Boost the Performance of OBS Twitch Streams on Mac and Windows

So you’ve decided that you want to start streaming content to Twitch, YouTube, or similar. When I say streaming, I mean live streaming, not publishing pre-recorded videos to be watched on-demand. Streaming is so popular that you might think it’s as easy as opening your web camera and clicking stream. The reality is that there’s a little more to it, more so around stream quality and performance.

Take my stream for example. I stream a few times per month on Twitch using The Polyglot Developer. The first few streams had a large amount of framerate stuttering, audio and video synchronization issues, and computers sounding like airplane jet engines. I was able to resolve these problems by changing the way I streamed with Open Broadcast Studio (OBS).

In this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through some of the things that can be improved in Open Broadcast Studio to give you better stream performance on the popular content streaming networks.

TPDP Episode #36: Machine Learning, AI, and Data Science

The latest episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast, episode thirty-six featuring Upkar Lidder from IBM, can be found on all of the major podcast networks, including, but not limited to, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

In this episode titled, Machine Learning, AI, and Data Science, Upkar and myself explore what people mean when they talk about machine learning as well as when and how it should be implemented in your own projects.

TPDP Episode #35: Developing on the Blockchain

I’m pleased to announce that the latest episode of The Polyglot Developer Podcast has been published to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and pretty much every other major podcasting networking that exists.

The topic of this episode, Developing on the Blockchain, is the blockchain, and I’m joined by expert Lennart Frantzell from IBM to help walk us through everything you should know when it comes to developing on it.

If you’re interested in cryptocurrency, this episode is not for you. Instead, we’re exploring what the blockchain is, why people are developing on it, and how you can start developing your next application on it as well.

Live Stream with Guests Using OBS with Skype and NDI

As a technical content streamer, one of the most difficult tasks for me to accomplish was with having guests participate on the stream. To be clear, I don’t mean having guests participate in the chat, I mean having them on the stream with their video, audio, and sometimes screen.

Think about it. You’re streaming to Twitch or another platform using Open Broadcast Studio (OBS). You’re probably streaming your video and audio, but what happens if you need to include a guest? Do you do a Zoom meeting and screen-grab their video using OBS? If you’re capturing the guest video, how do you pipe their audio? What happens if they need to share their screen as well?

This can turn into a complicated mess.

In this tutorial we’re going to see how to have guests on your stream without a bunch of complicated hacks. We’re going to see how to use a network device interface (NDI) with Skype for easy inclusion into Open Broadcast Studio.

Static Website Deployments to MongoDB Stitch with Hugo, Git, and Travis CI

MongoDB Stitch can do quite a few things, some of which include GraphQL, functions as a service, and triggers. However, another awesome feature is in its ability to host static HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, the core components to any static website.

Static websites are becoming more popular due to their performance and how inexpensive it is to host them at scale. Popular generators include Hugo, Jekyll, 11ty, because of how easy it is to write and maintain in a format like Markdown and convert to HTML.

In this tutorial we’re going to see how to create a static hosted website using Hugo and automatically deploy changes to Stitch through a continuos deployment pipeline consisting of Git and Travis CI.

Create a Stream Countdown Timer for Twitch with JavaScript

As you’ve probably seen, I’ve been ramping up The Polyglot Developer on Twitch, when it comes to live streaming developer content. What might not be obvious to the viewer of the live streams is the technical effort that’s involved in making the stream possible. For example, how do you position all the stream elements on the screen, or for that matter, broadcast a stream at all?

One of the things that took me a while to figure out was in regards to a countdown timer. I was broadcasting streams with a “Starting Soon” screen, but viewers didn’t actually know when the stream would start. Does “Starting Soon” imply a minute from now or ten minutes from now? Since I’m using Open Broadcast Studio (OBS), a countdown timer didn’t exist, so I had to go out and create one.

In this tutorial, we’re going to see how to create a countdown timer that can be used in your OBS project, or any project for that matter. We’re going to do this with simple JavaScript and HTML.

5 Tips for Working Remote in Tech

There’s a lot happening in the world right now, forcing companies to change the way they operate. For a lot of people, this means working from home, something they may have never done before, or have not done regularly.

Working remote or working from home may sound like a dream come true, but it involves more focus and self control than you might think. You want to be able to prove yourself capable, while not burning yourself out in the process.

I’ve been working remote for the past five years and have picked up a few tips and tricks that I thought I’d share to those that might be struggling with their new way of working.