The Best Software for Live Streaming on YouTube & Facebook
Live streaming is a fantastic way for individuals and organizations to reach broader audiences at a minimal cost. Online streaming is also a rapidly growing industry with a significant market size: revenue approached $1 billion in 2021 and is on track to reach over $4 billion by 2028, according to Vantage Market Research.
If you’re looking to start streaming, all you need is a smartphone. But most people want a more professional image than the smartphone can produce, which comes with added complexity.
If you’re looking to create a Facebook live stream or start broadcasting live on YouTube, you’ll need one or more software solutions to start running a quality stream. This is our quick guide on how to find the best software for live streaming on YouTube and Facebook.
The Elements of Live Streaming Tools
Live streaming starts with a single camera. As you grow, you can add more cameras and audio equipment, but let’s start simple. The camera is ingested into an encoder, which compresses the video to send over the Internet to YouTube or another destination. YouTube then sends the video to everyone watching.
You can use either a hardware or software encoder to stream to YouTube. Hardware encoders are built specifically for encoding, while software encoders run on your computer. There are some great hardware encoders out there, but we’ll focus on software encoders for now.
Video needs a capture device to be sent to a computer. Some popular devices are the Elgato HD60 series, or hardware from Blackmagic Design, which can take an HDMI signal and convert it into something the computer sees. Plugging a camera into the HDMI output of a computer doesn’t work, you need a capture device.
Once the video is coming into the computer, you need software to send it to YouTube or Facebook.
What the Best Software for Streaming on Facebook and YouTube Does
So, where does streaming software come into the picture?
Of the steps we outlined in the previous section, the best software for YouTube streaming takes care of these key features:
- Pulling in raw video and audio
- Stream design
- Encoding
- Output and uploading
In other words, you have to take care of the video and audio inputs, plus the not-small task of actually creating content. The live streaming software takes care of the rest.
Where it gets complicated is that not every software solution on the market handles all elements equally well, so there can be a great variety in what each solution can and can’t do (and what results you’ll be able to get out of each one).
Some solutions are solid when it comes to video processing but fairly limited in terms of slide and video editing. Others seek to be “set it and forget it” solutions but don’t give you the flexibility to customize as much as you might want.
Some streaming software (including some with a free version) use APIs to connect directly to YouTube and Facebook live. While this is convenient, it isn’t always reliable — if the API gets changed or has an outage, streaming won’t work.
Other solutions, including ProPresenter, use industry-standard RTMP to connect to any streaming platform. This method is far more reliable and isn’t difficult to use.
The Best Streaming Software for YouTube and Facebook Is the Solution That Gives Consistent High Quality
We’ve covered some of the technical considerations that go into deciding the best software for streaming on Facebook and YouTube, but ultimately there’s one thing that matters most: consistently high quality.
Quality matters across several fronts, too, including the quality of the content itself (including framing and design), bitrate, video quality, and more.
Think about what draws in an audience that doesn’t know about your content yet. They need to be interested in the content you produce, sure, but what gets a streamer found in the first place? Often, it’s more than a topic or niche. It’s quality. When viewers discover a stream on YouTube or Facebook, they’re more likely to keep watching when both the video and audio are the highest quality streams possible. (And if the stream design looks great, that certainly helps too!)
Consistently serving up high-quality video content is itself a technically complicated task. You need upload bandwidth that’s fast enough and consistent (not spiky or prone to drops). You need the ability to produce high-quality video in the first place, which involves the right mix of both video hardware and software. You need an encoder that works reliably no matter what. And you also need the ability to create beautiful and unique-looking stream environments (think all the content that’s on-screen that isn’t raw video).
ProPresenter Is the Best Live Streaming Software for YouTube and Facebook
While there are plenty of streaming software solutions on the market (including Streamlabs OBS Studio and XSplit Broadcaster), no solution combines all of these must-haves into a single live streaming software package — except ProPresenter.
With ProPresenter, you get a professional-grade streaming app that makes high-quality streams possible in all of these ways. As long as you have appropriate network bandwidth and video and audio hardware, ProPresenter handles the rest. For those with great network bandwidth, ProPresenter gives streamers an insanely powerful encoder via RTMP, and we’re the only market solution offering Resi integration, for the industry’s most resilient and stable streams on less capable networks.
And ProPresenter has a long, rich history as a professional-caliber presentation app, so your live streams will be as beautiful and unique as you can imagine thanks to a Photoshop-Esque slide and scene editor.
ProPresenter combines a top-shelf video encoder, an unparalleled slide and scene designer, and the ability to use common hardware and formats used from amateur live videos to the most professional broadcasts. With ProPresenter, you can stream in real-time to multiple platforms with minimal configuration required. Thus making ProPresenter the best streaming software for Facebook live and YouTube.
Still on the fence about whether ProPresenter is the right choice for your live streaming software needs? Download today for free— we’ll give you an unrestricted two weeks to kick the tires, learn the software, and enjoy a superior livestreaming experience.
