Twitch on PS4: 7 Tips for New Broadcasters

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Twitch on PS4: 7 Tips for New Broadcasters

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Editor’s note: We’ll be streaming PS4 games regularly over on the PlayStation Twitch channel — tune in!

It’s been less than a week since PS4 launched with Twitch broadcasting functionality, and the feedback we’ve been getting from new broadcasters has been phenomenal! To help new streamers ease into the Twitch community – which is already 45 million members strong – here are some tips for first-time broadcasters:

  • Be a curator of conversations: Drive conversation with your viewers. Talk about everything and don’t just focus your conversation about the game or games in general. Talk about life, pop culture, music and everything in between.
  • Go live longer than an hour: It might sound shocking at first, but Twitch is long-form entertainment. Our broadcasters stream for hours, so find a sweet spot and before you know it you’ll be rocking a 24-hour broadcast in celebration of a new game release.
  • Find a genre: When laying the foundation for your channel, don’t feel the need to be the best at every game. However, if you are good at one genre (FPS, Platforming, Stealth…), focus on that until you get the swing for engaging between chat and gaming at the same time. It can be a challenge to be good at both, but hang in there — you’ll eventually kick off those training wheels.
  • Have a regular broadcast schedule: This way your viewers can become aware of when a broadcast will happen. You want to post this schedule everywhere you can. The more informed the community is with your shows, the more people will show up.
  • Try to have a camera and mic on: People want to see and hear you! There’s something very special about having a broadcaster looking right at the camera and talking directly to viewers, live. Plus, this will increase your viewership.
  • Engage in the Twitch Universe: Broadcasting is built around community, whether it’s your community or someone else’s, so join other channels that you share a common interest in. This will give you crossover viewership.
  • Authentic voice is essential: Go out there have fun! The more authentic your approach is, the more your viewers will connect with you.

I hope these tips will help get you started on your new broadcasting journey! To see all the PS4 content on Twitch, visit our PS4 directory. You can also rock a shirt from our new store, with all proceeds going to relief efforts surrounding Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.

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49 Comments

  • Just make sure you don’t say anything about the Twitch admin team on your account.

  • I have a question i opened an account on Twitch but everytime i broadcast gameplay video from my ps4 it says that im broadcasting it on Justin.tv, why is that?

  • I’ve found a few bugs with the Twitch Live Stream from PlayStation 4 so far. When you change your Audio settings on the PS4 to [Bitstream Dolby] or [Bitstream DTS] you can’t hear the game audio in the broadcast. It only seems to work if you use the audio settings for [Linear PCM]

    I find this downgrading on the player side and needs to be supported for Twitch. I personally haven’t use UStream yet to confirm if this is a issue across steaming on both services or if this is a Twitch issue. Either way I find it annoying and needs to be fixed.

    @remanutd5 Justin.TV owns Twitch.TV its the same company and runs off the same services.

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    Also like to have a options to use voice commands while playing a game by using the following commands: “PlayStation Take a Screenshot”, “PlayStation Start Recording/PlayStation Record That/PlayStation Record”, “PlayStation Stop Recording”.

    Not in a desire demand need since its all built into the share button but would add a extra layer of simplicity to the PlayStation 4 when your already in the middle of a game and the player decides to start recording or broadcasting.)

    Also to add to Voice Commands to Start and Stop a Broadcast/Broadcasting faster by enabling Voice Commands by saying “PlayStation Start Broadcast(ing)” It would start the broadcast with the settings the gamer wanted/wants the broadcast to start with like NO MIC, NO Camera, No Comments, With Comments, With Mic, With Camera etc.. And the ability to say PlayStation Stop Broadcast(ing)
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  • I really enjoyed the streaming today at your lunch. It was nice to see Ryan doing the typing. Haha. Maybe next time get him on camera!

    I noticed there in point 2 you say go longer than an hour. Shame PlayStation only done like half an hour. :( Want longer next time! :D Can do half an hour per person with 2 or 3 people per day?

  • This looks like fun. I love watching gaming videos, especially the ones where the guy is worse than me. Seeing that crushed loser look on dude’s face? Priceless!

    Thanks for all the links. I’m bookmarking and will follow some channels. I might even try uploading gameplay someday.

  • Welcome to the PlayStation Blog Jon, this is Shane from UF. We have had great success with our channel already this past weekend with over 17000 unique viewers.

    For any tips about your streaming feel free to reach out to us via the PS Forums or on PSN and we will help you out.

    twitch.tv / urgentfury is our channel

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    Please add the ability to Broadcast in Full screen and the comments pop up with a invisible background tint color so the gamer can still see what’s going on in the game and the comments only pop up when new comments come in and the comments be in different colors based on the viewers preferences they chosen and the comments show up at the bottom of the screen that slightly overlays over the game at the bottom of the screen but does not show up on the viewer’s side of the video feed so its more interactive for the gamer but yet still keep the gamer in the game and the viewer enjoying the game at full screen and the viewer not see the comments if the so choose not to see comments in the video while viewing the game play and also toggle the camera to overlay while in Full screen as well in the upper right corner of the screen to take full advantage of the broadcast at full screen.
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    @PlayStation Please add more Video editing tool so we can make our videos fancy for uploading if we choose to (so we can upload our videos to sites like Facebook/ and hopefully soon YouTube).

    Would also be nice to copy the recorded video to a flash drive or external hard drive so the gamer can upload or keep for safe keeping’s and his or her choice so the gamer can if they want to safe the file onto there computer to edit with a professional editing tool and then upload to sites like YouTube if they so choose to.

    For me personally I’m not big on editing because I don’t have the money for a expensive PC/Software and just want to upload videos to sites like YouTube. I hope you integrate YouTube into the operating system on the PS4.

    (I HAVE MANY MORE GREAT IDEAS for the PS4 Thanks for reading PlayStation Nation!)
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  • I’ve had a lot of fun so far watching others’ streams. Folks could post their twitch.tv URLs here, I suppose, if they want more viewers

  • I made online friends by watching streams. Some I play with from time to time which is very cool.

  • @remanutd5 I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’ll have to create a new account on Twitch. You’re account was defaulted to a Justin.tv account when you registered since Twitch.tv is a sibling site. There was a time when you could ask customer service to change your account type from Justin.tv to Twitch, but they no longer do this. You cannot stream, you cannot fully delete your account, and you cannot change your username.

    My account had the same issue. I contacted customer service to see if they could switch the account type and they refused to do so. They even added that they could help me, but because I never bought a paid subscription or their “Platinum” services, they would just sit on their hands. Definitely shows that customer money is more important than customer loyalty.

  • Please make it possible to follow someone via the PS4. Right now you have to go to the twitch browser version to follow someone. Also please do something with the empty grey space on the right of a stream. Have usernames or move the comments to that space.

  • I know this will take both twitch and sony working together but… I would like for my account to actually represent the correct game when streaming say battlefield or warframe. As it is the last game to appear as the title is what you streamed last via pc and or elgato.

    The one other thing I hope you guys can look into is why PC or Elgato games archive but my PS4 ones have not.

  • I been a playstation gamer since the first playstation. I absolutely love the work and effort that playstation putes into the gaming community. :) @PLAYSTATION STAFF

  • There should be an asterisk at the bottom of the post explaining that you HAVE to be a master account to use any of the Share features. Sub accounts will have them blocked even though the master account has opted to enable them in the parental settings. There should be an option to upgrade a sub account to a master account or at the bare minimum give the ability to the master account to choose whether or not to enable Share for sub accounts.

  • I love broadcasting i am hooked heres my only problem on the ps4 i cant add the person who’s streaming directly i have to remember the persons name go out and manually add him/her/it i would love to just watch the stream hit options add the person from there and a notification if that person is streaming something new so i could watch also from the friends list letting people know they are streaming and jump directly into spectate without manually looking for the room . Thanks

  • @remanutd5 i’ve been spectating there for more than five years, if i were a staff i should tell you that account will not transfer to Twitch because the announcement have ask everyone who owns justin tv accounts will need to transferable before December 31, 2012. What you would do if your account is stuck? You may delete your JTV account that you want a same username, then make a new account on Twitch with a same name as you like. If they couldn’t able to process your username that you close the account recently. Please take your time before they can process your name will clearly from their record. Hopeful that would be help for this solution! I believe Twitch will fix these issues as soon which it allow you delete your own account and renew so much better fast without a process system will get awhile!

  • Is there another way to stream to twitch on my PS4 without using Facebook to sign in? Don’t have Facebook and don’t plan on getting one.

  • Now this sounds interesting indeed, I will have check this out more in depth.

  • When is the actual Twitch app coming, I’d like to watch LoL tournaments too :/

  • @21 its in the live from PlayStation thingy where all your game are

  • I love how broadcasting is integrated right into the system! it’s so convenient and perfect.

    I hope to see a proper Twitch app like the one on Xbone in the near future too :)

  • How does the youtube exporter for twitch work? I aggred to archive my footage and upload to youtube but neither seem to be working

  • Will there be any comment from Sony about the abusive Twitch administrators? I deleted my account because of their handling of the situation and will be sticking with Ustream.

  • I never get any views on my channel and I don’t own a camera :-(

  • PLEASE provide another video upload option besides Facebook!!!!!

  • I like to use ustream at most. I can get my vids and stream out to 720p as for when i stream on twitch it goes in 400p and looks bad.. find me on ustream djghetto79th rocking ps4 games all night.

  • @Justin
    Wow really? A whole hour? Either yas posted on Facebook half an hour late or time just went by so fast when playing games! In our case watching. ;) lol

    Look forward to seeing some more today. :D

    Also you looked a little mad yesterday. hehe. Break any controllers yet? lol

  • WHEN WILL YOU PATCH HDCP ON THE PS4? INSTEAD OF GIVING US TIPS YOU SHOULD BE WORKING ON THE PATCH! ALSO, WHEN CAN I USE MY PLAYSTATION HEADSETS ON THE PS4? AND LASTLY THERE IS A DEARTH OF FEATURES ON THE PS4 OS… ADDING FRIENDS IS TOO SLOW, THERE IS NO PLAYSTATION HOME, FRIENDS REQUEST ARE TOO SLOW AS WELL! XBOX ALLOWS MORE FEATURES SO YOU BETTER GET TO WORK ON THESE PROBLEMS!

  • This is a great addition to the PS platform. For entertainment purposes, it would be great to get access to the non-gaming Twitch channels. Who doesn’t want to see Kitten Cam??

  • Whooops meant to the UStream channels.

  • streaming in full screen would be better if also you could just use second screen option on vita / smartphone for comments and typing and also able to use the second divice camera to record the commentator. So you would have two people on ps4 : one person playing the game, second person chating on vita/table/phone

  • Tip #8: Do not strip your girlfriend in front of the camera.

  • + judalation

    i have seen some bad trolling attempts but come one kid, you have more then enough to tide over your non “youtubez munniez”

  • It would be nice if there was a way to save your videos.

  • Above it says: “Be a curator of conversations: Drive conversation with your viewers. Talk about everything and don’t just focus your conversation about the game or games in general. Talk about life, pop culture, music and everything in between.”

    But isn’t Twitch having kittens, banning PS4 users because they are “ONLY” supposed to be talking about game related things? It’s all over the internet today.

    So which is it because someone is confused on the deal.

  • my LIVE stream is twitch.tv/m3tal_man84. I broadcast mostly every night at 10 pm (atlantic time). For now, all I playing is Battlefield 4 multiplayer. It’s the only game I have at the moment for PS4. Come check it out, say Hi and follow me!

  • I am just waiting for Drive Club to play it & stream it live OMG.

  • hi everyone im loving the ps 4 so far just got 1 problem i wanted to Stream but when im live on my Stream it says the image cant load it says im live but it stays gray how do i fix this plz? thank you :)

  • Hi All – help me out please. Been gaming for 30 years but broadcasting’s only a reality now I’ve got a great internet connection

    I can successully broadcast using Twitch, works really nicely. My problem is that when I see others doing this, their PS4 camera tracks their face…………tried everything but can’t get this to work at all

    The camera face tracking works fine in other applications

    Is there something obvious that I’m missing?

    Corders

  • first off i love the live streaming through twitch however im either doing something wrong or it just doesnt wanna play…. after about 4 minutes of game time i lose the feed it says im still live but my channel freezes. any help??

  • http://www.twitch.tv/ljdw23
    http://www.ustream.tv/user/Lblaze_DwF
    I just started my channels, If you could give me some pointers

  • remanutd5, Twitch is Justin.tv’s games division.

  • Ah, it had already been answered, my apologies.

    Anyway, I would like to know why it is that some games do not support the capturing of game audio during recordings and streams. Also, is it possible to view comments from previous streams? I was streaming FIFA 14, playing full screen, when it decided to crash. There were a few comments I missed and I would still like to read them. Lastly, is there any way to change the area the camera records? I was playing with a friend and would’ve liked it if we could both be on-screen.

  • how do i save the streaming ? sux not having this option.

  • i stream like 2-3 times / week and im having a blast with my PS4. Loving it so far

    the only problem i’m having is that the video quality is really bad.
    is there any1 with the same problem? is there a way to fix this ?

    i stream NFS rivals

    on twitch my name is BesnikSwe
    follow me and say hi in chat ^^

  • When you stream y they cant hear anyone else in my party -_-

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