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How to Keep the Conversation Going on Your Stream

Jett3 Comments

As a streamer, your voice and the words you say with it are your most important assets. Every game you could ever play will be covered by thousands of others, but viewers will have to come to you for your particular spin on the action.

Easier said than done, of course. Talking while gaming isn’t a skill that players develop naturally. Add in the fact that you might not be comfortable partaking in conversations in real life, and the thought of carrying the conversation for the duration of a multi-hour stream becomes incredibly daunting.

If you routinely find yourself drawing a blank, here are some pointers for how to keep the conversation going!

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Elgato Stream Deck Alternatives

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I adore my Elgato Stream Deck. Yes, it seems very pricey for a handful of buttons. And no, you probably shouldn’t buy the Stream Deck Mini because six buttons isn’t enough for most. However, my standard Stream Deck has proven to be more than worth it. With this device, it makes it so easy for me to seamlessly juggle between scenes, toggle audio sources on/off, activate my voice changer, trigger my sound board, and so much more. If anything, I’m pining for the Stream Deck XL so I can have access to even more buttons.

Regardless of how much I and many others may recommend this controller, it’s hard to overcome the sticker shock to really understand the Stream Deck’s value proposition. If you want a taste of what it’s like to have a Stream Deck but don’t want to pay Stream Deck prices, consider these alternatives.

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The Art of Repurposing Stream Highlights for Social Media

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Sharing highlights from your stream can be a great way to attract new viewers or keep your existing fanbase engaged with content they might have missed. For a number of my social media followers, they’ve never gone to my stream but regularly engage with my highlights. If that’s the way they want to connect, that’s cool too!

The process could be as simple as taking a snippet from your stream and uploading it to your social media platforms. However, you’re likely to be leaving money on the table if you don’t go the extra mile. Here are a few tips to get the most out of your streaming highlights when you share them on other platforms!

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Troubleshooting Rendering Lag and Encoder Lag in Your Twitch, Mixer, or YouTube Live Streams

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Of all the calamities that can occur on stream, lag is one of the most common and most annoying to wrestle with. There are many potential reasons for why lag occurs, all of which require different sets of solutions.

In the last installment, I covered how to troubleshoot network lag. Now let’s cover rendering and encoder lag. Unlike network lag, dropped frames caused by either rendering lag or encoding lag are tied to your PC’s performance. Here are some pointers for reducing the strain on your PC and maintain a smooth presentation!

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Troubleshooting Network Lag in Your Twitch, Mixer, or YouTube Live Streams

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Of all the calamities that can occur on stream, lag is one of the most common and most annoying to wrestle with. There are many potential reasons for why lag occurs, all of which require different sets of solutions.

Though I plan on covering all three major sources of lag, we’re going to cover just network lag in this guide. The post got incredibly long just covering the ways one can troubleshoot their networking difficulties, so we’ll focus on that. If your stream is suffering from network lag, try out some of these tips!

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Avoid Copyright Strikes by Using Streaming-and-Video Safe Music

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Everyone would love to use licensed music if it weren’t for the whole copyright thing. Over the years, online platforms have gotten increasingly harsh on creators who play licensed music in full, leverage snippets, have it play in the background because a car across the street was blasting it, or even poorly singing a few bars of a licensed song in jest.

Getting caught can subject your videos to getting partially muted, having any ad revenue that it would have made go to the music license holder, getting hit with a permanent copyright strike that will push your channel closer to deletion, or even lose your account outright. YouTube is far stricter than Twitch in this regard, but some of the platform’s largest streamers have been suspended for using licensed music in the past. It’s inevitable that Twitch will increase its efforts to shut down the illegal use of license music in order to protect itself from liability.

If you want maximum control and minimal liability, your best bet is to steer clear of licensed music. But where do you turn to when you need background music for your just chatting sessions or want music to fill the empty soundscapes of the battle royale games you play? Try these options!

(and avoid the last one)

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Improve Your Webcam Image Quality with LUTs in OBS and Streamlabs OBS

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At this point, we’re all familiar with image filters in social media apps such as Instagram. But did you know that streaming software such as OBS and Streamlabs OBS can do filters too? With the power of LUTs, you can apply filters to your image to improve the quality or create a dramatic effect. It might even save you the cost of buying a better camera. Here’s how!

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5 Mistakes I Made as a Twitch Streamer (And How You Can Avoid Them)

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Streaming for the past few years has taught me that it’s basically impossible for one to be a natural streamer. Being good at it requires one to possess skills in a myriad of otherwise-disparate disciplines, from video production, audio production, public speaking, marketing, and more. Furthermore, there’s a bunch of weird skills that you’re not going to develop until you go live. Heck, the actual part where you play video games is but a small part of the discipline.

Because of this, making mistakes is inevitable. Lord knows I’ve made many. It might be embarrassing in the moment, but what’s important are the lessons learned from those experiences and how you recover going forward. Here’s are just a fraction of the mistakes I made and how you can address them faster than I did.

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9 Tips to Improve Your Charity Stream and Get More Donations!

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Thinking about hosting a charity stream? This video might help take that show to the next level! Having done a few charity streams now, I take a moment to share a few things I’ve learned to help make my charity streams a success. Hopefully these 9 tips will do the same for you!

As a heads-up, this video will serve as a “season finale” of sorts. My one month buffer of videos has officially depleted and some of the upcoming videos I want to make are going to require a bit more lead time. I really don’t want to be in a position where I’m scrambling every week to put out a less-than-stellar video in order to continue posting weekly. So I won’t.

Instead, the series is going to go on hiatus for a month or so while I tinker away in the background. Part of this next round of videos will include board game content, which I’m incredibly excited to bring into the fold. You’ll be the first to know when the videos are coming back. For now though, enjoy this one! And thank you to everyone who has watched any of these videos to-date! I appreciate your time and support.

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3 Tips to Improve Your Logitech C920 and Logitech BRIO Image Quality

Jett22 Comments

[UPDATE: Seeing a lot of confusion in the comments regarding where I toggle the settings. I use these cameras with my OBS setup, so I make all the changes within OBS. If you’re not using OBS, you can try Logitech’s webcam software. Admittedly, my experience with Logitech’s software is awful and I quickly deleted it when it wouldn’t give me the level of control I needed. However, if you’re not using your camera within the context of streaming or video recording, it might be your only option.]

The Logitech C920 is a great starter webcam. The Logitech BRIO is arguably the best webcam on the market. Even so, I noticed issues with my image with regards to my skin looking washed out and my overall image looking a bit grainy.

Turns out that both of those issues can be fixed by getting more hands-on with the camera’s settings. In case you’re looking to squeeze more out of your Logitech webcams, check out these tips!

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