A brief overview of how to operate a live-stream in the year 2023 as noted in running Full Stack DFW.

Mix video with picture in picture

Yes, you would use Twitch Studio. But why stop there.

We use OBS - Open Broadcast Software for more control

Steps

• Install OBS
• Add a camera capture and a screen capture
• Start a virtual camera
• Setup a camera with circle mask
• Explore plugins
• Record

brew install obs

De-sign and resign, then restart your system to get the virtual camera to appear in Discord

See the compatibility guide here https://obsproject.com/wiki/MacOS-Virtual-Camera-Compatibility-Guide

I gave up on zoom and follow for now. Instead I use native zooming in OS X with my mouse. But there are lots of fun scripts.

• See Tools > Scripts
• on Zoom and Track with Python https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUyPpol0yYo
• Lua Scripts https://github.com/rse/obs-scripts
• Hot Key https://github.com/SimonGZ/OBS-next-scene-hotkey
• Spotify Display https://github.com/RayPS/obs-spotify-mac

Mix system audio for music and more

Bluetooth headsets are all fun and great until you learn about sample rates.

We use blackhole (rip soundflower). This always trips me up more than the video issues. Sample rates among other reasons.

Steps

• Install

brew install blackhole-16ch

• Route any app audio you want to Blackhole. Route any mics through an app to Blackhole (i.e. GarageBand, VCV Rack, Discord)
• In Sound settings, setup a Multi Device Output to allow monitoring.
• Setup an Aggregate Device input
• Set Aggregate Device as input and Multi-Output Device as ouput in any app you like (i.e. Discord, OBS)

How to speak, i.e. what makes for a good talk

If you have an idle moment and you haven’t seen it, you might enjoy Patrick Winston at MIT and his lecture on how to speak. It was a pleasure to watch while working on my Legigram talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY

Oh – and now I know he has a related book to follow up on this lecture – the piles grow.

Slide formats

We don’t have a standardized template. I prefer using Marp but my co-host James has been converting me to Slidev (in part because it makes it easier to get picture-in-picture going – no OBS necessary if I remember correctly).

• https://marp.app/
• https://sli.dev/

We like PDFs for archiving.