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Glossary.md

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Glossary

  • TOC {:toc}

General tips

Most streaming terminology is heavily derived from somewhere else. The Almighty Google knows all, and sees all, and is a wizard, and is probably not even evil.

Words, words, words

... is that all you blighters can do?

Bandwidth

The amount of stuff you're sending or receiving. For a broadcaster, this is generally limited by the quality of your internet connection; try to keep your streaming software limited to no more than about 80% of what your actual internet connection can handle (so if you can handle 5000Kbps, stream at no more than 4000Kbps). See Stream Quality Tips for more info.

FPS / Frame Rate

Frames Per Second. For gamers, it's usually important to have as many as you can get (up to a point), but for streamers, every frame costs you bandwidth (see above). Streaming at 30FPS is usually fine; if your connection struggles to handle your output bandwidth, it may be better to stream a stable and high quality 20FPS than a glitchy 30. Increasing to 60FPS should only be done if you know you can handle it. See Stream Quality Tips for more info.

Latency

The time delay between something happening and it being seen. For streamers, this usually means the time from when you say something to when the viewers see it (or, conversely, the time from when a viewer types something in chat to when the streamer reacts to it).

Operating System (OS)

The thing that runs your computer. It's your OS's job to run the things that you actually care about. Popular operating systems include Mac OS (aka OSX aka macOS), Microsoft Windows, Linux (usually seen in some form of distro eg Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Kali), FreeBSD, iOS, etc, etc, etc.

Your choice of operating system dictates some of the software you can use, but other software ("cross-platform") can be run on many OSes.

Noise

In statistics, "noise" is any variation that has no real meaning. For instance, you might ask OBS to broadcast at approximately 4000Kbps, but your actual bitrate varies from 3915Kbps to 4113Kbps; this is still basically 4000, and the difference is "just noise". Viewer figures changing from 25 to 30 to 22 to 27 is also a whole lot of noise; the figure is basically stable.

Resolution

The number of pixels in the image you're sending. Most viewers aren't going to see anything more than 1080p or even 720p (an HD screen with some room taken away for chat is generally going to leave about 800p at best), and as with FPS, the higher your resolution, the more you have to output. It's better to stream a high quality stable 480p than a glitchy 1080p. See Stream Quality Tips for more info.

Recursion

See: recursion

Transcoding

In a Twitch context, "transcoding" is a feature offered by the Twitch servers to adjust your bandwidth in real-time. It's also sometimes called "quality options" because that's exactly what it gives to your viewers: they can all choose from the available qualities, giving a tradeoff between bandwidth and graphical quality. You, the broadcaster, still need to manage your output bandwidth, but if you stream at 1080p 6000Kbps and have transcoding available, any viewer can choose to view the stream at anything down to even 160p, to relieve the load on their own connections.

If you don't have transcoding available, everyone has to download at the same bandwidth that you are uploading.

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

If a surge protector is a seatbelt, a UPS is a full-on ejector seat. When your power goes out, your UPS will switch to battery power and keep everything going for a while - long enough to cover for a short outage, or to let you cleanly shut down before a longer one. Even without an actual outage, a good UPS will clean your incoming power - industrial loads near you won't be able to hurt your computing equipment. A UPS can significantly extend the life of your PC.

VOD

Short for "Video On Demand", this refers to all forms of pre-published videos. Most commonly, a VOD is a past broadcast, retained for some time automatically and able to be preserved indefinitely as a Highlight. If you missed a glorious moment from your favourite streamer, just nip over and check the VOD! You can even VOD-clip (take clips directly from the VOD), giving extra flexibility.