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Welcome to episode 238 of the StreamYard Live Town Hall.

My name is Gage and I'm here with Dan, of course.

We have an exciting guest from the engineering team and a couple of topics I'm pretty excited about chatting about.

And for anyone new here, Dan and I are the founders of StreamYard.

We do these town halls every single Sunday at 6 p.m.

Pacific, and we do them for a few reasons.

1 is to stay in tune with all of you, go through the same flow that you all do with your own shows and productions.

That's what we're calling it, Ask StreamYard.

So if there's anything you'd like us to touch on tonight, feel free to leave it in the chat.

We'll do our best to get to as many as we possibly can.

And then I always mention the 3 pillars of StreamYard, which are ease of use, stability, and professional stream.

So if you're about those 3 things, StreamYard is the tool for you.

I see people tuning in from all over the world tonight.

I think I saw Arizona with 106 degrees in Arizona.

I actually lived in Arizona for a little bit of time and yeah, there were a couple of summers where it was definitely up there.

Before I forget, we have some awesome shows on Streamr.

We have YouTube channel reviews with D and Daniel, the second Saturday of every month.

A really great show if you're looking to grow on YouTube, D and Daniel are both pros when it comes to that, and they'll go into deep dives on individual channels and talk about things like how to think about your niche and thumbnails and everything that it takes to grow on YouTube.

And then we have Enhance Your Livestreams, the last Tuesday of every month with Nick Nimmin, who again, pro when it comes to all things videos, so check that 1 out for your specific live streaming questions.

And then 1 thing we've been doing at the start of these so that we get to know a little bit more about you and you get to know a little bit more about us is a fun fact.

And the fun fact we had for tonight was favorite music album.

Yeah, I feel like everyone thinks in terms of songs nowadays.

So it's a little tricky on the album side, but 2 that come to mind for me, maybe I don't know if I'm allowed to do 2.

So I guess the number 1 is probably Back in Black from ACDC.

And if I had a second 1, actually, there was Rumors, I think it was called, from Fleetwood Mac.

I don't know if it's my favorite album, but it's the only album I ever actually purchased a physical copy of.

So I feel like I have to say it's my favorite album and that was actually a American idiot from Green Day, which I think was pretty popular at the time.

I had that like the heart the guy with like a heart grenade thing.

So yeah, let's get to some topics for tonight and then we'll get to some of the questions I see here.

So First things first, we had an announcement last week, which was YouTube member milestone chats.

So this is still in the process of rolling out.

If you don't have access to it now, you should have access by the end of next week.

And if you don't know what this is, It is something that has been requested quite a few times, which is just support for on, if someone's a member on your YouTube channel, they basically have the option to say each month to say like, hey, I've been a member for a month or 2 months or a year.

And they can sort of like prompt the host.

And now you'll actually see that notification and be able to like feature them and thank them for it and say like hey Thanks so much for being a member for for so long

Yep, I know I saw Chantel was asking about that.

And yeah, that was something I think we forgot to mention last week was the timing of the rollout.

I think we talked about the feature, but we didn't say when it was gonna be ready.

Should be out to everyone mid this week kind of thing.

And then the question also, and the idea was that it would be included in the starred comments, right?

Yes, so it hasn't rolled out at all for some people right now.

But once it rolls out for you, it will be starred automatically.

And then some of the other announcements, in case you missed them, that were recent.

So a pretty small change, but I think it's quite helpful for when you're doing editing.

So now in the StreamYard editor, after you've done a live stream or a recording, you'll see basically the audio as you do your editing.

So you can find the areas of silence or where something loud happened.

And then the other recent 1 was the YouTube posting, which we launched a few weeks ago.

So whole idea of this 1 and what we'd like to continue doing with the editor is basically make it easier and easier for you to take your content and make it go further.

So if you've done an awesome live stream or a podcast, giving you more ways to take that content and use it in other locations and edit it.

And basically all this is, it allows you to take up to 20 minutes in length videos from your recordings or live streams and post them directly to YouTube.

And then finally, the other recent 1 was the new AI features, which I think most of you have probably heard about, but just in case, we recently launched the background noise removal and the touch up appearance filter.

Do you want, in case people don't know what those are, Dan, do you just want to quickly explain what they are?

And most of them probably hopefully pretty clear from just the banner themselves, but background noise removal, if you do have some background noise, so let's say you're in an airport or you've got a leaf blower in the background, just something making noise, even if it's just really subtle noise, you can turn that on and it will just essentially remove as much of that noise as possible.

Those things, you know, they never work absolutely perfectly, but it's way better than it is with the feature off.

I would say if you have a really high quality audio setup, like if you're in some kind of studio and have a studio quality mic, you're wearing headphones, all this stuff, then you'd probably don't need that on and you probably don't need the echo cancellation feature on either.

But for most people, we're just kind of in, you know, a random environment.

I might have someone like with a lawnmower outside here.

I can turn on background noise removal and it'll remove a lot of that noise, which just makes the experience significantly better.

So, and That's a feature you have to turn on.

So if you're on StreamYard, there's the settings at the bottom, click that audio tab.

You can turn on background noise removal.

And then for touch up filter, it basically is just a way to kind of get rid of any blemishes on your skin or make you hopefully look a little bit better.

I know not everyone likes touch up filters or things like that.

It's not something we turn on automatically, but this one's in the camera settings section.

It will just touch up your skin a little bit.

And I know some of you have already given feedback that you want it to either be a little bit more intense or a little bit less intense.

And if anyone in the chat does have feedback on TouchUp Filter, please let us know which 1 you would prefer.

But we might be adding some kind of secondary setting for that to be able to control just a tiny bit over how sensitive that feature actually is.

I see quite a few questions here, so let's do some of these before we get into 1 of the topics for tonight that I'm excited to ask about.

Question from Christopher says, is where we show user comments on screen dynamic?

So right now, Christopher, it is dynamic in the sense that you can choose between multiple themes.

And themes will slightly change the size and shape of how those comments look.

But you don't have full control over moving it to the front of the screen, to the center of the screen, or something like that.

We are open to doing more when it comes to customization.

1 thing that I've alluded to in the past that we are working on is 1 thing we did not so long ago was custom layouts.

So for a long time, StreamRare just had a set of layouts, and those were what you had to work with.

But we did add the ability now to make your very own dynamic layouts.

And we are continuing to work on functionality that for folks that do want to go deep and really control a lot of different aspects of their stream, let them do it, but still keep things really simple.

And that's sort of part of some of those things that we're working on.

It's definitely possible that we could add some more flexibility there.

Super happy that it's working well for you and your church.

Charlie has a question about being banned on YouTube.

If YouTube, it depends, Charlie, if you just look up on YouTube the exact location where they will give you details about the type of ban you have.

It might just be a warning or a strike, or there's a few different things that it could be.

So depending on what happened, we would decide when you're able to stream again.

Last night was the first time we used on air without a social platform.

Do we have analytics yet for the videos we can share with our sponsors?

So right now we do have quite basic analytics.

So if you have, I don't want to misspeak, I guess, Dan, with some of the latest stuff.

Do you want to talk a little bit about the analytics features?

Yeah, so it is relatively limited right now, but we do at least have a very basic analytics feature, which is that we show you who attended and who registered basically.

So, or you'll get the list of who registered, but then you'll also get a list of who attended.

And it's like very much kind of a binary, did they attend, did they not attend analytics right now?

It doesn't show you watch time or things like that, but we would like to have more analytics over time.

So if all you need to know is who attended, we do have that, but that's it so far.

And if you're, if you've not heard of on air before for folks who are maybe wondering what that is, On Air is basically StreamYard's webinar platform.

So if you're ever interested in doing, say like you built up a great audience on YouTube and you wanna do maybe a private event or a private webinar, StreamYard makes it really easy to use like the same studio you're using for social and do that on your own.

And you can also, if you do want to do it in addition to live platforms and say embedded on your website, in addition to going to YouTube, you can do that as well.

What would you say is the main benefit of using the StreamYard editor as opposed to your typical editor, iMovie, et cetera.

Yeah, so we definitely want to make sure StreamYard works great with all editors, Claire.

So if you want to use iMovie, in fact, with local recording, we've actually made sure that we've integrated with editors that are common to make sure that you can easily use those local recordings.

The area where the SOI editor is nice is it's already there.

So there's no need to download it and have to have it on your computer, taking up storage.

It's just stored in the cloud directly on StreamYard.

And you can make quick edits immediately after the stream is over.

The other 1 is some of the integrations, which I think is probably unique.

I don't think stuff like iMovie generally supports those types of things where we do have the ability to directly create things like shorts and Reels and now the YouTube posting, we're gonna continue going deeper on specifically like the repurposing stuff.

I would definitely say like what we're aiming with the StreamYard editor is to make it quite hands off or sort of like...

Yeah, make it very easy basically compared to iMovie where if you want to control like every aspect of the editing versus StreamYard where we're gonna try to Help you sort of come up with the best parts and come up with what you want to to post is what we're sort of Aiming for

yeah, so ultimately yeah It's quite easy and the speed because you don't have to download it and play around with files.

But yeah, if you wanna go super deep, then you can use more advanced headers or if you're really used to some other program, that's totally fine as well.

Just yeah, you do have to download it, wait to download it and then maybe re-upload it somewhere else afterwards.

Mandy says, any chance you'll make a video format a possibility?

That is something that we do want to support and something that we do plan on supporting in the future.

I don't have an exact date, but we absolutely want to support vertical video formats.

And Mandy, I'd also be curious if you want that for streaming or more so for recording.

You know, for streaming, some people have access to Instagram live, for example, not that many people, but some people want to stream vertically and a lot of people just want to record vertically.

And I see Karen called quite a few questions regarding like the browser and stuff.

Just let you know, maybe you already know Karen, but we do have a 24 7 live chat that's super helpful.

So if you do want someone to sort of walk you through step by step and get you set up with everything you need.

If you just go to streamyard.com slash contact and click the chat in the bottom right, we do have like actual people there who will be able to help you go through every single aspect and send screenshots and pictures and help you with everything.

Like you won't be waiting for hours or anything.

Or even easier way to find it just in the top right corner on StreamYard, just click my account and there's a contact button right there.

I want to make sure we have plenty of time with our guests.

This is 1 that it's been a while since we asked it.

And that is the number 1 thing you'd like to see added to StreamYard or maybe changed with StreamYard.

So We usually ask this, or we should be asking it every few months.

I think it's been a while since we asked it, but we've obviously launched like tons of new functionality and features to StreamYard.

So we are super curious if you had to pick a single thing, like the most important thing to you at this point that you really wish StreamYard had or supported or you could change, like wave a wand and change with StreamYard and you had to just pick 1.

And we'll definitely spend some time, even if we aren't able to get to every single 1, spend some time afterwards going through all of them and writing them down.

So we do appreciate it, even if we don't get a chance to actually read it out loud.

And maybe let's do 1 or 2 more questions before we bring on Duncan for tonight.

Awesome, Chris, Glad you're enjoying the editor.

It's kind of a similar color wall, though, right?

So it almost looks like I just updated my room.

Yeah, I just bought about a hundred things all in 1 week.

Yeah, I'm visiting my family up in Canada right now and their background's a little more exciting than mine.

Coach Sherry says, do you still need green screen to change your background?

If not, I'd love StreamRider to be like Zoom, where you can change your background without green screen.

And yeah, you can see Dan using it right now.

So we launched that along with the, actually, I guess we launched it, I'm thinking of the background noise and touch up filter.

But yes, you can still use the physical green screen.

And if you want to have the best possible edges, that is probably the best bet.

But if you do just want a quick 1, it works great to just use the virtual green screen.

All right, And with that, let's bring on our guest for tonight.

We have Duncan from the engineering team.

So for anyone who's never seen this type of segment on StreamYard Town Hall.

We've been bringing team members from StreamYard onto the show just so you get a chance to not just meet Gage and I but meet everyone else behind the product as well.

So today we've got Duncan from our engineering team.

So I've got several questions for Duncan and then but if you have any questions any of you in the chat have questions for Duncan feel free to ask away and we'll get to those after I ask some questions.

So Duncan first question can you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at StreamYard?

Sure so I'm an engineer at StreamYard working in the studio team.

And what that means is I get to work in the studio, which is what you can mostly see if you're using StreamYard, but I also get to do a lot of the things behind the scenes that kind of power a lot of the things that the studio's doing.

So it's a really interesting space to work in.

I'm in Scotland, which you might have detected by my accent.

I'm in the central belt between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Yeah, it's definitely 1 of the accents that kind of gives it's self away.

I guess you could live somewhere else though.

How long have you been at StreamYard now, Duncan?

So I've been at StreamYard for just over a year and 2 months, just right about there.

Cool, and do you have a favorite StreamYard feature?

There are many features and they are very excellent and fun but probably besides the custom layouts which is really really cool I think the local recordings is a kind of fun kind of area there.

Cool and yeah you've been a big part of that 1 so I'm sure that helps.

Yeah, massive fan of local recordings myself as well.

What did you want to be when you were younger?

When I was younger I didn't really know so much.

I knew it had to do something with computers and I thought maybe in the direction of music or animation But yeah, that's kind of where I was thinking at the time.

And then how did you end up getting into engineering?

So basically, I kind of went in the direction of animation and realized that that's not where my skills lie.

So I realised that I actually had programming skills and went in the direction of game development and that led me to just general software engineering and obviously at that time the web was really growing and emerging as this fantastic new platform.

So I worked for a few companies, small companies and worked my way up and then ended up in the kind of broadcast area.

So I worked for a company called SDV which is the second biggest broadcaster in Scotland and then after a few years there I went to the BBC and realized that you know I really liked broadcast and technology and programming and past all that was going on and I'd always been in and around streaming and live streaming and was really looking for a way to kind of bring those kind of paths together and then I was approached about StreamYard and took a jump and took a leap and was really excited to work here.

your favourite thing about working at StreamYard?

Again, kind of like the album answer, there's 2 things really.

So the general atmosphere, the people at StreamYard, everyone's so experienced and so exciting and so great to work with, and they all have different backgrounds, but everyone's passionate about StreamYard itself and doing what they can to really make it the best product that can be.

And actually just streaming it out itself is the other answer.

The product is a really interesting challenge and technologies to work with.

So it's exactly the space that I wanted to work in and I find it really interesting and exciting.

And how would you answer our fun fat question today?

Yeah, I liked your answers, both of your answers are really good.

For me, I would go for In Rock by Deep Purple.

I was really into Deep Purple growing up so I got most of their albums and saw them live twice which was great.

it hard to even think of albums to some extent nowadays.

A lot of the ones from like 80s, 90s, even early 2000s like Oh yeah I remember having that CD.

Cool, do you have a favorite karaoke song?

Probably a little Respect by Erasure but just for the kind of hilarity of hitting those really high notes just to make sure that you know everyone else can have a good time because I'm just going to be silly and yeah, try and hit those high notes.

I'm quite into my board games, so that was a good question.

Basically the ones that are in my brain constantly at the moment are a game called Root, which is kind of, there's different factions you can play and they all play differently so it's there's a lot of replayability and it's really fun and there's also another game called Moonrakers which is a sort of pseudo co-op where you kind of need to work with other people to try and win but you're trying to win yourself.

But yeah, I could go on for days about board games.

Sweet, so that was all the questions for me, but I'm sure there's some questions in the chat as well.

I've got to find it, but oh yeah, Claire was curious what mic you're using, Duncan.

And Corrine had the same question I had for you before we went live, which is the background that you're using.

It is not a curtain, it's just my wallpaper and not even a virtual background.

It can be made a virtual background on request.

It does look like it could be a virtual background.

And Charlie was curious if you're into any sports and if you have any brothers or sisters.

Yes, I am the youngest of 4 so I'm the forgotten child often.

And sports-wise I am Scottish so it's either going to be football, soccer or rugby, but for me it's rugby.

I grew up playing rugby and really into rugby, but I don't know, I like most sports.

I love climbing, I love outdoor sports as well.

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Ask StreamYard - Live Stream, Record Videos, and Host Webinars! (#238)