How does one get into streaming/recording?

[WhiteTigerShiro]

So I've been thinking about streaming on Twitch, or otherwise just recording my play sessions. Thing is, I know nothing of the field. Twitch might as well be written in Greek for how well I can figure out how to stream via their site; and FRAPs is the only recording program I know of, but I've heard that it's kinda out-dated these days and that there are better programs for the job now. Anyone have some advice and/or a link I can check out that could help me?

 

[CritialGaming]

Depends on what you want to do.

Streaming is probably the easiest thing to get into because you can turn it on and just go. X-split is the biggest streaming program that I know of, but you can google for others. You need just a streaming program, an audio mixing program (google for them) and a decent headset and mic.

Recording videos for something like Youtube is a bit more of a hassle. You need all the programs I mentioned above, plus Video editing software like Adobe premiere, capturing programs like Fraps plus at least one other back up program. Then you need an idea. What do you want to do with your channel, what kind of videos are you going to make.

The same goes for streaming, but I feel like streaming is a bit more lax. Although your limited to the games you can play on Twitch. Not that you can't play anything you want, but if you ever want to get a following you are certainly going to have to start by playing games that have some sort of twitch audience. You want people to stumble across you playing a game that they know, bring people in with some sort of familiarity and build a following through that. Then you can expand.

 

[Saelune]

Well, technically its one of those things you just do. As for the actual nuts and bolts of it, that's less simple. I know, for console gaming anyways, Elgato is how most capture their gameplay.

Audio and editing software is far more varied, which is probably why its the harder part. Plus as someone who is a novice dabbler in editing...it literally hurts my head learning it. Feels awesome when I actually figure something out, but audio synching I just cant get down right.

 

[Bad Jim]

If you have a half decent (660 and up) NVidia card you'll find a nifty feature in your drivers called ShadowPlay. It records and compresses your gameplay in MP4 format using dedicated hardware (there's a chip on the card just for this) so you can get a decent quality, reasonably small file with minimal effect on performance.

You can also stream to Twitch.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Depends on what you want to do.

Streaming is probably the easiest thing to get into because you can turn it on and just go. X-split is the biggest streaming program that I know of, but you can google for others. You need just a streaming program, an audio mixing program (google for them) and a decent headset and mic.

Recording videos for something like Youtube is a bit more of a hassle. You need all the programs I mentioned above, plus Video editing software like Adobe premiere, capturing programs like Fraps plus at least one other back up program. Then you need an idea. What do you want to do with your channel, what kind of videos are you going to make.

The same goes for streaming, but I feel like streaming is a bit more lax. Although your limited to the games you can play on Twitch. Not that you can't play anything you want, but if you ever want to get a following you are certainly going to have to start by playing games that have some sort of twitch audience. You want people to stumble across you playing a game that they know, bring people in with some sort of familiarity and build a following through that. Then you can expand.

Surely there are games where showing footage streaming will bring the lawyer brigade in to ban or claim your revenue, I was under the impression Nintendo was really bad for it.