I haven't spent much time in the video processing/streaming space, but I was delighted to discover OBS Studio this week while putting together what has turned out to be an incredibly cozy little entertainment setup by feeding the two gaming consoles and geriatric gaming desktop I've acquired over the years into an HDMI switcher and USB HDMI capture box that in turn streams the feed into an OBS Studio preview (launched from Steam) running on a dummy display.
Launching OBS Studio through Steam lets me stream that preview to my VR headset over a 6GHz WiFi dongle and play games wirelessly in what feels like my own little private theatre. OBS Studio was the puzzle piece I hadn't figured out when the headset showed up last weekend, and I've been really impressed by its performance so far... I think this setup even shaved some latency off when playing online, since consolidating the consoles next to the router let me hardwire them.
Many many thanks to the OBS Studio team for making software that's helping me live out a small part of what I remember hoping technology could be like back in the 90s. I am grateful (:
A lot of negativity about OSS is deserved, and doesn't necessarily come from supporters of proprietary software, but for long-time OSS users and programmers, who want it to be better.
But many OSS programs are awesome, and OBS is one of them.
I believe a lot of negativity comes from people who believed the OSS preachers "come come, you don't need that proprietary crap, we have everything free and better"
And then most people are in for a surprise, that usually the above is only true in theory. But in reality there are driver issues, missing firmware, outdated repositories, broken updates ... critical missing features and in general a need to understand technical details with no polished UI.
And speaking of, with OBS I really liked the UI to just get started, but performance/quality of produced video was way worse for me, then simple screencapture with ffmpeg.
It was very heartening to have this experience! I tried to refrain from harboring overly positive or negative expectations while setting this up and am quite content with how it turned out (especially since every part of this stack can run on Linux; this morning, I swapped out the gaming desktop part of this setup out for my Linux dev laptop + eGPU just for fun, and it all works identically).
What's the negativity? Anything wrong with OBS in particular? I haven't used it in a while, but recently saw DHH saying it's awful. I reckon that's the usual Twitter hyperbole/rhetoric that attracts attention, so just wondering.
That's not what he said. OBS decided to not support streaming to Rumble for political reasons. So Omarchy is gonna ship a leaner alternative soon-ish, that's all.
It's been years since I needed to use it, but: lack of an undo button. Not being able to undo stuff was very annoying, and felt out of place for an otherwise nice piece of software.
I saw somebody else besides DHH talking about their decision not to accept PRs with AI written code briefly. I believe there’s a Rust fork in progress.
Surprisingly low. Steam reports about 12-15ms latency over the 6GHz dongle, and the Internet seems to think that the capture card preview adds about 49 ms; I haven't tested the latter claim myself, but ~65ms feels like a reasonable number. I don't usually seem to notice <100ms latency when I play games (which could be a skill issue on my part), and indeed I don't notice delay between the VR headset image and the direct HDMI passthrough that goes to my desktop monitor (the non-dummy display)
I had initially only planned to use this setup for turn-based games, but after this pleasant surprise, it looks like I get to explore some other kinds of games :D
Funny how you went the huge app route for such a narrow scope where I would have just used a lightweight tool like ffplay given the setting would never really change.
Quite so! I'm sure I could have fiddled with ffmpeg commands, set up a custom Steam launcher, etc. I probably would have if OBS Studio's preview performance introduced too much overhead.
I also discovered that OBS Studio can be installed directly from the Steam store, which makes makes the whole thing feel just a little more seamless (I'm streaming to the Steam Frame). I don't mind trading the extra install space for that feeling, especially since OBS is OSS. It was really pleasant to have this all "just work" end-to-end on both Linux and Windows stacks.
Yes in contradiction to what the downvoters might think, I am not judgemental. By all means use what works for you. I was just pointing out how one thing can be done different ways and I might not even have thought about using OBS for that purpose while being a user myself of the program.
Adjacent to OBS, I want to give an unsolicited shoutout to VDO.ninja.
It's a very lightweight way to push low latency video between devices via the browser. I've used it to turn my phone into a webcam, to jointly watch movies remotely (with simultaneous voice chat included), to make a multi-person video call, to stream my phone's screen to my desktop, etc All kinds of cool uses.
Of course, it can feed into OBS, which was sort of the original purpose, but it is so more flexible than that. Of those above examples, only using my phone as a webcam involved OBS.
There's a linked series of videos demoing it at the page, if you scroll down.
Finally... The CEF they used was 2 years out of date, and after RCE exploits [0] occuring in the wild getting big enough that they got picked up in the media [1], we finally have a fix 1 month later.
You can find why it was complicated [0] and why it took so long [1] on GitHub. I do wish I had been faster on it. That said, the RCE required the user to be using a vibe-coded web-based chat overlay that didn't properly sanitize chatter inputs, so has a (hopefully) limited scope.
Thanks for chiming in and linking that, that was an interesting read. As much as I understand CEF's reasoning for making this shift, it's baffling that they don't provide a universal way to implement what you now had to implement yourself.
Unfortunately, most streamers don't have the best IT security knowledge, and with AI tools now allowing them more and more than what was previously possible, it also opens the door for more vibe coded apps that could have serious security holes.
Should the streamers' apps be more secure? Absolutely, but the underlying tool should also strive to be secure enough for all use cases.
Anyway, thanks for the two links, they were interesting reads.
There are a handful of comments here rueing buggy behaviors. These days with nearly the same amount of effort to post a complaint you can delegate the task of reproducing the issue, diagnosing the root cause, and proposing a fix. Yes, it may incur a small to moderate cost, but it's a contribution to an open source project that apparently provides some value in return.
I think this is what the whole "AI killed software" fallacy came from.
>nearly the same amount of effort to post a complaint you can delegate the task of reproducing the issue, diagnosing the root cause, and proposing a fix.
Is the effort the same though?
And even it is the same, making a meaningful contribution to an open source project doesn't mean just fixing your problem, but you also need to stay in line with the contribution guidelines, the project's direction and many more, which takes much more effort than just vibe coding a version for yourself.
Building software for one and for a bunch are two different things. AI is good at the former and can be used for the later but not without much effort. Models will get better, true, but that doesn't mean we need less engineering, in fact we need more to stay up-to-pace with AI. Imagine everyone submitting a PR to fix a bug, how fast can you review it manually? And if you use AI to review/verify them, the cost just shift from person who submitted the PR to the open source maintainer.
That doesn't mean AI is bad but that we need new systems and rules.
schrodingersket 20 hours ago
Launching OBS Studio through Steam lets me stream that preview to my VR headset over a 6GHz WiFi dongle and play games wirelessly in what feels like my own little private theatre. OBS Studio was the puzzle piece I hadn't figured out when the headset showed up last weekend, and I've been really impressed by its performance so far... I think this setup even shaved some latency off when playing online, since consolidating the consoles next to the router let me hardwire them.
Many many thanks to the OBS Studio team for making software that's helping me live out a small part of what I remember hoping technology could be like back in the 90s. I am grateful (:
hyperbolablabla 20 hours ago
somat 16 hours ago
"There are the live video compositors everyone complains about and there are the ones nobody uses."
But really, it is great to see a piece of open source software as the default choice in a field where they tend to suffer, desktop applications.
coldtea 12 hours ago
But many OSS programs are awesome, and OBS is one of them.
lukan 9 hours ago
And then most people are in for a surprise, that usually the above is only true in theory. But in reality there are driver issues, missing firmware, outdated repositories, broken updates ... critical missing features and in general a need to understand technical details with no polished UI.
And speaking of, with OBS I really liked the UI to just get started, but performance/quality of produced video was way worse for me, then simple screencapture with ffmpeg.
schrodingersket 12 hours ago
herunan 18 hours ago
jasonvorhe 17 hours ago
asveikau 8 hours ago
j45 10 hours ago
TulliusCicero 13 hours ago
wizardcm 6 hours ago
https://obsproject.com/blog/obs-studio-27-released
brightball 16 hours ago
Kwpolska 11 hours ago
asveikau 14 hours ago
schrodingersket 12 hours ago
I had initially only planned to use this setup for turn-based games, but after this pleasant surprise, it looks like I get to explore some other kinds of games :D
fock 12 hours ago
prmoustache 19 hours ago
schrodingersket 11 hours ago
I also discovered that OBS Studio can be installed directly from the Steam store, which makes makes the whole thing feel just a little more seamless (I'm streaming to the Steam Frame). I don't mind trading the extra install space for that feeling, especially since OBS is OSS. It was really pleasant to have this all "just work" end-to-end on both Linux and Windows stacks.
prmoustache 7 hours ago
dylan604 16 hours ago
prmoustache 14 hours ago
- size on disk
- cpu usage
- size in memory
- impact on user lives
- impact on developer lives
- impact on our industry as a whole
- <insert other criteria>
The thing is, ffmpeg is a dependency of obs, so if you install obs you have ffmpeg installed while the opposite is not necessarily true.
NamTaf 17 hours ago
It's a very lightweight way to push low latency video between devices via the browser. I've used it to turn my phone into a webcam, to jointly watch movies remotely (with simultaneous voice chat included), to make a multi-person video call, to stream my phone's screen to my desktop, etc All kinds of cool uses.
Of course, it can feed into OBS, which was sort of the original purpose, but it is so more flexible than that. Of those above examples, only using my phone as a webcam involved OBS.
There's a linked series of videos demoing it at the page, if you scroll down.
[1] https://vdo.ninja/
trollied 17 hours ago
whycombinetor 16 hours ago
quietdean 10 hours ago
jimmydorry 22 hours ago
Finally... The CEF they used was 2 years out of date, and after RCE exploits [0] occuring in the wild getting big enough that they got picked up in the media [1], we finally have a fix 1 month later.
[0] https://blog.scrt.ch/2026/09/22/how-one-twitch-chat-message-...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49852143
[2] https://www.scworld.com/brief/vulnerable-obs-overlay-and-chr...
wizardcm 21 hours ago
[0] https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/discussions/3853#di...
[1] https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/discussions/3853#di...
breakingcups 21 hours ago
Orygin 15 hours ago
Should the streamers' apps be more secure? Absolutely, but the underlying tool should also strive to be secure enough for all use cases.
Anyway, thanks for the two links, they were interesting reads.
EduardoBautista 21 hours ago
croes 20 hours ago
If you don’t know what you are doing any tool can be dangerous
otabdeveloper4 14 hours ago
Whew, thanks for putting my fears at rest. You're only pwned some of the time, not always.
Cyph0n 13 hours ago
rgovostes 23 hours ago
damowangcy 21 hours ago
>nearly the same amount of effort to post a complaint you can delegate the task of reproducing the issue, diagnosing the root cause, and proposing a fix.
Is the effort the same though?
And even it is the same, making a meaningful contribution to an open source project doesn't mean just fixing your problem, but you also need to stay in line with the contribution guidelines, the project's direction and many more, which takes much more effort than just vibe coding a version for yourself.
Building software for one and for a bunch are two different things. AI is good at the former and can be used for the later but not without much effort. Models will get better, true, but that doesn't mean we need less engineering, in fact we need more to stay up-to-pace with AI. Imagine everyone submitting a PR to fix a bug, how fast can you review it manually? And if you use AI to review/verify them, the cost just shift from person who submitted the PR to the open source maintainer.
That doesn't mean AI is bad but that we need new systems and rules.