Guide: Live stream and capture simultaneously

So why would you want to do this? Usually people live stream to services such as Twitch but also want to keep a local recorded file to submit to SDA or just to have a higher quality file for YouTube. Without a proper setup it can be tough to properly coordinate. The ultimate goal of this guide is to produce local raw video at SDA standard while being able to live stream to our viewers. I'll only be focusing on DirectShow cards since it's easier to manage. I'll try and cover Elgato and similar hardware encoding devices at a later date.

I assume you have followed one of my previous guides depending on your situation.

Interlaced guide. Mainly for retro consoles and uses composite or S-Video.

Progressive guide. Mainly for newer consoles with Component or HDMI output. Xbox, PS3 or similar.

What makes this process so much easier is AmaRecTV. Basically, AmaRec has a live plugin that outputs your video as another DirectShow source. This is a complete life saver because typically a DirectShow device can only be used by one program at a time. AmaRec takes control of your "real" capture card feed and simultaneously outputs another "capture card" that you can feed into your streaming program (XSplit or OBS). Let's get on to the config!

In your AmaRec folder you should have an exe called live_setup300.exe (might slightly differ based on your version). Please note that the latest 3.10 is bundled with 3.00 of the live setup. Run that exe and you should see this. All pictures can be clicked to enlarge the image.

Just click the forward arrow more times and it should install without problems. Now open up AmaRecTV and go to the Graph3(Live) tab. We should now see something like this.

Click the Live Enable box and then you can configure the resolution and frame rate that you want to send to your streaming program. Resolution should match what you set in the device tab (usually 720x480 for SD). Regardless of whether you are handling interlaced or progressive content, the frame rate should always be 60. Below is an example. I am using a PS3 set to 720p. I input 1280 720 and select 60.

Note: I have noticed that you can get slightly less CPU load if you use a lower resolution (for example down scaling 720p to 480p) but it's probably not worth it.

That's us pretty much set for progressive video but we need to do some more steps for interlaced video. We need to do these steps because we want to supply a nice deinterlaced image to our viewers on stream. Go to the Graph 2(Preview) tab and enable "Top field first" and "for Retro Game" (as shown below).

This is an acceptable configuration for most all retro games. However, there is a table on the AmaRec blog about what mode you should use based on the console and resolution.

I should also note that you might want to consider selecting 4:3 in the Aspect Ratio but this is personal preference based on your source (this is only if you are dealing with SD sources).

Next, go to the Recording tab and just make sure Filter Processing is set to Off. We do not want our source file to be deinterlaced as we will do this in Yua. It also means that even if you chose the wrong deinterlacing method under Preview, your source video will still be fine. Apply these settings then press OK. Your preview window in AmaRec should now be deinterlaced.

Now we want to open our streaming program. I'm sure most of you can figure this out. I'll quickly go over XSplit first.

Go to File > Add Camera > AmaRec Video Capture. You should now see something like this:

Don't worry the writing at the bottom left will go away after 5 seconds or so. It's just to notify you of the resolution and frame rate chosen. XSplit v2.0 added a feature where you can assign an audio source to a DirectShow device. I still use v1.3 for various reasons so no screenshot here unfortunately. Just right click AmaRec Video Capture and I'm sure you can find your way to adding the audio source called "AmaRec Audio Capture" and assign it. You can also elect to play it through the speakers or just to the stream.

Now let's look at OBS.

Add your scene and then right click in the Sources window and go to Add > Video Capture Device and give it a name. Like XSplit, we just add AmaRec Video Capture and AmaRec Audio Capture. I'm also a big fan of making sure you tell OBS the resolution and frame rate via Custom Resolution. A friend of mine once didn't do this and AmaRec kept popping up with "frame rate of the video capture card does not suit a preset value. Neither recording nor a live function functions normally".

Like XSplit, you can elect to play it through speakers or just to the stream.

That's pretty much it. Now just stream at whatever settings you want and use AmaRec as you normally would. Obviously keep in mind that you are now recording and streaming so your computer might not be up to the task. Make sure you do some trial runs before doing serious attempts and you aren't dropping frames etc.