Twitch Studio Beta launches for Windows: streaming for everyone
Twitch launched the first public version of Twitch Studio, a new streaming application for Twitch designed to make things easier for anyone, this week.
Up until a few years ago, setting up streams required quite a bit of technical knowledge. Webcam, microphones and devices had to be set up properly and connected to streaming services.
Tools like OBS Studio improved the experience and Twitch hopes that the new Twitch Studio makes streaming available to even more users (to bring them to the Twitch platform).
The application is available for Windows 7 and newer versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system at the time of writing. The official announcement on the Twitch blog reveals no information on other platforms that Twitch Studio may become available for.
Twitch Studio Beta
Installation of Twitch Studio is straightforward: just follow the instructions -- there are no choices to be made -- and wait for the installer to run the program after installation. You need to sign in to an existing Twitch account or may create a new account / connect using Facebook to get started.
Twitch Studio has a guided setup that users may follow. Experienced users may hit the skip setup button to make modifications to the setup manually but new users may appreciate the guided setup as it walks them through the detection and configuration of computer hardware.
Guided setup detects microphones, webcams, the monitor resolution and adjusts settings such as the resolution of the stream, as well as the background layout of the stream (separate for main, be right back and downtime).
Setup features a benchmark test that users of the application may run to make sure that the selected (or suggested) stream quality works well on the device.
The main application interface provides options to start and stop streams, create recordings, check chats and activity feeds, use messaging, or make configuration changes.
A click on Menu > File > Settings displays additional options that Twitch streamers may configure. The Stream section lists preferences to change the screen resolution, FPS, bitrate and encoder manually or pick one of the available presets.
Recording provides options to change the save directory and recording format (flv or mp4) of streams, audio options to change microphone input and compression, and hotkeys options to map hotkeys to activate certain program functionality using the keyboard.
Closing Words
Twitch Studio is certainly not the most comprehensive streaming solution for Twitch; what sets it apart is that it takes users by the hand to get things set up in no time which makes it an excellent option for beginners who are just getting started. It takes just a minute or so to get everything set up and the first stream or recording is just a click of the button away.
Now You: do you use streaming or recording software?
Give people a platform and watch them do weird and stupid stuff 24/7. If you have ever browsed through Twitch feeds you’ll know what I mean. Amazing what people waste time doing these days.
The travel streams people do are very educational. Learned many things about other countries and cultures that aren’t discussed in any TV travel shows.
I always wanted to start streaming 😊