Building a FULL Streaming Setup on the Cheap!

- Starting out as a live streamer can seem really scary when you look at the expensive equipment your favorite personalities use. But I'll tell you a little secret. No, come here. As someone with over 12 years of experience in this industry, it's not about how high resolution your camera is or how clear your audio is. It's about the content and engaging your audience. You'll be able to take care of the rest of those things once you start generating some income. So today we're going to show you how to do it for very little money or even for free, if you're willing to get a little hacking done.

You can create a

full

slash video recording set up to start your hobby or even a career in online content creation. Once you're

streaming

, you'll want some amazing visuals to accompany your content, which brings us neatly to today's sponsor, OWN TV. They provide overlays, alerts, dashboards, and more for streamers. Use code LINUS to save 50% and stay tuned for more information later in this video. (electric music) For today we will assume that you are looking to go live and that you intend to use a face camera. If you plan to film VOD content, or if you want to stream without a camera, you should have no problem adapting these tricks to your specific

setup

or simply skipping over the parts you don't need.

The first thing most people think of when it comes to video is the ubiquitous Logitech C920S, but at almost $70, it's not the kind of thing I'd consider an impulse purchase. Now you can go through the entire product stack where you can get the Logitech C270 for about $25. But with image quality reminiscent of a laptop webcam, it's like throwing money away, because you'll eventually have to replace it. Luckily, there's probably a camera better than most webcams in your pocket right now: your phone. Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this forever due to battery and device wear and tear due to heat.

And it's a bit of a pain to set up every time, but using your phone is an amazing way to get really high quality images without spending extra money. If you have an Android phone, download the IP Webcam app from the Play Store and once launched, enter the given IP for your device in your web browser, copy the URL and paste it into OBS as the browser source while adding forward. Cut the video to the end. Set it to update the feed when the scene activates, so you have a quick way to reset the stream if necessary.

And we also recommend setting the resolution to 720p in Advanced, as well as reducing the

streaming

quality to make sure you don't strain your phone's CPU too much. That will at least help keep the heat under control. On iOS you can achieve practically the same thing with an app called DroidCam. You will have to download their software and install it on your PC, enter the IP there and then you can add it as a video capture device in OBS. The default should be 480p, so run your HD Mode program as administrator and select 720p if desired.

Now comes the question of how to mount the phone? If you have a coat rack hanging around, you can bend it a little and make a simple desk stand, or if you have a shelf or desk ledge above your monitor, some tape or a clamp can work quite well too. If you're willing to spend a few dollars, you can get phone tripods on AliExpress for just a few dollars and they're a little easier to use. And bam, there you have it, video. Well, mostly. Relying solely on the monitor to illuminate your face can be a bit jarring for your audience, because dark scenes in your game will make it difficult to see you and sudden bright lights can leave you speechless.

A common solution for this is a set of

cheap

softboxes like this Neewer kit on Amazon, but there is a problem. It costs almost $90 and requires quite a bit of space to install. Once again, we have a free or at least almost free option. Try using an old lamp you have at home ideally combined with a halogen bulb. These are better than fluorescent ones for getting consistent, true-to-life colors from your camera. But be careful, if you put them right next to you, the light will probably be too strong, so try using wax paper or some other type of translucent material as a diffuser, or alternatively, you can just bounce them off a wall to soften the light. light.

Just be careful when setting it up, because halogen bulbs can get quite hot and you don't want to start a fire. For that reason, this is a case where we recommend spending a few dollars. Lights with clamps like these from our local hardware store can make things a lot easier, because they can be clamped directly to the monitor stand or a nearby shelf and are powerful enough to penetrate a diffusion layer or bounce off the wall. Alright, the video stream looks great so far, but what about the audio? Well, if you have a gaming headset, it has a microphone attached to it.

That's a great starting option. If you don't and don't want to spend money, both of the apps we mentioned above have audio streaming options through your phone. For the IP Camera app, copy the URL of the opus audio stream and paste it into OBS as a media source. And if you're using DroidCam, it will register as a system audio device. So set it as microphone in OBS settings. Finally, you will need to implement a Render Delay filter on your video to sync them. Now that's decent. But because of the style of microphone built into most phones, you'll likely hear a lot of keyboard and background noise.

It's probably fine for when you're just starting out, but one of your first investments should be something like the Fifine K669, which we featured a while ago in our budget microphone roundup. For just $34, it's pretty hard to beat, and look, it even comes with a cute little stand. Then put all that together and bam. You've spent anywhere from zero to $50 dollars on what I think is a pretty competent streaming

setup

here. All that's left is to get your streaming key, start your games, get some snacks and put some liquids in your lttstore.com water bottle, and of course, watch today's sponsor video.

OWN3D.TV is a store that specifically caters to streamers with products designed from people just starting out to seasoned professionals. They offer complete overlay and stream design packages, as well as sub-emoticons, badges, logos, avatars, and more. With its tools, you can create layouts for any platform you stream on and everything can be used with your favorite software like Streamlabs and OBS. For a limited time, you can use offer code LINUS to get 50% off almost everything in their store. So check out the link below for more information. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to play again.

Player like a player! This is very sweet. I mean you don't want anyone, you don't want anyone to see your lighting setup. You have your light pointed at the wall. You have whatever this is. Wait a second, what is this? Here is your lamp. Uh oh, I could have fooled him. - Did you stop the video? - I stopped the, oh, did I click it? - I don't know. - I clicked on it. - Well. - I think I clicked on it. - See you later. - See you later.