Navigating SM Broadcast

Since you can handle yourself a little better with the tech-end of things, we want to give you some tools to help you better navigate this change in our stream. Here, we cover some basic troubleshooting, using OBS for games and additional angles, and our plans for SM Connect.

Troubleshooting

The program we use to force OBS to pull through as a virtual camera is third party, so it is a little touchy. If you don’t open programs in the correct order, or if you try to stop the VirtualCam plugin and start it again, OBS is likely to crash on you. If this happens, relax, and do the following.

Close every program. I do not mean simply sign out, you will need to close out every program. If all the running programs aren’t visible in your Task Bar, use Task Manager to find and close OBS, SM Broadcast, and Mozilla Firefox.

1. Open OBS. When restarting OBS, some settings may change. You will need to “Configure Video” from the camera properties window and make sure ‘Auto Focus’ is deselected. Adjust your color settings as needed.

Before closing your camera properties, be sure the output resolution is set to 1920x1080, and your FPS is set to 30. (Figure A)

Open “Settings” from the bottom right corner of OBS, go to the “Video” tab on the left side of the pop-up window, and make sure the top two bars are set to 1920x1080. (Figure B)

Lastly, at the top of OBS, go to “Tools” and select “VirtualCam” and hit ‘Start.’ If it is already started, don’t stop it. Close that window and minimize OBS for now. (Figure C)

FIGURE A

FIGURE B

Figure C

 

2. Open SM Broadcast. After you sign in, have the settings match these:

If your customers experience a delay in your audio, switch from “Communications” to pull the microphone directly. If this does not resolve your problem, please alert the desk so we can check your stream and make sure it’s not just poor user connection. We also need to learn to troubleshoot problems as they arise so we can assist other models as well.

 

3. Open Mozilla Firefox. Sign into Streamate. When you get to your streaming page, make sure SM Broadcast is being pulled, and not External Encoder or DSL.

At this point, you will be 100% ready to stream!

Be sure to set everything back up in this order, or the OBS plugin will get cranky!

 

Other Troubleshooting Tips:

  • If your screen resolution doesn’t settle at 1920x1080 within a few moments of starting your stream, disconnect your stream and wait a few minutes before reconnecting again. If you are using a POV cam picture-in-picture, this could affect your ability to stream a true 1080p feed. See our advice below for using POV cams!

  • If everything is open and running, but SM Broadcast is displaying a gray screen instead of your video, check to make sure the VirtualCam was enabled. If it was not, you can try turning it on, but be warned - this is the exact situation in which the plugin is known to crash.

Using OBS in tandem with SM Broadcast

WE LOVE OBS! That’s why we found a plugin that allows us to continue using it as we move into the future of webcamming! We made sure we could still use OBS in every way we have been. Here is our advice for using OBS with the new program:

  • If you are constantly making adjustments: Keep OBS on top of SM Broadcast once you being streaming. This is so much better than having two images of yourself distracting you. Of course, if anyone mentions your stream quality, have SM Broadcast ready to pull on top of OBS so you can check your stream health/metrics and adjust your microphone if needed. If you land a show, we strongly recommend pulling SM Broadcast to the top just in case you are sent a C2C request.

  • If you only need to set it up once, but may adjust from time to time or play interactive games: Keep SM Broadcast on top of OBS. It’s better to have your stream health and C2C requests readily visible. If you want to play a game, you can set the ‘Interact’ window over the top of SM Broadcast.

  • If you use POV cams: Set them us as you always have, just be sure to set the resolution to 1920x1080 instead! Some models have noticed the POV cam will bring their SM Broadcast metrics down to 1440x810. While 1080p is obviously the better resolution, you will still receive preferred placement over models streaming at 720p. If you are concerned about video quality, please ask the desk to check your feed.

    • A workaround for POV cams: If you really want to have 1080p, consider avoiding using your additional angle as a picture-in-picture cam and set it up as a separate scene instead, so your POV cam is fullscreen for customers.

So what’s the deal with SM Connect?

Some models have tried SM Connect and favor it over Broadcast. While it is a more reliable streaming page, it is still missing key features, like Phone Chat. Until Connect is fully functional, we would prefer if every model used Broadcast to avoid the confusion that comes with half the studio using a different streaming set up.

If you have a perfectly valid reason for preferring SM Connect, come chat with management. If you are ready to sit down for half an hour while we walk you through setting up Connect for yourself and then setting up Broadcast when your shift ends, for the next model (handling any troubleshoot issues that may arise) then we can set that up! Otherwise, please use SM Broadcast exclusively.

Please let us know if you run into technical difficulties not covered here, so we can add it to this page for the next model with the same issue.