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Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

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Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#11

If you are programming, especially in a live studio environment, you should really invest into multiple monitors.

if you're trying to present to viewers, two monitors will make keeping them focused into a ridiculous chore.

That is like telling a speaker to prepare two slide decks and switch between them during the talk.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#12

I started streaming a few months back and I absolutely love it. Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. The hardest thing about it is to keep the schedule and be emotionally available when the stream comes on. I wrote about it here [1]. What I like the most is working through a project in stages on the stream. People can connect with the project…

> Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times.

"Hog" implies bloat to me? Video's hard work, though, and OBS will chew a CPU but it really needs to (unless you use a GPU encoding solution like NVENC, but there are quality concerns there). I have a second PC--actually a pretty nice 4U rackmount in a 6U wheelie with my audio interface--dedicated to video crunching and audio mixing for when I do livestreaming events for folks.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#13
post #9

I want to do this but I'm afraid of two things: 1. Show how horrible my code is. 2. Accidentally leaking sensitive stuff.

1. Stop 2. Just use a part of your screen that is off the recording. Never open `.` files on the stream. Never login on the screen, always off of the screen. If you are showing AWS cli console stuff, make sure you hide the public IPs and public DNS of things.

2 is related to 1 - there are credentials hard coded all over the place.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#14
post #12

I started streaming a few months back and I absolutely love it. Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. The hardest thing about it is to keep the schedule and be emotionally available when the stream comes on. I wrote about it here [1]. What I like the most is working through a project in stages on the stream. People can connect with the project…

> Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. "Hog" implies bloat to me? Video's hard work , though, and OBS will chew a CPU but it really needs to (unless you use a GPU encoding solution like NVENC, but there are quality concerns there). I have a second PC--actually a pretty nice 4U rackmount in a 6U wheelie with my audio interface--dedicated to vid…

I use a 2017 iMac 5K with 32G memory and quad core and OBS is absolutely a lightweight for this one.

Before, I was using a 2015 MBP and it was having a VERY hard time handling the streaming at 1080P (mind you I was running 2 screens off of it).

I am not sure it's a hog because of bloat, it's just that you need a more than average computer to stream with good quality.

Funny story is that once I clicked stop on the stream and it kept streaming. Showing me having a phone call, going on Facebook and just continuing with my day. I had to just shut down my computer because OBS would just not stop.

On the new iMac I had absolutely zero issues with it and I am running it with 2 screens and 5K on the main screen.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. "Hog" implies bloat to me? Video's hard work , though, and OBS will chew a CPU but it really needs to (unless you use a GPU encoding solution like NVENC, but there are quality concerns there). I have a second PC--actually a pretty nice 4U rackmount in a 6U wheelie with my audio interface--dedicated to vid…

I use a 2017 iMac 5K with 32G memory and quad core and OBS is absolutely a lightweight for this one. Before, I was using a 2015 MBP and it was having a VERY hard time handling the streaming at 1080P (mind you I was running 2 screens off of it). I am not sure it's a hog because of bloat, it's just that you need a more than average computer to stream with good quality. Funny story is that once I clicked stop on the str…

Fair enough. I also run an NDI sync, a browser overlay, and a bunch of cameras, which probably adds to the load.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#16
post #12

I started streaming a few months back and I absolutely love it. Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. The hardest thing about it is to keep the schedule and be emotionally available when the stream comes on. I wrote about it here [1]. What I like the most is working through a project in stages on the stream. People can connect with the project…

> Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. "Hog" implies bloat to me? Video's hard work , though, and OBS will chew a CPU but it really needs to (unless you use a GPU encoding solution like NVENC, but there are quality concerns there). I have a second PC--actually a pretty nice 4U rackmount in a 6U wheelie with my audio interface--dedicated to vid…

I think the implication with Hog is just that it's greedy and will consume as much resources as you give it.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#17
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Stop 2. Just use a part of your screen that is off the recording. Never open `.` files on the stream. Never login on the screen, always off of the screen. If you are showing AWS cli console stuff, make sure you hide the public IPs and public DNS of things.

2 is related to 1 - there are credentials hard coded all over the place.

so stream another project.

As a habit, I don't stream code related to my workplace, it has too many risks. Even if you see parts and pieces and will not be able to make sense of it.

We don't have a single secret embedded in code and all of our secret files are encrypted using vault, even that is too risky for the clients we have.

I stream my personal projects and things like QnA etc...

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#18
I've streamed myself programming on Twitch, and can echo some additional knowledge in addition to what's shared in the article:

Don't expect anyone from Twitch to randomly discover your stream and have any idea what you're doing. Programming anything that isn't a video game on Twitch will be totally unfamiliar to their primary demographics. That said, use Twitter or something else to BRING YOUR OWN AUDIENCE. Be prepared to stream for a few hours or else you will likely never build up traction in your chat.

As this post says, vocalizing your stream of consciousness is vital; think of it like pair programming with the chat. I try to engage the chat without getting totally nerd sniped and ending up off topic.

I think the best way to really kick the tires on Twitch programming content would be to stream podcasts and/or have a joint channel of shared programming content and have many different programmers participating either via a shared account or Twitch Teams[0].

[0]: https://twitchtips.com/twitch-teams/

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#19
post #16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software but it can be a resource hog at times. "Hog" implies bloat to me? Video's hard work , though, and OBS will chew a CPU but it really needs to (unless you use a GPU encoding solution like NVENC, but there are quality concerns there). I have a second PC--actually a pretty nice 4U rackmount in a 6U wheelie with my audio interface--dedicated to vid…

I think the implication with Hog is just that it's greedy and will consume as much resources as you give it.

It doesn't do that, though--OBS uses pretty well-understood levels of memory, compute, etc. that scale directly to what you're doing.
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