs-studio source repository — OBS Project primary
- obs-websocket — bundled with OBS Studio 28.0.0 and above — OBS Project primary
Understand the mechanism
Something wrong, or missing?
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