How to Stream to Twitch & YouTube using OBS (Dual Stream)

In this article, I'll be showing you how to stream to Twitch and YouTube at the same time, utilizing OBS Studio, with different alerts for Twitch and YouTube. 

If you're new here, be sure to check out The Streamer Academy where I help you start, build, and succeed as a streamer. There are tons of free resources available for you to utilize that will help grow your stream.

Adding Your Vertical Plugin

The first thing you're going to do is get OBS Studio open and ready to go. Once this is opened, you'll need to download the 'Vertical Plugin' if you do not already have it. 

You may be saying, "Well, I'm not going to be streaming vertically," but we're still going to download this. We can use it to create a second canvas that's going to be horizontal and specifically designed for YouTube or Twitch., whichever you prefer. 

To get this, you'll go to Aitum.tv and select 'Download Vertical'. 

This is available on both Mac and Windows. 

When this is downloaded, you'll come back to OBS Studio. If you don't see the vertical output show up, go to 'Docks' and select 'Vertical Scenes', 'Vertical Sources', 'Vertical Scene Transitions', and 'Vertical'. Then, you should see it show up on OBS Studio. 

The reason that we're doing it this way instead of just multistreaming only is because whenever you just multistream, whatever comes up in your main canvas will be the same for all of the platforms that you're streaming to. You aren't able to split any kinds of alerts, graphics, or scenes onto different platforms to give your viewers a bit of a different experience. The way that I'm showing you will allow you to do that. 

Changing the Vertical Output to be Horizontal

Once you have the vertical output, you're going to select the gear icon above 'Vertical Sources' so that we can change the resolution. 

You're going to want the resolution to be set to '1920x1080' and then press 'Ok'. This is now going to go ahead and change the layout to give you more of a vertical scene. 

If you minimize the original horizontal output, you'll find yourself with two separate horizontal outputs, one for YouTube, and one for Twitch. 

You can do this in whichever order you'd like, but I'm going to use the main one (left) for Twitch, and the second one (right) for YouTube. 

Linking Your Twitch Account

Next, you'll need to link one of these to your Twitch account and the other to your YouTube account. 

To do this, head to settings on OBS and we're first going to connect our main scene on the left-hand side. 

In settings, select 'Stream' and you'll see where it says 'Service'. You're going to want to select 'Twitch' for this. Then, you're going to select 'Connect Account (Recommended)'. 

This is going to prompt you to get logged into your Twitch account. It is also going to ask you for a code from your authenticator app that you'll need to put in. When you put in this code, you'll want to select 'Remember this computer for 30 days' and then press 'submit'. 

For 'Server', you can leave this as 'Auto (Recommended)'. Then, press 'Ok'. 

In a bit, we'll get into the best settings to use for YouTube and Twitch so that it's a smooth experience for both platforms. 

When you exit settings, you can close out the 'Stream Information' tab that will pop up since we don't need this. If you do want your chat on here, you can leave that, but I'm going to close it for the time being. 

Linking Your YouTube Account

Next, we need to connect to YouTube on the right side. 

To do this, start by pressing the gear icon above 'Vertical Sources'. You'll go to where it says 'Streaming' and we'll name this "YouTube". 

Then, it's going to ask you to select your 'Server' and enter the 'Stream Key'. You'll need to go to YouTube to get this information.

Once you're on YouTube, you'll come to where it says 'Create' and select 'Go Live'. This is going to bring you to the 'YouTube Live Control Room'. 

You'll have the option to either set up a livestream now or schedule one for a later time. We'll press 'Start' next to the 'Right Now' option. Then, you'll select 'Go' next to 'Streaming Software'. 

This is going to bring you over to the studio where you'll be able to livestream. This is also where you'll find your server and stream key. 

You'll want to copy each of these and paste them into OBS Studio.  

Remember not to show or share your stream key with anyone as they would then be able to use this to stream using your channel. 

Once these are pasted into OBS, make sure that they are 'Enabled' and then press 'Ok'. 

Now, we've connected both YouTube and Twitch to OBS Studio so that we can stream to them. 

Adjusting Settings on YouTube

Next, we need to make sure that we're utilizing the best settings so that everything looks as smooth as possible on both platforms. 

The first thing we're going to do is go back to the 'Youtube Live Control Room' and make sure that the 'Stream Latency' is set to 'Low-latency'. This is going to help with your chat. 

There is an option here to 'Unlist Live Replay Once Stream Ends', but I would encourage you to leave the stream up. 

On the right, you'll have your chat. If you right-click on the three dots in the corner and select 'Popout Chat'. This is going to give you access to view your chat for both Twitch and YouTube with the Twitch chat being in OBS. 

If you're on a Windows computer, you can use a tool like Casterlabs to merge your chats together. If you're on a Mac, you unfortunately won't have this option. 

With this done, you can head back over to OBS. 

Adjusting Your OBS Settings for Twitch

In OBS, under 'Controls', you're going to go to 'Settings'. Then, select 'Output' and make sure that the 'Output Mode' is set to 'Advanced'. 

If you're on a Mac, these are the settings that you're going to want to use. 

Your 'Video Encoder' should be set to 'Apple VT H264 HArdware Encoder'. 

For the 'Rate Control', you'll want this to be set to 'CBR'. 

The 'Bitrate' should be at '6,000 Kbps'. 

'Keyframe Intervals' should be set to '2s'. 

Your 'Profile' should be set to 'High'. 

You're also going to want to make sure that 'Use B-Frames' is selected. 

If you're on a Windows, these are the settings that you'll want to use. 

The 'Video Encoder' needs to be set to 'NVIDIA NVENC H.264'. 

Your 'Rate Control' will be 'Constant Bitrate'. 

Then, your 'Bitrate' should be set to '6,000 Kbps'. 

'Keyframe Intervals' should be set to '2s'. 

Your 'Preset' should be at 'P5: Slow (Good Quality)'. 

'Tuning' should be set to 'High Quality'. 

For 'Multipass', put this at 'Two Passes (Quarter Resolution)'. 

Your 'Profile' should be set to 'High'.

You're going to want to have 'Adaptive Quantization' turned on. 

Lastly, 'B-Frames' should be set to '2'. 

In order for your bitrate to be at '6,000 Kbps', you need to have an internet upload speed of at least 10. You can test this at Speedtest.net by simply pressing 'Go' in the middle of the screen. It will give you both your download and upload speed, but you only need to worry about the upload speed. 

My upload speed is 939 which is much more than I need to be to use a bitrate of 6,000. Again, all you need to use this is an upload speed of at least 10. 

Adjusting Your OBS Settings for YouTube

With these settings in place, you're just going to mirror them for the YouTube stream so that it uses up fewer resources on your computer. This way, OBS will only be encoding one stream and pushing it out to both YouTube and Twitch. 

If you want to use different settings for YouTube and Twitch, you can do this, but it will require a stronger PC and a higher internet upload speed. This is useful if you want one of your streams to be of higher quality than the other, but we're just going to keep it simple and use the same settings. 

To do this, you'll come to the vertical side and select the gear icon. 

Then, you'll come to where it says 'Streaming'. If you scroll down to the bottom, you'll see a setting that says 'Use Main OBS Settings' and this is what you're going to select. This is what allows you to use the same settings for both platforms and only use one set of resources. 

If you are going to use different settings for YouTube, then this is where you would make those adjustments. 

Again, since I want to keep this simple and use the least resources possible, I'm going to use the same settings. 

What we've done now is create two different canvases for Twitch and YouTube and adjust the settings to give us the best quality for both.

Next, if you want to learn how to add overlays for your streams and how to divide these for Twitch and YouTube, check out this video here.  In this, I walk you step-by-step through how to add all of your overlays and everything else you need to make your stream look professional.