Any questions or feedback for our founders? Come hang out LIVE with Geige & Dan — they'll answer your questions about StreamYard: a browser-based tool that lets you live stream, record podcasts, and host webinars.

Welcome to episode 261 of the StreamYard Live Town Hall.

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

Yeah, it should be a good week this week.

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.

2 is to answer any of your questions, that's why 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 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 a tool for you.

I see folks from all over the world tonight.

I think I saw the Philippines, Colorina, as usual, from Oklahoma.

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

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

Really fun show if you're looking to grow on YouTube.

Both of them are pros when it comes to all things video and all things YouTube.

But it's fun because they pick out individual channels and give specific advice on how to think about things like your thumbnails, analytics, understand your audience, stuff like that.

And then we have Enhance Your Livestreams the last Tuesday of the month with Nick Nimmin, who also is a pro when it comes to all things video.

So check that 1 out for your specific live streaming questions.

And then 1 thing we've doing at the start of these so that we get to, can't talk, 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 is if you had to pick your favorite sitcom character, who would that be?

I find there's so many specific characters that maybe just appear for a specific episode that are always pretty funny.

I would say my favorite sort of more stable, long-term character is probably George Costanza from Seinfeld.

Of sitcom, Seinfeld was definitely my favorite sitcom.

And George would definitely be up there for me, but I think his dad would probably maybe be tied or number 2.

So Frank Costanza from Seinfeld is quite the memorable character.

All right, let's do a few questions here and then we'll get into the announcement for tonight.

Flames Nation, I see your comment about an issue you're having with backgrounds and overlays.

If you could send an email with maybe a video of what you're experiencing, that would be super helpful.

Or even in the chat as well, because then I will look at it after, just a little bit more description on what exactly is happening there.

Let's see, StillNixFans says, a Question, will there ever be a way for us to filter the chat in our live streams so we can see all the comments from a specific user?

Yeah, like ability to click someone and see all of the comments they've made.

That's definitely something we'll think about.

We definitely want to continue improving the chat in general and making it easier to surface relevant content.

But yeah, I definitely could see how, you know, if there's a particular user you want to see maybe a history of everything they've said.

Yeah, and I'd also just be curious what the main reason is for wanting to do that, like why you want to filter for 1 user.

Just because it's possible there might be multiple ways for us to solve whatever kind of the underlying problem is for you.

All right, let's see what else there was here.

Packard says, has streamer gotten their play button for hitting 100K?

Yeah, thank you all for being part of that.

Let's see, Peter G says, hey, as glad as I am about getting to go live on Instagram, please let us know when it gets as easy as all the other platforms.

Right now it's a start, but not there yet.

Yes, we absolutely want it to be easier and we're giving Instagram and Facebook that feedback.

Unfortunately, we've tried to do everything we can with what's available to us to make it as easy as possible, but There's a lot of limitations that make it difficult for us to make it super, super smooth.

But yeah, we'll absolutely let folks know as if and when things get easier.

And I'm optimistic they will get easier because we're definitely trying to pass that feedback along.

It's very exciting that This is kind of the first time they've allowed anyone to stream to Instagram from outside of Instagram.

So Huge step forward I would say but totally with you that it is quite a process compared to the other ones We're trying to make it as easy as we possibly can but there's obviously a lot of limitations on Instagram's end But hopefully not for long.

Absolutely Let's do a couple more here and then get into the announcements.

Troy says, could there be a way to incorporate the chat from a Discord channel?

So right now there is, There's definitely not a straightforward way to do it.

Like there's no direct Instagram integration with, with, with discord, but integrating with more with stuff like Discord or just giving a little bit more flexibility when it comes to doing custom integrations in general is something that we're open to.

But as of right now, I mean, Discord would be great for like getting feedback before the show starts, like having a place for people to share ideas or questions beforehand, and then you'd be able to incorporate them in the show with stuff like banners.

But in terms of automatically getting it into the show, there's not a direct integration in the same way we have with things like YouTube and Facebook at this time.

And 1 more here, and then we'll do the announcement and get back to some questions.

Scientology says, question, can we automatically star certain users' comments?

Right now, starring is manual, so you have to select the star itself, unless there is the feature, actually, Dan, for Super Chats, where you can opt to have them automatically starred, right?

So, yes, by default, super chats are automatically starred.

Super chats, super stickers, new memberships on YouTube, stuff like that.

Those are the only things that are automatically starred.

There's no feature right now where you can choose to automatically start a certain person's comments, but useful feedback and it makes sense.

I can see if you have like a kind of hardcore user or something like a really loyal fan, you wanna make sure that you see all their messages.

So yeah, I'd be open to adding something like that.

See, there's lots of other questions here.

We'll get back to the questions in just a second, but I want to make sure we have plenty of time for some of the fun new stuff we had for tonight with the big 1 being Portrait Studio.

Definitely have gotten feedback for a long time that folks were interested in having the ability to not always go 16 by 9, but also have the option when it made sense to go in the sort of mobile format of portrait.

And we've got a video showing off exactly how it works.

Anything to mention beforehand, Dan, or should we say that play the video and then talk a little bit more about it after that?

Yeah, let's play the video and then we can answer some questions and maybe add a bit more detail.

You can now stream or record in vertical format, also known as portrait mode or 9 by 16.

We recommend it if Instagram is the main platform that you care about.

To enable portrait mode, head to the studio, click settings, click general, then click to enable portrait mode.

Portrait mode turns the studio output into a vertical video.

You may want to upload portrait graphics and videos or brand assets that are 9 by 16 format.

If so, consider creating a new brand to keep these assets separate.

There are a few unique things about streaming in portrait mode.

In portrait mode, your comments, banners, and tickers will show up at the top instead of the bottom.

This is so that they won't be covered up if your audience is watching you from an app, like the Instagram app.

We optimized all the layouts for portrait streaming.

You can even screen share on portrait mode.

It looks best if you resize your browser to be a vertical format like this.

Try portrait mode today, available on all plans.

So yeah, we're definitely excited about the addition.

It's still in the process of rolling out, but everyone should have access if you don't already have access sometime mid next week, right Dan?

Quite a few of you will already have access.

Some of you have already probably used it yourself.

So yeah, it's in the process basically of rolling out in the next few days, I would say, everybody should have access and you'll get an announcement modal on your dashboard at some point as well.

Like we mentioned, if you have any specific questions, let us know.

Maybe a few things that are worth covering.

So this is available on all plans, free plan, everything you can use portrait streaming.

In terms of how it behaves on different platforms and when you might actually want to use this, I would say if you care first and foremost about Instagram, you should probably use Portrait Studio because everything on Instagram is in portrait.

And instead of getting kind of the blur, if you've streamed Instagram, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Instead of the blur effect you get now where you have like a 16 by 9 video and then we blur the top and bottom.

So if you care about Instagram most, I would use it.

And that could even be if you're multi streaming.

So you can actually stream in portrait to all the platforms.

So if you're on say, say you stream to maybe stream to Instagram and YouTube and someone's watching on YouTube on their phone, they'll also see it in portrait mode.

Same with Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn, X, every single 1 of them, it looks like it's optimized for portrait and looks nice if someone is watching on their phone.

So I wouldn't worry too much about, like if you wanna stream first and foremost about Instagram, you care about Instagram most, I wouldn't worry too much that the other platforms won't work.

The thing you will get though is, I mean, obviously if you're on YouTube a lot, you'll notice that pretty much every video is landscape.

You would have a portrait 1 on YouTube as well.

So that's where, you know, you'd only wanna do that if you care more about Instagram than YouTube, for example.

I basically just consider what platform you care about the most, but whether you're in a landscape or portrait, all the platforms will work.

And like Dan mentioned, if someone is watching on the phone from YouTube and they choose to full screen it, they will get that sort of native feel experience of it being in portrait mode.

Yep, and then of course you can also record.

So if you care maybe about creating some shorts or something like that and you're not even, forget streaming, you just wanna do some recordings, you can totally record in portrait as well.

So yeah, if you guys, if anyone's had the chance to test it out and has feedback, we'd love to hear it.

Or just thoughts or feedback in general or requests in the future, definitely let us know.

I see there's already quite a few questions here.

Yeah, I see 1 here, some similar ones, 1 from Chantel.

I think the same question from Junktror, asking if the ability to go some in portrait, some in landscape.

So it's something that we're definitely open to in the first version, you have to pick either landscape or portrait.

Like Dan said, the nice thing is, regardless of which format you're going live to, the platforms do a relatively good job supporting it.

So even if you are streaming in vertical mode to X or YouTube, if someone's watching on mobile, they will be able to watch it in that vertical mode.

The downside is for folks that like a place like YouTube, where a lot of folks might be watching, or maybe not, I don't know what the exact ratio is, but if for folks that are watching on their computer, they're going to be seeing a vertical video, obviously.

1 thing I would say as well, where it gets a little tricky with portrait.

So for example, if you have a background or an overlay or something that's highly optimized, well for landscape, then it's not necessarily gonna work as well on portrait.

So if you really care about portrait, I wouldn't recommend uploading overlays and backgrounds that are optimized for portrait.

That also kind of gets to your point, Chantel, that's partly why we're not doing it the way you mentioned for now, is it just gets complex with things like overlays and backgrounds where you kind of need to have multiple versions of everything.

Our example assets, so like these, you know, like we're using the green, whichever side it's on, the green video background that's included on StreamYard.

Stuff like that is actually already optimized.

So when you switch to portrait, it will just look like it's optimized for portrait already.

It's just for overlays and backgrounds, video clips that you've uploaded.

We'll kind of crop them or move them in different ways to try and make them work.

But if you really care about portrait, I'd recommend actually uploading optimized ones.

And a lot of cases you'll wanna just create a new brand for that to maybe have your landscape assets in 1 brand and then portrait ones in another brand.

And Brad, I see your feedback there with some extra context on the MP4 background overlay feedback.

Petty Talks TV says, is the portrait mode best for mobile watchers?

So on most platforms like YouTube, for example, if you're watching on mobile, you can very easily watch 15 by 9.

And in some ways that is the preferred experience for a lot of folks.

So it's not necessarily the best, it kind of depends on the platform you're streaming to.

Yeah, I would say in general for Instagram, If you care most about Instagram, I would stream in portrait.

If you care more about any of the other platforms, I would stream in landscape.

I see a couple of questions, 1 from Michael Daniels asking about recording versus live and another 1 from Veronica going live versus recording.

So you can do both in portrait mode, right Dan, whether it's a recording or a live stream.

Let's see, Michael Daniels says, "'Question, If we live stream from the computer, can we screen share?

If so, do we have to be cautious of the sides of the screen sharing not showing?

So we basically, it's similar to how it works in the browser, where we kind of fill up as much space as possible.

So what I would actually recommend if you're streaming or recording in portrait, I would have your screen be close to portrait because then that will kind of use the space as good as possible.

Whereas if you screen share like your full monitor and landscape, we'll shrink it down so that it fits and everything's shown, but then it's gonna be pretty small.

And all these people are watching mobile, not necessarily ideal.

Dana actually mentioned that briefly in the video too.

So for example, if you're screen sharing a tab and you want it to show really well, you can kind of shrink it all the way down.

So it's portrait and then it will fill up the space really well.

Chris from budgeting just because says, can I convert clips from my landscape stream to portrait mode?

We will automatically do it for you on all the ones you already have.

Like basically if you've already uploaded a landscape video clip, and then you go into portrait mode and you just play it, we will automatically kind of play it however we think is probably best, which in this case, I think we just have black bars on the top and bottom, and then just play the video in the middle, which for most video clips is actually what you want.

You'll have a video clip in the middle, works nicely.

If it's a background, we basically kind of blow it up and cut the sides off and just sort of center it, which works for most backgrounds.

Most backgrounds are just kind of a pattern or something.

So it doesn't really matter that the sides get cropped off.

So you'll see that just most of the stuff you've uploaded will just kind of work pretty well.

But again, if you want to really optimize it for portrait, you may wanna make a separate portrait 1.

Cool, El Cosco says, I recently purchased your membership.

Is it possible to stream a prerecorded session and continue with a live Q&A session?

In the Present tab, you'll have the option to basically share videos directly from your computer.

So that's 1 popular way to do it, especially if you're sharing a longer video, is to use the Present option to play that throughout the live stream.

And the nice thing about doing it in that way is that you'll have the option to do anything at any time, whether that's showing comments on screen or after the pre-recorded video is over to do something like Q&A where you actually pop onto the screen yourself.

If you are using the pre-recorded option where you actually upload the entire video beforehand, like specifically the prerecorded feature.

And that 1, it's sort of designed for folks that maybe they're on vacation or they're going to be offline, and they just want this to go off entirely without them.

That doesn't have the option to do a live Q&A, since it's sort of meant to be like you're not even there.

But you can do what you're saying just using the studio itself.

Uni says, I'm new to StreamYard and I've been using it on desktop but wondering if I'm able to use it on mobile.

Yes, you absolutely can use it on mobile, just from the browser of your mobile device.

And you'll have access to the vast majority of StreamYard's features.

So yeah, I'd encourage you to try it out, maybe do an unlisted YouTube video to get a sense of, or just a recording to get a sense of everything you can do from the mobile version.

And recently, we did actually launch an app as well.

The first version of the app is specifically designed for the guest experience, but we are working on a producer mode as well.

Mike G Music says, when I invited a guest in for a recorded private podcast, their audio was coming through my monitor speakers.

Is there no way to hear them in my headphones?

You absolutely should be able to hear them in your headphones, Mike G.

It's probably just some combination of making sure you have the right speaker set in StreamYard.

I would guess that's the issue, but if you're not even seeing the speaker in StreamYard, it might have to do with just your audio settings on the computer itself.

But if you go to streamyard.com slash contact, we have 24 7 live chat, and they'd be happy to help you troubleshoot and figure out how to make sure it's going to the right place.

Yeah, First thing just to try is enter the studio, click your settings button, and in the audio tab you'll see there's the mic selection and then speaker.

There's a little button you can play just to hear what it sounds like.

Make sure to see basically which speaker it's coming through.

Just click that and see which 1 it's coming through.

If it's coming through your monitor, then you should be able to just change your speaker right there.

Ross says, when you have a guest in portrait, is it top and bottom video windows versus side by side?

Yes, when you have 1 guest, you'll be stacked on top of each other, but we also have various layouts to choose from the same way that you have when you're going 16 by 9.

So you'll be able to select various layouts.

Yeah, there's an option that looks very similar to what Gage and I are like now where you're side by side and kind of small.

There's 1 where you're on top of each other.

There's basically an equivalent of every layout that we have on Studio.

We don't support custom layouts right this second, but we probably will within a week or 2.

Question from Marianne says, for dark mode, I ask, I recently changed my monitor position, so a glare on my glasses of light mode is not optimal.

I think I saw another question here asking if dark mode would ever come.

Yeah, dark mode absolutely will come at some point.

Brad says, is there an easier way to add pictures on screen?

Currently converting JPEGs to MP4s and adding through present.

So 1 is sometimes people just upload them as overlays.

So in your brand tab, you can upload overlay images.

The other 1 that's really common, if say you want to kind of do a slideshow with 20 different images and click through them, 1 way that works pretty well is if you just put them into a Google slide deck or a PowerPoint deck, and then you just share that PowerPoint deck on StreamYard and then you can kind of seamlessly just click through them.

We would like to make that process a little simpler so you don't have to kind of do that extra step.

But a lot of people like to do that, especially if you're showing 50 images or something, that's a pretty simple way to do it.

I just realized I missed this question from before the stream started from EBM scholars, who asked, when are you going to allow registrants on the webinars to pay?

At the moment, we have to have free webinars or find other ways for people to pay.

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Ask StreamYard - New Feature To Stream & Record Vertically (#261)