These days you almost can't even casually browse YouTube without running into some form of Let's Play category of video. If you aren't familiar, Let's Play videos are typically just footage of somebody or multiple people recording themselves playing a video game. Some people just do pre-recorded clips and upload them to YouTube, while others choose do do a live stream of their Let's Play. Since live streaming, and streaming in general is becoming more popular these days, I decided to try it out myself, in my very first Let's Play, which also happens to be a live stream. In this blog update, I will go over my experience, and how you could join in on the fun of live stream and Let's Play. Also, at the end of the blog will be a link to my video in case you want to check it out! Let's row, row, row our boats gently on to the next paragraph!
So first off, I want to just say at the bare minimum, at least in my case, you will need a Playstation 4 (PS4), and the microphone that comes with it. The microphone is optional if all you want to do is record gameplay only, but I used one. Also sold separately is the Playstation Camera. The Playstation Camera is used to record a face cam of you playing the game, and is also optional. So without further adieu, let's jump into setting it up, assuming you have the PS4 already.
Once you turn on your PS4 and log in, and are now on the home screen, you will press the "share" button on your PS4 controller. Then you select "Sharing and Broadcast Settings." Then you want to select "Link with Other Services." This will let you select multiple options on what you want to link to. The 2 most popular is going to be Twitch or YouTube. We are using YouTube so that's the one you select. You then follow all the steps you need to link up your Playstation Account with your YouTube account. Once you are all done setting that up, the screen will show that you are linked up. You can now back out and select "Broadcast Settings" and then "Advanced Settings." Here is where you would toggle options for your face cam using the Playstation Camera if you have that, in my case I do not. So here is where you also choose audio settings, where you want to put a check on the checkbox next to "Include Microphone Audio in Broadcasts." I noticed that my speaking audio was low compared to the gameplay audio. You can adjust this in your microphone settings separately, but even when I turned it up, it seemed to work about the same. Maybe I need a better microphone, or there are more settings that I am unaware about, but I thought I had it resolved but that was not the case. In any regards though, that is the option you want to use when doing a live stream, that way what you say in the connected microphone will be what you hear on the stream. It's nothing too fancy, and easy to set up really. From here you can play around if you want to disable comments and messages etc. Then that's pretty much it, you are ready to go live!
Once all of your settings are configured to your liking, you can now select a game. Open the game and once it has started you can now start live streaming your gameplay. All you do is push the "share" button on your PS4 controller, then go down to "Broadcast Gameplay." This will open up another menu with things like a Title, etc, standard things that YouTube needs. You can also configure "Advanced Settings" one more time if you like, while you are here. But then you go all the way to the bottom and select "Start Broadcast." Once you select that, boom! You are now recording, and are live! Enjoy your Let's Play, and have some fun! Now as promised here is a link to my first Let's Play, to show you how that went.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XdiMa7spic