Twitter acquired Periscope TV and now Periscope receives a substantial amount of traffic. This video streaming platform is entirely free. I decided to test streaming on Periscope for my Reality PC broadcast.
I use Open Broadcaster Software OBS studio as my live streaming video encoder. I will show you how to live stream on Periscope using OBS Studio. First, you want to login into Periscope.TV, to get your stream key.
Once logged in click on your Avatar in upper right corner, and choose “Producer”. There are three important fields.
* Server URL
* Stream Name / Stream Key
* Source Display Name
You do NOT need your Server Uniform Resource Locator since OBS Studio already has configuration settings for Periscope TV that you can choose from. You will need to copy and paste your stream name key. Also, you can as an option enter your source display name, each time you live stream on Periscope.
This is in essence your stream title that people will see as you broadcast on Periscope TV. This can help you attract potential viewers. Now start OBS Studio and select “Settings”.
Click on a “Stream” tab in settings. Under “Service” choose “Twitter / Periscope” from a drop down list. Now you want to choose a region that is closest to your current location under “Server”.
You want to paste your stream name key from Periscope TV into a “Stream key” field. Finally, click on “OK” to save your settings. Now you can click on a “Start Streaming” control button.
You should be succesfully live streaming now. In your Periscope TV producer window you can preview your stream and test for audio and video quality. When I first tested live streaming on Periscope TV, I just used my audio and video settings that I use for Youtube.
Periscope claims they only support 960 pixels by 540 pixels. They also claim that their server only supports 800 kilobits per second video bitrate. However, I did not change my default 1280 pixels x 720 pixels and 2000 kilobits per second video bitrate.
I was able to live stream without any issues with these settings. However, you may want to adjust your settings to fit Periscope TV limitations which you can view by clicking on “Show Recommended Settings” in producer. I actually live stream on multiple platforms at once now via Reastream.io so that is why I don’t change my video settings to match Periscope’s recommended settings.