My stream schedule has been changed. Tuesday and Thursday at 3:00 PM Central. Sunday at 5:00 PM Central. Some Sundays my band, Bebop Beatniks, will be streaming from the porch.
If you are producing videos from your twitch streams like I talked about in the last article most streamers post to Youtube. I have an active Youtube channel and I do post there but it's actually the 4th place I post and Youtube won't see every video.
It's important to have a posting strategy and a procedure that makes posting easy. I use a notes.txt file in a dated folder for the stream performed on that date. This notes.txt file is very much the same for every show. The playlist is changed. The date is changed, and occasionally comments are added. So I work from a template modifying it as necessary for each stream.
I also have a template for posting songs. Again I only change the date, the song title, and add an occasional comment.
So, for me, playlists are important. I deal in sets of short videos that are related, in my case all performed on the same day. So if you're going to produce highlights videos from your game stream you may want to put them in a playlist so viewers can go through all of them easily.
And here's where it gets kind of geeky. The first place I post my videos is to my own servers.
Most people don't run web servers at home so this probably won't apply to you but it is an option every production studio should consider because uploads to in house servers don't take nearly as long as uploads to The Live Music Archive or Youtube.
On my right I have the Hairy Larry Rocks server hosting my peertube.
https://peertube.hairylarry.rocks
On my left I have my MixRemix server that also hosts HairyLarryLand.
Let's say I played a stream and then I produced 4 song videos from the stream.
I number the songs based on their order in the set as logged in my logbook.
I create a playlist for the stream.
I upload each video to my peertube using the songs.txt template so I don't have to do a lot of typing. After it's posted I add the link to the video into the text and I add the video to the playlist.
This goes really fast because these large mp4 files never leave the house. Nevertheless, as soon as I am done the songs are available on the internet and I can click a share button to link or embed the videos.
On my HairyLarryLand server I have a file sharing program called NextCloud. After I have finished uploading to peertube I create a folder for the stream and upload all the video files to NextCloud. Then I create a text file for each song and copy the exact same text I used for the songs on peertube. When that is done all of my highest quality video files are available for download here.
https://hairylarryland.com/nextcloud/index.php/s/Z9RFW4QS6XGa3qo
Why both?
The peertube interface is user friendly making it easy for viewers to find and share videos. It is even possible for other peertube instances to include my songs for people to enjoy from there.
The NextCloud interface is a file manager where you can download the best quality videos as rendered by OpenShot. So if someone wants to collaborate with me or just wants to download best quality that's the place to go.
The song.txt template cross links both of these sites so it is easy to switch between interfaces from a Youtube like federated social network to an all business file manager for downloading what you want.
In the next article I will discuss uploading videos to the Live Music Archive and Youtube. I am also uploading mp3 files of the audio to the Live Music Archive and I plan on making them available on my on demand KGPL internet radio station.
hairylarry@curators.mixremix.cc
hairylarry@deltaboogie.comHere's the good news for a change. The software needed to set up a twitch stream is free.
I am using Streamlabs OBS as my streaming platform. Before that I used OBS. These are both free software. I used OBS recording audio only podcasts but for my twitch stream I wanted to view the live chat as part of the stream, and not just see the chat on the twitch interface. Streamlabs OBS supports that so that's how I get my live chat on the left side of the stream.
https://streamlabs.com/
To display my tablet playing iReal Pro on the right side of my stream I use scrcpy, also free software.
https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy
I had to download and install a windows driver for my Zoom H6. No charge for the driver and the install was painless. I use the Zoom as an interface between my PA and my computer.
I am planning on implementing the ability to record multitrack to make it easier to collaborate with other musicians. Pro Tools First is a free download and Pro Tools is the industry standard for sharing audio files.
https://www.avid.com/pro-tools
I use Openshot for video post production. I like it. I even use their titling templates. It makes life easy.
https://www.openshot.org/
I am using VLC to monitor my videos. Under tools I can view the codec information to make sure I'm recording everything right. VLC will also compress your video files in case they end up too large.
https://www.videolan.org/
GIMP is my photo editor. Video producers need photo editors the same as anyone else.
https://www.gimp.org/
Some of this software is open source. Some is not. But it is all free to download and install. Which is good news because twitch can be an expensive hobby.
Next week I'll discuss workflow and backups. Can't wait.
It's all Megan's fault. When she set up https://www.twitch.tv/megantopia Vivian and I started watching. Before that I knew it was a popular site for live gaming but twitch flew under my radar. Once I saw what Megan was doing and I started to understand how twitch worked, and how it can be used for videos that are not about gaming, I became interested.
The problem with video production is post production. Post production is a lot of work. It takes a long time. There's always a few more tweaks that can make it a little bit better. It can wear you out.
Live streaming takes post production out of the equation. Like the evening news it happens in real time, it's as good as it is, and it's done when it's done. There's no post production and even when videos are excerpted from the stream post production is minimal.
The tradeoff for no post production is the setup. Sure, you can stream with just a laptop, phone, tablet, or game machine. But since it goes out live with no post that can be dull. The goal is a live show that's entertaining. It can be high energy or chill but it can't be boring. So you have to put a lot of thought into the desired look of your stream and then figure out the hardware and software to achieve that look.
The key element is OBS, Open Broadcaster Software.
I have used OBS for recording podcasts on Discord but I didn't realize it's real power until I started using it for twitch videos. OBS is free and open source. The good thing about that is that it's legal for others to build on it. For my stream I chose Streamlabs OBS because of the ease of setup and features like the onscreen chatbox and the ability to include running programs in the stream. You can do these things with OBS too and there are other options to explore but my most direct route was Streamlabs OBS.
I watched several videos on Youtube about setting up streaming for DIY streams and other streams that use live video instead of gaming screens as their primary focus. This opened my eyes to what is possible and led me to dream about what I actually wanted to do and how I wanted to setup my screen to be helpful and interesting.
So here's my big idea.
The name of my stream is Hairy Larry Practicing Piano. A big part of why I wanted to do the stream is to add discipline to my piano practice. I practice every day and sometimes for several hours a day. But what I was missing in my practice was scheduled rehearsal of a specific repertoire. My twitch stream provides that.
And choosing my repertoire I decided to practice all songs that I wrote. This avoids copyright issues and it allows me to tailor the repertoire to the stream. Practicing improvisation is easiest with short changes that have one or two interest points. Baby steps.
And so once I decided what I wanted to do on my stream I began to visualize the screen. I wanted the central focus to be me, practicing. I wanted to be able to pull a microphone over to talk to the audience and sing but I also wanted to be able to push it off shot for instrumental numbers. I wanted an angle shot that would show my hands on the keys. And I wanted it to feel like a live jazz show.
There are many musicians teaching jazz piano on the internet and they almost always have a top down view of the piano keyboard across the bottom of the screen. I like that, it's helpful and visually appealing. So I decided to include that in my screen layout.
I am using iReal Pro for my backing tracks providing bass and drums. The iReal Pro screen shows the chord symbols and highlights the chord being played. I wanted to include that screen as part of my display.
Twitch uses text chat for the audience and voice chat for the performer as it's standard chat format. The performer can also type but it's easier just to talk and shout outs from the performer to viewers in the chat box are the way it's done. So I wanted to include the text chat on the screen to provide context for my shout outs and other responses to the ongoing text chat.
And I wanted to be chill. Many people use twitch as background noise while they go about their business. I wanted it to be easy for people to just let my stream play in the background, enjoying the music, without having to be fully engaged. Kind of like Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers but practicing piano instead of painting or telling stories.
So that's my big idea. In future posts I will discuss equipment, both purchased and DIY, software setup, extracting videos from the stream, bandwidth issues, and even home renovation.
In the meantime you can enjoy my stream here.
There's always room for improvement, especially on any web project, but I have all 4 legs reaching the ground so I'll take a minute to explain our new aggregated RSS feed featuring always new content created by Gamer+ gamers.
Most blogs, podcasts, and video channels have RSS feeds. (or atom feeds, same thing but different) When people follow a podcast so they don't miss any episodes they often use the RSS feed so their podcast is updated in their feedreader or even auto downloaded to their device.
Many of the gamers on Gamer+ are content creators. I am, Carl is, The EvilDM is, and lots more. As you will see. So my idea was to find a way to promote their work right here on this site to make it easy for gamers to find the podcasts, blogs, videos, etc. that other gamers on Gamer+ are creating.
So I installed Tiny Tiny RSS and TheEvilDM and I have been busy subscribing to all the feeds we can find that other gamers on this site have available.
If we missed you let us know in the comments. If you start a new web project let us know. Even if it doesn't have an RSS feed let us know. We want to feature your stuff.
So the four legs of the stool are:
1. A scrolling auto updating display of all the new posts on all the feeds we have subscribed to on Tiny Tiny RSS. This is on the left above the banner in the footer.
2. A link list to the homepages of 12 of these creators that changes each time you load a page. This is on the right above the banner in the footer.
3. An auto updating link list to 60 recent posts from the Gamer+ creators. You can access this link at the bottom left of item 2 above, the bottom left of the right block just above the footer. There, is that confusing enough? I think I'll just post the link here.
4. A manually updated categorized link list of all the homepages of every feed we have added to Tiny Tiny RSS. This is on the bottom right just above the banner and also on the far right in the footer next to Mobile version. And here's the link for that.
Did you notice I said manually updated? No, I don't type this stuff in. I run a program I wrote on the exported opml file from Tiny Tiny RSS and the program types it all in. Still it's a thing that has to happen so it won't always happen just as soon as the RSS feeds are updated. And it might happen before the RSS feeds are updated because there is often a delay of about an hour before new posts are displayed.
I am not done working on this but I am happy with it. It's really good. It's all there. It could be better. What else is new?
Like I said, if you're on Gamer+ we want to add your stuff. And if you're not on Gamer+, join, so we can add your stuff. There's a lot of content on Gamer+ already and more all the time. But the amount of content in these feeds that you can easily access right from the footer on every page is more than you will ever have time to consume.
So, Enjoy! And add a comment below.
If you have ideas to improve this project or others please post them below in the comments.
It's really a big world out there and nobody has time to check out all the creative work that even some of us do. I can't even keep up with what my kids do! So after you listen to a podcast or watch a video give it a mention here on Gamer+. That will give others an incentive to make that connection.
And if you have a creative gaming endeavor, even if it doesn't have a feed, please post in the comments. I am going to devise a way to include links to projects that aren't feed friendly like fiction, art galleries, or other major projects.
Add your content - Contact hairylarry or TheEvilDM
Link to Gamer+ from your website or blog. Gamer+ Links
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