Stream From OBS To Another Computer on the Network Using UDP

2021 UPDATE: To those of you watching this now, if you're trying to go from OBS on one system to OBS on another, look into NDI instead, it's lower latency and more reliable. If you're trying to do a hub-spoke model, follow through, but use RTSP or alternatively RTMP relays using Nginx, it should be more reliable.

In this video, I show you how you can configure OBS to stream to another computer on your local network using UDP. This could be used to relay a stream, or, simply to stream your display to another computer on your network.

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--Note--
Note that OBS adds a lot of latency as it also keeps a buffer. If you're not going to need to switch inputs, you can reduce latency by a fair bit by just using ffmpeg directly.

Music From:
EpidemicSound

-- Updated contact info --

[jjulio]

Could you do one with windows and vlc?

[TheNitroG]

I found a practical application for this. I have a church that wants to setup an overflow area for people to view the church service. they were streaming to facebook and then downloading the stream back into the overflow area, now they should be able to run their overflow even if their internet is completely down.

[TonyTascioglu]

Now that I have played with this some more, OBS can't get to a much lower latency due to all the processing it does. I have been able to get latency down to ~0.1s by using FFMPEG to directly capture the screen, transcode to something like mjpeg, and then sent it over netcat. The client can then receive the signal, and play it directly using MPV or Mplayer, and disable the network cache to reduce the latency. Downside is you won't be able to easily switch inputs and stuff, but if all you want is to send a screen, it is much faster then the OBS solution. If enough people are interested I may showcase it.

[leonbishop]

i'm not surprised that someone who would do such a nice video is also using linux :)

[qzorn]

this is wonderful... much better than what i was searching for, great for learning OBS. thanks a lot...:)

[bestonyoutube]

I tried this on latest OBS Studio but I cant get it to work. Connecting form other PC on Windows with VLC doesnt work, it says cant open socket. Opening locally VLC also doesnt work, it just shows audio no video. I followed all the settings you showed in the video.

[GabrielTobing]

That moment you decided to use an old webcam as a security camera and want to be able to view it from the other side of the house wirelessly.

[kmrad_k]

Yo Tony, where'd you learn your theory on the variety of encoders and formats? I'm about to research it, and you seem to have wisdom, any book recommendations? (Curiosity for a Computer Engineer major)

[TheDjAliceD]

nice idea but i still got a problem, i want to stream lokal to a tablet and dont know hoe to recive the stream on the laptop, i cant start a console...

[boxedog]

What if I am doing this from a Windows host & not linux?

[emretasdemir]

Thanks, I was trying to do this for weeks, couldnt find anything on internet.

[godfreyofbouillon]

I was trying this on two windows machines but couldnt get it working neither with Mplayer nor with VLC. VLC simply shows nothing while mplayer outputs "stream non seekable" to console

[alexvedom]

Thank you very much for the tutorial!
By the way I'm getting the cozy early YouTube tutorial vibes from this video! Cheers!

[HamsterLife_EnglishLearning]

I'm finding OBS stream videos cut off a lot of my video. I've resized and it just won't take the proper size no matter how I use your margin lines to resize it to the same size not to cut off any of my video. I'm going to have to go with another streaminer.

[mcnamaraky]

First, a question before anything else: *what software should I use to VIEW THIS STREAM ON A MOBILE ANDROID DEVICE* ? If anyone has an answer for this, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO POST IT WITHOUT READING ANYTHING ELSE. Again though, (WHAT SOFTWARE CAN/SHOULD I UsE TO VIEW THE STREAM ON MY MOBILE ANDROID DEVICE? *The MAIN USE CASE for me is to stream a Chrome window on my local network to a MOBILE ANDROID DEVICE*

Next, I just wanted to say: thank you SO MUCH! This is something I've been trying to do, as there are times where I want to stream to my phone stuff that is going on on my desktop, but things that I do not wish to broadcast over the internet for whatever reason (e.g. copyright reasons, test taking that I am proctoring, etc.). So, thank you VERY MUCH for your straightforward presentation for this.

I was looking for a way to stream, in network so that it did not broadcast over the internet, a variety of things, mainly desktop/browser/MS Word type stuff. Not really games or anything of that nature (although if I DO do games, it would be limited to very non-intensive games, such as FTL, Stardew Valley, etc. which are all indies with VERY modest requirements for them to be played, are not 3D, and stream easily enough.

Additionally, sometimes I have something going either in Chrome. For example, sometimes I proctor exams for people, and want to be able to keep an eye on their test taking while I step outside or away from the computer. Sometimes I've been "forced" to do it through twitch, and just make sure no one is coming into the channel while I'm there (it's a bit dishonest of me to stream someone while they're taking a test, because they may be embarrassed and not want others to see how they're doing, etc. These are not school exams either, but exams of a different kind, and I'll leave it at that). and if they do, I end the stream IMMEDIATELY, as again, I don't want to broadcast that to other people if I can help it (I ALWAYS have deleted the past broadcasts as well just to make sure no one can see them.

So, I've been looking for a way to stream stuff locally, just on my network, so that I can keep an eye on stuff from my phone, or a laptop, and am not forced to sit at my desktop, and this is exactly what I have been looking for to try and do. So, thank you for an easy to understand guide. I'm a bit more of an advanced user, and am pretty familiar with networking, but I just wanted to make sure I didn't need to do anything too crazy, other than pick the IP of the device I'm streaming to, and an unused port (thanks for suggesting 8081 by the way).


Now a question: Is there any problems using the built in NVIDIA encoding? I have a 1080, and prefer to offload it to the built in hardware encoding if possible. I do have a Ryzen 1700, so I have plenty of cores to play with though, so if it's better to use one of the one's you have recommended here, I will use those. "Better" could mean a few different things, but I mean a general '"better, " regarding primarily speed, with clarity and image quality being second, since, regardless of which one I use, it's going to be high enough quality for my phone to see. I know everyone's phone is high def, and some people are obsessed with streaming even 4k (crazy, no?!?!) to their mobile devices, but at least in my opinion, 480p for my mobile phone is fine, as with the small screen size, the clarity (to me at least), is perfectly fine at 480p. I'll probably just keep using the nvecc encoder, if there's no problems there. Again, to be honest, this is mostly for me streaming desktop stuff as I said, so I can use either the nvecc encoder, OR, use something that utilizes a core, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and since nvecc has always worked well for me, no reason to switch. For stuff I've recorded where I cared a bit about the quality, I did do x264, because I BELIEVE (correct me if I'm wrong) that the quality of an x264 recording/stream is a bit higher than what the nvecc does, but, again, in this scenario, the device is going to be viewing (more than likely) in 480p, since the graphical fidelity in my opinion

Thanks to anyone who answers, and once again, thank you SO MUCH for making this simple walk through. I just wanted a straight forward answer regarding the networking aspects (where to find the networking settings, if I needed a special port, etc.), and you answered those questions quickly and straight forward. I watched the entire video to just make sure I understood everything, and to make sure you didn't include anything important, and/or complicated later in the video, and it seems pretty straight forward. Again, I was mainly interested in both the networking aspect, as well as *how to view it to the device I'm sending the data to* so thank you for everything again.


Sorry for the lengthy post, just wanted to 1) express my thanks to the author, 2) state the use case for me in case someone has some advice for me based on what I'll be using it for, and 3) ask WHAT SOFTWARE I SHOULD USE TO VIEW THIS STREAM ON A MOBILE ANDROID DEVICE and then 4) ask if the nvidia encoding is sufficient for my use case, or if its better to switch to something that's going to tax my CPU a little bit, which I don't mind as, again, it will not be utilized very much during the streaming, aside from Chrome and then later on perhaps some simple 2D games like Stardew Valley/FTL. Again though, the MAIN USE CASE is to STREAM A CHROME WINDOW ON MY LOCAL NETWORK TO A MOBILE ANDROID DEVICE.

And, once again, although I'm probably sounding like a broken record at this point: THANK YOU for this video, and thank you to anyone who has an answer for me or has any advice for me.


Much obliged,
KMAC

[StragerStranger]

I tried, but not work for me.
I used both IPs, ipv4 and sub mask ipv4. No one is working with VLC.

[DiMiS]

Not only I learned but you saved me a lot of time and effort cause now I can wifi monitor the external genarator that powers the ship im working w/o having the risk to make the travel there all the time :)

[kjvisual]

Thank you for sharing this. Being able to have this level of control us ultra helpful.

[HzZrDGaming]

i'm having trouble getting this working with windows 10 and using VLC. my UDP stream will connect but no image will be displayed.. i'm trying to multicast the video so multiple PCs can view the stream


are there any additional steps for windows PCs?

[TeazYou]

In my use case, I was looking for such a solution because I wanted to save some CPU and GPU resources from my main computer by allocating the generation of my streaming overlay to a second computer, because this overlay use a lots of javascript animation that is killing my main computer while playing, thank you :)