00:00SPEAKER- Hey Brad, I think we should do a podcast together.
00:02SPEAKER- Oh dude, really?
00:03SPEAKERFinally, I thought you would never ask.
00:04SPEAKERI mean, I was such a fan of everything you guys did
00:06SPEAKERat Tested and like, it was so awesome
00:08SPEAKERwhen we would just like hang out
00:09SPEAKERin the whiskey media basement and talk tech all the time.
00:11SPEAKERAnd it was like, man,
00:12SPEAKERwhat if people could hear these conversations?
00:14SPEAKERWhat if we actually finally did a real podcast together
00:16SPEAKERand put it out into the world,
00:18SPEAKERwhich we've never done before at all?
00:20SPEAKER- Clearly.
00:21SPEAKER- Let's try it, finally.
00:22SPEAKER- I've been a fan for such a long time
00:24SPEAKERand like, I can't believe we've never had this idea before.
00:27SPEAKERWe never thought to do this,
00:28SPEAKERbut I really think we should do it,
00:30SPEAKERbut I kind of don't know what,
00:31SPEAKERlike, what do you think we should talk about?
00:34SPEAKER- Well, I spend most of my time in a bash prompt these days,
00:39SPEAKERevery chance I get.
00:40SPEAKERWhat do you think about shell scripts, maybe?
00:43SPEAKER- Seems a little narrow.
00:45SPEAKER- Compiling software?
00:46SPEAKER- I mean, maybe I think you've honed in
00:51SPEAKERon one incredibly small focused aspect of a larger pod.
00:56SPEAKER- How about every possible topic
01:00SPEAKERrelated to open source software,
01:01SPEAKERlarge and small on the planet?
01:03SPEAKER- So you're saying a pod cast
01:07SPEAKERabout free and open source software.
01:10SPEAKER- Yeah, I think there's something there.
01:12SPEAKER- Perhaps a FOSS pod?
01:14SPEAKER- Well, now you're just being ridiculous.
01:16SPEAKER- So, you know, I have interesting news for you, Brad.
01:20SPEAKER- The podcast is already in your feed.
01:22SPEAKER- Oh my God, that's where the last two weeks went.
01:24SPEAKERThat's what we've been doing.
01:25SPEAKER- So yeah, we're making a new,
01:27SPEAKERwe are, this is a spinoff, I guess.
01:30SPEAKER- Yes, spinoff is the word that's been in my head
01:32SPEAKERfor this podcast.
01:32SPEAKERA compliments, this is complimentary
01:34SPEAKERto the flagship tech pod.
01:37SPEAKER- Yes, of the large content town empire.
01:40SPEAKER- Yes, the USS tech pod.
01:43SPEAKER- So yeah, we're launching a new podcast.
01:45SPEAKERIt's actually already out.
01:47SPEAKERWe just didn't tell anybody
01:48SPEAKERuntil we announced it here, really.
01:50SPEAKER- Yes.
01:51SPEAKER- But it's called the FOSS pod
01:52SPEAKERand it's presented by Brad and Will.
01:55SPEAKERThat's us.
01:56SPEAKER- Yes.
01:57SPEAKER- And we are doing it because we realized that A,
02:02SPEAKERit's one of our favorite kind of sub-genres
02:05SPEAKERof tech pod episode.
02:06SPEAKER- Like, I mean, yes.
02:07SPEAKERAnybody who hangs out on our discord knows how much time
02:09SPEAKERI spend tinkering with open source projects
02:11SPEAKERand generally living in that world as much as I can.
02:15SPEAKER- Well, but also the other thing we've realized
02:17SPEAKERwhen we started talking about this
02:18SPEAKERis that there are a ton of open source,
02:21SPEAKERthere's a ton of open source content
02:23SPEAKERand people talking about enterprise open source software,
02:26SPEAKERbut there's hardly anybody that focuses on stuff
02:29SPEAKERfor normal people.
02:30SPEAKER- Yeah, there's not a lot of coverage of things
02:32SPEAKERthat normal people can take advantage of
02:33SPEAKERin the open source world,
02:34SPEAKERbut there are tons of things that people can take advantage
02:36SPEAKERof in the open source world.
02:37SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
02:38SPEAKERLike there's tons of projects all over GitHub
02:40SPEAKERand other repositories,
02:42SPEAKERjust sitting there waiting for you to compile them
02:44SPEAKERand make your life a little bit.
02:45SPEAKER- Yeah, from like all the way,
02:47SPEAKERstarting from like the script that makes my MIDI interface
02:50SPEAKERinto a controller for my digital mixer,
02:53SPEAKERwhich is like a few hundred lines of Python code
02:55SPEAKERthat I downloaded from GitHub,
02:56SPEAKERall the way up to like industry changing software,
02:59SPEAKERlike the open broadcaster software and, you know.
03:04SPEAKER- Oh, you mean OBS?
03:05SPEAKER- OBS, you know, I'm using one right now.
03:09SPEAKERI'm recording in Audacity right now.
03:11SPEAKERWe use, we touch open source software all the time.
03:14SPEAKERIt's incredibly important to normal people
03:17SPEAKERand from things like Home Assistant and TrueNAS
03:20SPEAKERall the way down to, you know, I don't know, Firefox?
03:25SPEAKER- How about, how about OwnTone?
03:27SPEAKERThe little in-house music server I use to replace iTunes,
03:30SPEAKERformerly known as Forked D-A-A-P-D.
03:33SPEAKER- Oh, I think the new name is better,
03:35SPEAKERbut I think they still have some work to do there.
03:36SPEAKERAnyway, so we are going to do a new podcast.
03:39SPEAKERIt happens every other week,
03:40SPEAKERwhich is either biweekly or bimonthly.
03:42SPEAKERI'm never quite sure, maybe semi-weekly.
03:45SPEAKER- Biweekly.
03:45SPEAKER- Semi-weekly would be twice a week, which.
03:47SPEAKER- That's too much.
03:48SPEAKERAre you ready for them to sign up for a twice a week podcast?
03:50SPEAKER- Give me a couple of,
03:51SPEAKERwe need about 25 people to make that happen,
03:55SPEAKERbut we're going to do it every other week.
03:56SPEAKERWe have a bunch of episodes planned.
03:59SPEAKERWe would love to know topics
04:01SPEAKERthat you all would find interesting.
04:02SPEAKER- Yes, for sure.
04:03SPEAKER- And we're also looking for people to come in
04:06SPEAKERand be the third chair for us.
04:07SPEAKERSo if you know somebody
04:08SPEAKERwho you think would be a good third seat on the podcast,
04:11SPEAKERwe're going to get you to post in the Discord
04:13SPEAKERand we'll have some new channels set up in the Discord.
04:15SPEAKERFor FOSPOD folks, very soon.
04:19SPEAKER- Also, I don't know if we mentioned
04:20SPEAKERit's the first episode is attached to this recording.
04:22SPEAKER- Yeah, you're listening to it right now.
04:24SPEAKERSo without further ado,
04:26SPEAKERhere is the very first episode
04:28SPEAKERof Brad and Will Present the FOSPOD.
04:32SPEAKER- Hang on, do I play the tech pod music
04:34SPEAKERto intro the FOSPOD?
04:35SPEAKER- I think we just, I think, wow.
04:38SPEAKERI don't even know.
04:39SPEAKER- I'll make that decision in post.
04:40SPEAKER- I'm going to make, here I'll.
04:42SPEAKER♪ Boop dee doo boop boop bop dee bop bop bop ♪
04:45SPEAKER♪ Boop boop boop boop boop ♪
04:47SPEAKER♪ Ah ♪
04:50SPEAKERWelcome to the FOSPOD, the first episode of the FOSPOD.
04:54SPEAKERI'm Will.
04:55SPEAKER- I'm Brad.
04:56SPEAKER- Hello, Brad.
04:57SPEAKER- Hi, Will.
04:58SPEAKER- I think we might want to start by introducing ourselves.
05:00SPEAKER- It's probably a good way to start a new podcast, yes.
05:03SPEAKER- We're co-hosts of Brad and Will Made a Tech Pod,
05:06SPEAKERa show we started a little bit more than two years ago
05:08SPEAKERas a way to do a single topic technology podcast every week.
05:12SPEAKERAnd in the process of doing that,
05:15SPEAKERwe found out that we talked a lot about open source software
05:17SPEAKERand we're really interested in open source software.
05:19SPEAKER- Yeah, I think it's kind of unavoidable these days, right?
05:21SPEAKERLike it is at the root of so much
05:23SPEAKERof what makes the internet go,
05:25SPEAKERbut also as a consumer and end user, I guess I would say,
05:28SPEAKERnot as a developer,
05:29SPEAKERnot as somebody who writes open source code,
05:30SPEAKERbut as somebody who likes to stream music
05:33SPEAKERand play video games and run video game servers
05:35SPEAKERfor my friends and things like that, you know.
05:37SPEAKERIt's very empowering to get your head around this stuff
05:39SPEAKERand see what's out there and realize that like,
05:41SPEAKERhey, I don't have to be a developer to make use
05:43SPEAKERof a lot of the cool open source stuff that's available.
05:46SPEAKERThe list goes on and on and on of cool things you can do
05:49SPEAKERaround the house and like online with your friends.
05:52SPEAKERIf you've got just kind of a basic working knowledge,
05:55SPEAKERyou know, it's felt really satisfying
05:56SPEAKERto understand it and use it.
05:57SPEAKERLike, I think we kind of wanted to share that passion,
06:01SPEAKERthat joy and satisfaction with the rest of the world.
06:04SPEAKER- Okay, so we spent a lot of time
06:05SPEAKERtalking about open source software.
06:07SPEAKERWe realized there's a ton of media out there
06:09SPEAKERabout open source in the enterprise.
06:11SPEAKERThere's not a lot of people talking
06:13SPEAKERabout consumer focused open source projects.
06:15SPEAKERSo things like Home Assistant or the Mr. Project
06:17SPEAKERor the Open Broadcaster software, perhaps.
06:22SPEAKER- Yes.
06:22SPEAKER- We started talking about the show
06:24SPEAKERand we were introduced to the folks
06:26SPEAKERat Google's Open Source Software Group,
06:28SPEAKERwhere their tagline is bringing all the value
06:30SPEAKERof open source to Google and all the resources
06:32SPEAKERof Google to open source, which is a very broad mandate.
06:34SPEAKER- It really is.
06:35SPEAKER- We found out that we shared a lot of things in common
06:38SPEAKERand they decided to sponsor the show.
06:39SPEAKERSo this show is brought to you
06:40SPEAKERby Google's Open Source Software.
06:42SPEAKERAnd yeah, you can find out more about them
06:44SPEAKERat opensource.google.
06:46SPEAKERThings you can expect every other week from the show.
06:48SPEAKERWe're gonna talk to folks who make open source software.
06:50SPEAKERWe're gonna talk to maintainers.
06:52SPEAKERWe're gonna talk to the people who write code
06:53SPEAKERand the people who do this kind of behind the scenes work
06:56SPEAKERon the software that makes the internet work
06:58SPEAKERand the software that makes a lot of the hardware
07:01SPEAKERand software that we all use every day works.
07:03SPEAKERWe're also gonna kind of dive in
07:04SPEAKERand do some hands-on stuff.
07:06SPEAKERSo we're gonna get our hands dirty
07:08SPEAKERand use some of these projects that we've talked about
07:10SPEAKERon the tech pod before, but also that we use
07:12SPEAKERon the day-to-day and share why we're excited about them
07:15SPEAKERand what we use them for and things like that.
07:17SPEAKER- Yeah, you know, like I just,
07:18SPEAKERI feel very passionate about open source, honestly.
07:20SPEAKERI mean, like there's the day-to-day aspect
07:22SPEAKERof like, you know, there's a lot of things
07:23SPEAKERyou can benefit from personally by using this stuff,
07:25SPEAKERbut also just philosophically, I feel like in a world
07:29SPEAKERwhere increasingly everything is driven by profit motive,
07:32SPEAKERlike I kind of want to just dig into this world of people
07:34SPEAKERthat are working more as a collective, you know,
07:36SPEAKERlike in this collaborationist sort of spirits
07:38SPEAKERof just doing cool work and putting it out into the world,
07:41SPEAKERyou know, and building on each other, you know,
07:43SPEAKERstanding on each other's shoulders.
07:44SPEAKERLike there is such a kind of inspiring spirit
07:47SPEAKERto the open source community and philosophy to me
07:50SPEAKERthat I really wanted to dig into
07:52SPEAKERand kind of understand what drives that.
07:54SPEAKERAnd like you said, by talking to some of the people
07:56SPEAKERbehind some of the biggest open source projects out there,
07:58SPEAKERlike I hope we can start to uncover some of those answers.
08:01SPEAKER- So that's it, that's the show.
08:03SPEAKEROur first episode is about OBS,
08:05SPEAKERthe Open Broadcaster Software.
08:06SPEAKERWe're gonna sit down and we're gonna talk to the maintainer,
08:08SPEAKERJim Bailey, who's been doing this
08:10SPEAKERsince the very beginning, 10 years ago.
08:12SPEAKERAnd I guess we should probably start the music
08:14SPEAKERso the show starts.
08:15SPEAKER- Hey, let's do a podcast.
08:17SPEAKER(upbeat music)
08:35SPEAKER(upbeat music)
08:37SPEAKER- What is OBS?
08:40SPEAKER- Well, Will, I'm glad you asked.
08:41SPEAKER(Will laughs)
08:42SPEAKER- I mean, but it's complicated, right?
08:44SPEAKERThere's a perception that OBS is a tool for streamers.
08:47SPEAKERIt's a thing that you use if you wanna stream Call of Duty
08:50SPEAKERon Twitch to your legions of adoring fans,
08:53SPEAKERyou need to get this thing
08:54SPEAKERand you need to get a bunch of overlays
08:55SPEAKERand all these flashy lights
08:57SPEAKERand things that make fart noises
08:58SPEAKERand all sorts of other stuff.
09:00SPEAKERBut in reality, it's a lot more,
09:02SPEAKERand it's much more of a consumer focused application,
09:05SPEAKERespecially post-pandemic than it was before.
09:09SPEAKER- Right, I mean, it's not wrong
09:11SPEAKERthat it is absolutely the thing you use
09:13SPEAKERto stream Call of Duty to Twitch,
09:14SPEAKERbut it does do a lot more than that.
09:16SPEAKERLike it has a lot of applications
09:17SPEAKERoutside of streaming video games.
09:18SPEAKERIt can handle so many different types of video
09:20SPEAKERand audio ins and outs.
09:21SPEAKERLike it has a lot of versatility
09:23SPEAKERthat I think people who just use it to stream games
09:25SPEAKERmaybe have not entirely gotten their heads around.
09:28SPEAKER- Well, and the trick with live mixed video,
09:30SPEAKERwhich is what, OBS is a video mixer.
09:32SPEAKERIt does other stuff too.
09:34SPEAKERBut at the end of the day,
09:35SPEAKERthe reason you use a live mix process
09:37SPEAKERis so that you can make a video,
09:39SPEAKERa piece of video content that you are producing
09:41SPEAKERlook like something that was edited in a video editor,
09:44SPEAKERlike Premiere, but do it live.
09:46SPEAKERYou can use it to put, like to switch camera angles
09:49SPEAKERor to put those bottom thirds on that say,
09:51SPEAKER"Hey, this is Brad Shoemaker of the FOSS pod,"
09:54SPEAKERwhen somebody's headshots on, stuff like that.
09:57SPEAKERThe interesting thing to me about this
09:59SPEAKERis that you and I started streaming and doing video game,
10:02SPEAKERlike live stream with video games and podcasts
10:04SPEAKERin the like late 2000s, right?
10:06SPEAKER- Yes, probably about 15 years ago was,
10:09SPEAKERI worked at GameSpot ages and ages ago
10:11SPEAKERand turnkey streaming solutions did not exist at that time.
10:15SPEAKER- No, our streaming solution when we were working together
10:17SPEAKERin 2010 was 150 or $200,000 worth of PC hardware
10:23SPEAKERand video capture stuff and H.264 hardware encoders
10:27SPEAKERthat had a bunch of proprietary closed source software
10:30SPEAKERon them and it was still kind of all cobbled together
10:34SPEAKERand that was the cheap way to do it, right?
10:36SPEAKERLike we spent as little money as possible.
10:39SPEAKERIf you wanted to do it the real way with air quotes,
10:42SPEAKERthat was a couple mil easy to set that stuff up
10:44SPEAKERin 2010 or 2009.
10:46SPEAKER- Right, and even for the bargain basement price
10:48SPEAKERof like 100 grand, you know, it was still,
10:50SPEAKERit was a lot of heavy, rugged metal boxes,
10:52SPEAKERit was SDI cables, like it was stuff
10:54SPEAKERthat the average person has never heard of
10:56SPEAKERand probably has no interest in hearing about
10:57SPEAKERbecause it's not that relevant to them
10:59SPEAKERoutside of this one specific application of streaming.
11:01SPEAKERHonestly, I think that's another reason
11:03SPEAKERthat OBS is a great way to kick the show off
11:05SPEAKERis that like that's kind of been the role
11:07SPEAKERof open source software in a lot of cases
11:08SPEAKERis to democratize things that originally were out of reach
11:12SPEAKERof the average person by delivering this like smaller,
11:14SPEAKERmore focused, more freely available version
11:17SPEAKERand it like, it is honestly just straight up astonishing
11:20SPEAKERto me a decade later where we're at in terms
11:22SPEAKERof how much this one piece of software
11:24SPEAKERlets a single person do that it took a studio of people
11:27SPEAKERand all that gear to do just like 10 years ago.
11:30SPEAKER- Well, and so you might say, but wait,
11:32SPEAKERI can stream to Twitch or YouTube or whatever
11:35SPEAKERfrom an app on my phone, I don't need OBS anymore.
11:37SPEAKERBut it turns out there's a path that content creators
11:41SPEAKERtend to follow where they start out by streaming
11:43SPEAKERfrom their Xbox or their PlayStation
11:45SPEAKERusing the app that's built into the platform
11:47SPEAKERor they use one of the tools that comes with Windows
11:49SPEAKERor with their video card driver or something like that.
11:51SPEAKERBut then they reach a certain point
11:52SPEAKERand they realize that they need more functionality
11:54SPEAKERand more access to the low level hardware stuff
11:57SPEAKERwhere they want higher frame rates
11:59SPEAKERor better image quality or whatever.
12:00SPEAKERAnd that's when OBS comes into play still.
12:02SPEAKERIt's the market leader in this space for a reason.
12:05SPEAKERIt's because everybody uses it from the person
12:09SPEAKERthat has literally nobody watching them
12:10SPEAKERon their third time stream all the way up to somebody
12:14SPEAKERwho has 50 or 60,000 people watching them
12:16SPEAKERon the front page of Twitch.
12:18SPEAKERAnd none of that would have happened without OBS
12:21SPEAKERand the software that spawned off the ecosystem
12:23SPEAKERthat grew up around OBS.
12:25SPEAKER- We'll talk about this more later.
12:26SPEAKERBut even at the time when OBS came out,
12:28SPEAKERthe streaming solutions you could get your hands on
12:30SPEAKERat the consumer level still came with either
12:33SPEAKERpretty hefty single purchase fees
12:35SPEAKERor ongoing subscription prices.
12:37SPEAKERI mean, there were still barriers to entry
12:39SPEAKERto getting into the space that the average person
12:41SPEAKERwho just wants to try it out,
12:42SPEAKERprobably were not going to try to surmount, right?
12:45SPEAKER- I think that's as good a place as any
12:46SPEAKERto jump into our conversation with Jim Bailey,
12:48SPEAKERwho started OBS almost 10 years ago now
12:52SPEAKERand has been maintaining the code ever since.
12:54SPEAKERYou know, it's grown from a little project
12:55SPEAKERthat as far as I can tell started when he posted on Reddit
12:59SPEAKERthat he wanted, he built this piece of software
13:01SPEAKERto stream him playing Starcraft, I think.
13:03SPEAKER- It is a piece of history.
13:04SPEAKERIt's right there in the Wikipedia footnotes,
13:06SPEAKERthe post on Reddit that survives to this day
13:09SPEAKERwhere he said like, "Hey, I wanted to stream
13:10SPEAKER"StarCraft better, so I made my own software to do it."
13:15SPEAKER- Back in those days, I pretty much just loved
13:18SPEAKERwatching Starcraft, loved playing Starcraft.
13:20SPEAKERI kind of wanted to stream it myself,
13:22SPEAKERbut there were a lot of hurdles he had to go through
13:24SPEAKERto be able to do that, so I was just,
13:27SPEAKERI already enjoyed programming a lot.
13:29SPEAKERI've been a programmer since I was like eight years old,
13:32SPEAKERso I just pretty much program tools
13:35SPEAKERthat I want to make for myself, so I started working on it.
13:39SPEAKERI was just bored, I was jobless,
13:42SPEAKERand it just kind of exploded after I announced it.
13:45SPEAKEREverybody jumped on it, and I started meeting new people
13:48SPEAKERinstantly and started learning so much from everybody.
13:51SPEAKERIt was pretty crazy.
13:53SPEAKERI wasn't really expecting it, and to be honest,
13:56SPEAKERI wasn't really aware of the streaming situation in general.
14:02SPEAKERIt was just pretty much primarily focused
14:04SPEAKERon justin.tv back then with people streaming Starcraft,
14:08SPEAKERand that's where my mindset was, so I had no idea
14:12SPEAKERwhat I was getting myself into or what other software
14:16SPEAKERwas out there.
14:17SPEAKERI eventually learned there was professional software
14:19SPEAKERlike Wirecast out there that, yeah,
14:23SPEAKERit was pretty crazy to learn about the industry
14:26SPEAKERand get involved in it, just at the drop of that.
14:29SPEAKER- Was there ever a question in your mind
14:31SPEAKERwhen you kind of had the creative spark that you were like,
14:33SPEAKER"Hey, I'm gonna make my own streaming software
14:35SPEAKER"because this needs to exist."
14:37SPEAKERWas there ever a doubt in your mind
14:38SPEAKERthat it would be an open source project?
14:40SPEAKERDid you ever even consider keeping it closed,
14:42SPEAKERor was that just kind of part of the mission statement
14:44SPEAKERfrom moment one?
14:45SPEAKER- It was pretty much a mission statement from moment one.
14:48SPEAKERI loved open source software, and I loved free
14:52SPEAKERopen source software in particular, GPL software,
14:55SPEAKERbecause it just kind of enforces the software to be free,
14:59SPEAKERand if everybody uses it, they need to have access
15:02SPEAKERto the source code and need to be able to have that freedom
15:05SPEAKERto be able to do what they want with it,
15:08SPEAKERand that was something that I found really appealing.
15:10SPEAKERI didn't know how popular it would become,
15:15SPEAKERbut I did have a feeling that it might be something
15:20SPEAKERthat could turn my life around just a little bit,
15:23SPEAKERand it certainly did.
15:25SPEAKER- What changed, so you said you were unemployed
15:27SPEAKERwhen you wrote OBS, and at what point did you look up
15:31SPEAKERand you were like, "Oh, wow, I can't,"
15:32SPEAKERat what point did you start working on this,
15:34SPEAKERI mean, I guess you were kind of working on it
15:35SPEAKERfull-time from the beginning,
15:37SPEAKERbut what was your moment that you realized,
15:39SPEAKER"Oh, this software I wrote to stream some StarCraft maybe
15:42SPEAKER"is going to make a significant change to my life
15:45SPEAKER"and my path going forward."
15:47SPEAKER- When people started paying me money for it,
15:50SPEAKERI started getting contracts from companies
15:53SPEAKERand things like that, so many different parties
15:56SPEAKERwere interested in it, not just the users,
15:59SPEAKERand once I started actually making money,
16:03SPEAKERI realized, okay, this is actually it.
16:06SPEAKERI finally managed to get myself out of my terrible situation.
16:11SPEAKER- How long did that take?
16:12SPEAKERI mean, we're coming up on basically 10 years,
16:14SPEAKERa decade of OBS at this point.
16:16SPEAKERHow long did it take before you started earning some money
16:19SPEAKERand the thought occurred to you like,
16:21SPEAKER"Oh, this could be my full-time job."
16:22SPEAKERWas that a long period of years?
16:24SPEAKERWere there lean times at the beginning,
16:26SPEAKERa lot of ramen, that kind of situation?
16:28SPEAKER- Well, I started getting opportunities
16:31SPEAKERwithin the first few months after the first release.
16:35SPEAKERI was very, very happy about it,
16:37SPEAKERand I'm pretty sure I cried.
16:39SPEAKERI wasn't sure if it would keep going or not,
16:42SPEAKERbecause that's just something I was afraid of constantly.
16:46SPEAKERIt's like year by year, I was like,
16:47SPEAKER"Is this really gonna keep continuing,
16:49SPEAKER"or is it just gonna end?"
16:52SPEAKERI'd have moments where like, "This is it.
16:54SPEAKER"It's over, it's done."
16:56SPEAKERBecause when you're contracted with companies,
17:00SPEAKERsometimes they'll forget to pay you,
17:02SPEAKERor that they have some issue with their paying process,
17:05SPEAKERand you just don't get that payment,
17:08SPEAKERand you're just sitting there thinking,
17:10SPEAKER"This is it.
17:11SPEAKER"I guess this is over.
17:12SPEAKER"I guess I had a good run,
17:14SPEAKER"but I guess I'm going back to the situation
17:17SPEAKER"I was already in."
17:18SPEAKERBut 10 years later, it's just like,
17:21SPEAKER"Here we are, and I'm actually able
17:24SPEAKER"to pay multiple people to work on the project."
17:27SPEAKERSo it was this constant fear
17:30SPEAKERthat I had to just ride through every second of it
17:33SPEAKERuntil there was this point to where it was like,
17:36SPEAKER"Okay, we're earning enough money
17:38SPEAKER"to where we can pay multiple people."
17:41SPEAKERAnd that's when I started kind of relaxing.
17:44SPEAKERIt's like, "Well, I guess it's fine.
17:47SPEAKER"We have multiple sponsors now.
17:49SPEAKER"I guess I don't really have anything
17:50SPEAKER"to be worried about anymore."
17:52SPEAKER- I have to imagine there was a moment at some point
17:54SPEAKERwhere you looked up and looked around
17:55SPEAKERat what else was out there and realized,
17:57SPEAKER"Oh, hey, we went from being the scrappy,
18:00SPEAKER"open source underdog to being the market leader
18:03SPEAKER"in this new and exploding space."
18:05SPEAKERAnd that had to be a really amazing feeling too.
18:08SPEAKER- I think the most amazing thing for me
18:11SPEAKERwas just the wonderful people I met
18:13SPEAKERand the wonderful team that I've created somehow or another.
18:17SPEAKEROr that it's not really so much that I created it,
18:19SPEAKERbut it kind of created itself.
18:22SPEAKERAnd it wasn't really so much me.
18:25SPEAKERIt was just the wonderful people that I met
18:27SPEAKERthat really just drove the software
18:30SPEAKERto be what it is today, in my humble opinion, at least.
18:33SPEAKER- I feel like the communities around things
18:36SPEAKERlike open source software and the communities
18:39SPEAKERthat the internet spawns tend to form up around people
18:44SPEAKERbased on their ethos and behavior.
18:47SPEAKERAnd I think you have to take a little bit of credit for that,
18:51SPEAKERbut surrounding yourself with good people
18:54SPEAKERis definitely important on something like this,
18:57SPEAKERof course.
18:58SPEAKER- Yeah, these days, I'm not the one writing most code.
19:01SPEAKERI'm mostly just merging other people's code.
19:03SPEAKERSo it's definitely shifted.
19:05SPEAKERI definitely caught the ball rolling.
19:09SPEAKERAnd I learned so much.
19:12SPEAKERIt was absolutely incredible.
19:13SPEAKERJust all the people that I met.
19:15SPEAKERAnd it wasn't just that I learned so much,
19:18SPEAKERbut it was also like meeting people who knew more than me.
19:20SPEAKERAnd I would just follow their lead and things like that.
19:26SPEAKER- So now you might be thinking,
19:29SPEAKER"Wow, I should probably install OBS.
19:30SPEAKERIt seems like a really useful piece of software."
19:32SPEAKER- Get ready to open the can of worms.
19:34SPEAKER- Look, we've both done this a fair amount.
19:36SPEAKERWhile it is an incredibly powerful piece of software
19:38SPEAKERand the evolution of the UI and user experiences
19:41SPEAKERhas come a long way over the last 10 years,
19:44SPEAKERit's still a little intense when you start out.
19:47SPEAKER- Yeah, if you've got experience in broadcast
19:49SPEAKERor video editing or whatever,
19:51SPEAKERa lot of these concepts are gonna be pretty familiar to you.
19:52SPEAKERBut if you've never done video switching live
19:55SPEAKERand that sort of thing, some of the conceptual stuff
19:57SPEAKERis maybe a lot to get your head around.
19:58SPEAKER- Well, yeah, and most of us aren't used to thinking
20:00SPEAKERabout video as something that can be manipulated in this way.
20:02SPEAKERYou think about being able to edit video to chop up,
20:05SPEAKERto make cuts in video and switch from one cut to another,
20:08SPEAKERone take to another or whatever.
20:09SPEAKERBut you don't think about being able to do that live
20:12SPEAKERon the fly and OBS lets you do that.
20:15SPEAKERIt's an incredibly powerful tool in that regard.
20:18SPEAKERNow it uses some words, some lingo
20:21SPEAKERto describe the different things that are available to you
20:24SPEAKERinside the application.
20:25SPEAKER- Some jargon, some terms of art.
20:27SPEAKER- Exactly, so let's start at the very beginning
20:30SPEAKERwith sources, a source is basically any,
20:33SPEAKERthat's the smallest chunk of content
20:36SPEAKERyou can put on the scene.
20:37SPEAKERIt's anything you can put on the screen from another video,
20:41SPEAKERsomething that you pull off of your computer,
20:42SPEAKERlike your main display from your computer,
20:46SPEAKERa video capture device, like a camera or a capture card.
20:49SPEAKERIt can also be a way like text overlay on the screen.
20:51SPEAKERIt can be a webpage like there is Chromium is built into OBS.
20:55SPEAKERSo you can just render a webpage right there
20:57SPEAKERin the middle of your scene.
20:59SPEAKERImages, you can pull other streams into your stream,
21:01SPEAKERinto your, as a source, if you do it right,
21:04SPEAKERit's a little complicated,
21:05SPEAKERbut you can drop a network address to another stream
21:07SPEAKERand then stream that stream into your stream as you stream.
21:10SPEAKER- So you can stream while you're streaming?
21:12SPEAKER- It's a stream ception, okay, we have to move on.
21:16SPEAKER- Okay, so scenes are collections of sources.
21:19SPEAKERSo you have your sources are the lowest item of the chain,
21:24SPEAKERscenes are collections of those.
21:26SPEAKERAnd if you think about like in the context of say
21:28SPEAKERan interview show where you have a person doing an interview
21:32SPEAKERtalking to somebody else, you switch back and forth
21:35SPEAKERbetween those two camera viewpoints
21:37SPEAKERand that's switching between scenes.
21:40SPEAKERSo you set up each scene to have all the elements
21:41SPEAKERyou wanna have in that scene,
21:43SPEAKERand then you can flip flop back and forth
21:45SPEAKERbetween them really easily.
21:46SPEAKER- Which I think is the funnest thing
21:48SPEAKERabout streaming personally, I mean, that's just me,
21:50SPEAKERbut like managing all these different scenes
21:53SPEAKERand like you can cue up the next scene, you know,
21:55SPEAKERwithout it actually going out live on the stream
21:57SPEAKERand then just kind of toggle back and forth.
21:59SPEAKERLike it's very powerful for letting you kind of chain stuff
22:01SPEAKERtogether, like cue stuff up and have it ready to switch
22:04SPEAKERlike that interplay of kind of like,
22:07SPEAKERit's almost like this sort of puppet master thing
22:10SPEAKERof like switching and, you know, it's very entertaining.
22:14SPEAKER- It's fun, yeah, it's fun to do the work on those setups.
22:18SPEAKER- Most streamers, it turns out, use one scene.
22:21SPEAKER- Really?
22:22SPEAKER- Like they just have the one with their picture
22:23SPEAKERof their headshot in the video game
22:24SPEAKERand then they never touch it, it turns out.
22:26SPEAKER- So that's the joy of streaming to be used really,
22:28SPEAKERkind of masterminding that stuff, but.
22:30SPEAKER- Well, okay, so then we have projectors.
22:32SPEAKERProjectors are things that can be tied to sources or scenes.
22:35SPEAKERSo it's like the output of that scene
22:36SPEAKERand you can put it on another monitor
22:38SPEAKERif you wanna use like two or three, you know,
22:40SPEAKERchain a bunch of computers together with capture cards
22:42SPEAKERand HDMI outputs, you can put one projector on the output
22:45SPEAKERand pick it up as a capture device on the next machine
22:48SPEAKERand like there are DJs and artists on Twitch
22:52SPEAKERwho do all sorts of amazing video glitch art
22:55SPEAKERby just hooking up bazillions of computers
22:58SPEAKERand motion capture and all sorts of crazy stuff.
23:01SPEAKERYou can also, these aren't exactly projectors,
23:04SPEAKERbut you can also embed scenes as sources in other scenes.
23:08SPEAKER- Okay.
23:09SPEAKER- So like you can take a scene that has, for example,
23:12SPEAKERthe bottom third that introduces your show
23:15SPEAKERand you can use that as a source that you can flip on
23:17SPEAKERwhen you wanna like come back from a break or whatever
23:20SPEAKERat any given moment.
23:21SPEAKERSo that means you don't have to have that resource
23:23SPEAKERin every single scene.
23:25SPEAKERYou just build it once and then you dump it into the scene
23:29SPEAKERand it displays based on the rules that you set up
23:31SPEAKERin the first scene, which is kind of cool.
23:32SPEAKER- You can end up with some extremely complicated
23:34SPEAKERkind of hierarchical arrangements of scenes and sources
23:37SPEAKERand projectors that kind of nested inside of each other.
23:40SPEAKERI mean, and I think that can kind of be endless, right?
23:43SPEAKERLike you can sort of just nest and build and stack things
23:46SPEAKERas long as you want.
23:47SPEAKER- It seems like it's limited by memory
23:48SPEAKERand the power of your machine.
23:51SPEAKERBut if you're willing to hook up multiple machines,
23:52SPEAKERyou can do anything.
23:53SPEAKERIt's kind of like when the Beatles wanted 16 track
23:56SPEAKERaudio recordings, but only had four track recorders.
23:58SPEAKERSo they just used four four track recorders
24:00SPEAKERand I guess life found a way, I don't know.
24:05SPEAKERThere's also scene collections,
24:06SPEAKERwhich are unsurprisingly collections of scenes.
24:09SPEAKERIt's a way for you to say you have one set of art
24:12SPEAKERand one set of scenes for your talk show,
24:15SPEAKERdifferent set of scenes for a video game show.
24:18SPEAKERYou can easily switch back and forth between those.
24:19SPEAKERSo you only have to load the scenes
24:21SPEAKERthat you're gonna use at any given time.
24:23SPEAKERAnd then profiles are the settings for OBS.
24:27SPEAKERSo it's stuff like your recording format
24:29SPEAKERand which services you're outputting to
24:31SPEAKERand hotkeys and all that kind of stuff
24:34SPEAKERgets saved in your profiles.
24:36SPEAKERAnd that'll let you change between, for example,
24:38SPEAKERif you want to record at 4K or stream at 1080p,
24:41SPEAKERyou can set up a profile for each of those
24:43SPEAKERand switch between them relatively easily.
24:44SPEAKER- Yeah, if you're not familiar with OBS,
24:46SPEAKERthis probably sounds like a lot of heady terminology
24:48SPEAKERand conceptual stuff,
24:49SPEAKERbut it's one of the things I found
24:51SPEAKERover the course of this interview
24:52SPEAKERis that I think Jim is aware of that.
24:54SPEAKERIt sounds like there is kind of a tension here of like,
24:57SPEAKERI mean, it's an amazingly extensible program.
24:59SPEAKERIt can do an incredible amount of stuff
25:00SPEAKERif you kind of bend it to your will,
25:02SPEAKERbut you get the sense that he really has to think hard
25:05SPEAKERabout how do I expose all of this
25:07SPEAKERridiculously complex functionality to people
25:09SPEAKERwithout just completely overwhelming them,
25:11SPEAKERwith UI and concepts all over the place.
25:14SPEAKER(upbeat music)
25:15SPEAKER- It's funny 'cause in the time
25:17SPEAKERsince I've started using OBS,
25:20SPEAKERlike streaming has gone from a thing
25:22SPEAKERthat nobody understood and thought was strange
25:24SPEAKERand a weird fringe use of computers in video games
25:28SPEAKERto a super mainstream thing
25:29SPEAKERthat like my nine-year-old daughter's friends were all like,
25:33SPEAKERI want to be a streamer when I grow up.
25:34SPEAKERAnd it's been an amazing transformation
25:37SPEAKERover this last 10 years.
25:38SPEAKERI think it's probably in no small part
25:40SPEAKERdue to software like OBS.
25:42SPEAKERYou know, things that are readily available
25:43SPEAKERand that everybody can download
25:45SPEAKERand do this on their computer at home.
25:47SPEAKER- It's kind of crazy.
25:48SPEAKERMost of the users are actually young people.
25:50SPEAKERSo many people want to become content creators.
25:53SPEAKERAnd I remember reading an article that said that kids,
25:59SPEAKERtheir most desired professions these days
26:01SPEAKERare to become YouTubers or streamers.
26:04SPEAKERIt's pretty nuts, it's pretty nuts.
26:06SPEAKER- What does it feel like being the project maintainer
26:08SPEAKERof something that is at this point,
26:09SPEAKERlike such a bedrock piece of the kind of internet ecosystem?
26:13SPEAKERI mean, is there a lot of pressure associated with that
26:15SPEAKERbeing this kind of like, you know,
26:16SPEAKERlike you're pretty low on the Jenga tower
26:18SPEAKERof internet technologies at this point, right?
26:20SPEAKERLike, does that cause a lot of stress for you
26:22SPEAKERor is it just kind of a put on blinders
26:24SPEAKERand just focus on making good software?
26:26SPEAKER- A little bit of both.
26:27SPEAKERSometimes it can be a lot of pressure
26:29SPEAKERand sometimes I just kind of get into the zone
26:33SPEAKERand you know, I've been doing this for so long now.
26:36SPEAKERIt's been almost 10 years, it's crazy.
26:38SPEAKERAnd it just keeps going, I don't know.
26:41SPEAKERTechnologies keep evolving and it just keeps,
26:44SPEAKERpeople keep needing new features
26:46SPEAKERand companies keep needing new modifications,
26:50SPEAKERnew codecs coming out all the time.
26:52SPEAKERAnd it's, I have like three or four companies right now
26:55SPEAKERthat are just like vying for my attention constantly
26:58SPEAKERand it can be a little bit overwhelming
27:01SPEAKERbut somehow we're managing to do it.
27:04SPEAKERAnd currently I'm the only main maintainer
27:08SPEAKERso it can be a little bit overwhelming.
27:11SPEAKERThe reason why that is is because
27:13SPEAKERgetting really high skilled people
27:16SPEAKERthat are experienced enough
27:17SPEAKERto be able to handle maintaining,
27:20SPEAKERespecially for a project like this
27:22SPEAKERwhere you know, you have to have like video, graphics,
27:25SPEAKERaudio knowledge, encoding knowledge,
27:28SPEAKERit's extremely difficult.
27:29SPEAKERSo often what happens is everything gets funneled
27:34SPEAKERthrough myself.
27:35SPEAKERSo the project moves a lot slower than I would prefer
27:39SPEAKERbut we've been making some adjustments recently
27:41SPEAKERand it's been much better
27:44SPEAKERbut there's still some things
27:46SPEAKERthat I wish we could do better.
27:49SPEAKER- I mean, it's kind of an innovator's dilemma situation,
27:51SPEAKERright?
27:52SPEAKERTypically the generalist that's able to, you know,
27:54SPEAKERthe person who's enough of a generalist
27:55SPEAKERto be able to get something started
27:57SPEAKERmaybe isn't necessarily the right person
28:00SPEAKERto be a specialist when you get to a point
28:01SPEAKERthat you need a specialist working on the software.
28:05SPEAKERHow did you find, did you find that
28:06SPEAKERto be a transition point for you
28:07SPEAKERor was that a, was that it just kind of worked itself out
28:10SPEAKERas you were going on,
28:11SPEAKERyou had the job of maintaining the project
28:14SPEAKERand keeping the community cohesive
28:17SPEAKERand working together and stuff like that?
28:19SPEAKER- I still have trouble finding specialists.
28:22SPEAKERTo be honest, most of the people
28:24SPEAKERwho have joined the project
28:25SPEAKERand have become some of the best contributors
28:28SPEAKERare people who were kind of in my same situation.
28:32SPEAKERWe didn't really know what we were getting into.
28:34SPEAKERWe didn't really have the experience when we started
28:38SPEAKERand we just kind of learned as we went
28:40SPEAKERand there were a few people that were like amazingly good,
28:44SPEAKERyou know, these amazingly good programmers
28:47SPEAKERwould come and go, you know, as they please.
28:50SPEAKERThat's usually how it goes.
28:51SPEAKERUsually the really good programmers
28:53SPEAKERalready have like high paying jobs,
28:56SPEAKERespecially in this industry
28:57SPEAKERbecause I mean it's a video, audio, graphics, encoding
29:01SPEAKERand this stuff is incredibly complicated.
29:04SPEAKERSo if you get like a good programmer,
29:05SPEAKERit's guaranteed that those programmers
29:08SPEAKERare going to be somewhere in some industry out there
29:12SPEAKERprobably working in San Francisco
29:13SPEAKERmaking hundreds of Gs per year, so.
29:18SPEAKER- If you can't compete on financial terms for talent,
29:21SPEAKERis there kind of a philosophical appeal you can make
29:23SPEAKERto people?
29:24SPEAKERI mean, do you find there's like a certain personality
29:26SPEAKERthat enjoys open source as a way of working
29:28SPEAKERand as a philosophy and it's kind of,
29:30SPEAKERobviously you've got sponsorship, you know,
29:32SPEAKERyou can support yourself working on this project full time,
29:35SPEAKERbut there's still, is there still kind of an essence
29:37SPEAKERof like giving back to the world, to the community,
29:39SPEAKERto share open code and to make this freely available product
29:42SPEAKERlike that kind of attracts certain people?
29:45SPEAKER- I think those sort of people,
29:48SPEAKERit depends on their interests.
29:49SPEAKERSometimes they come around, you know,
29:52SPEAKERbecause they're interested in the project
29:54SPEAKERand they'll contribute, you know, their little pieces.
29:57SPEAKERLike I've got one programmer who is incredibly talented,
30:01SPEAKERbut I could never hope to hire him
30:03SPEAKERwith our budget unfortunately,
30:05SPEAKERbut he's in the game industry and he enjoys like streaming
30:09SPEAKERand being able to record his content
30:12SPEAKERand having the software be really high quality
30:15SPEAKERis really important to him.
30:17SPEAKERYou know, he likes like color precision, you know,
30:19SPEAKERhe likes making sure that the software
30:21SPEAKERhas a really good performance so it doesn't interfere
30:24SPEAKERwith whatever he's working on, you know,
30:27SPEAKERwhatever game that he's making.
30:29SPEAKERSo we have like regular contributors like that
30:31SPEAKERand sometimes I can, you know,
30:33SPEAKERcontract them to do like certain jobs.
30:35SPEAKERSo I have been able to get some of them
30:38SPEAKERto be able to help out from time to time,
30:42SPEAKERbut yeah, it's kind of funny.
30:45SPEAKERWe make a quite a fair amount of income
30:49SPEAKERto be able to afford paying multiple people,
30:52SPEAKERbut we still don't have that sort of income
30:55SPEAKERthat we would need to be able to hire
30:56SPEAKERthis specific sort of talent that we really, really need.
31:00SPEAKERLike that sort of individual to be able to do
31:02SPEAKERthe sort of work that we really need,
31:04SPEAKERwhich is particularly maintaining.
31:07SPEAKERMaintaining is incredibly difficult
31:10SPEAKERbecause you have to be very experienced
31:13SPEAKERand you have to know like the ins and outs
31:16SPEAKERof not just the software itself,
31:18SPEAKERbut you know, the systems that the software use.
31:21SPEAKERSo if you're doing encoding, if you're doing graphics,
31:24SPEAKERyou have to have like specializations
31:25SPEAKERin all these different areas
31:27SPEAKERand those sort of people are incredibly hard to come by.
31:30SPEAKERYou know, it's like I wish that I could
31:32SPEAKERhire those sort of people.
31:33SPEAKERIt's just funny because we make
31:35SPEAKERsuch a fair amount of money,
31:37SPEAKERyet we're still like quite a bit below the income level
31:42SPEAKERthat we would need to be able to hire
31:44SPEAKERthose sort of people full time.
31:46SPEAKERAnd it's kind of a funny situation to be in.
31:50SPEAKER- I think anybody who hires engineers on the reg
31:52SPEAKERfeels that same pain, Jim.
31:56SPEAKERDo like some of your corporate sponsors
31:57SPEAKERprovide engineering support as well?
31:59SPEAKERLike do you have corporations that are like,
32:01SPEAKERhey, we're gonna give you an engineer
32:02SPEAKERto work on whatever feature X that we want supported
32:05SPEAKERif you all will integrate it?
32:06SPEAKERIs that a thing that happens or not so much?
32:08SPEAKER- Sometimes, yeah.
32:10SPEAKERI'd say it happens at least around half the time.
32:13SPEAKERThey definitely do try to help out
32:15SPEAKERthe best that they can, usually.
32:17SPEAKER- What's the code review process like for something like that?
32:20SPEAKERIs it just like you get somebody in to take a look
32:22SPEAKERat who has the same basic competency
32:25SPEAKERor is it just try it and see what works?
32:29SPEAKER- Code review, that's a topic in and of itself.
32:34SPEAKEROne example that I can think of is, you know,
32:36SPEAKERthere's a big pull request coming up
32:38SPEAKERfrom one of our sponsors, you know,
32:40SPEAKERbecause they really want this specific feature
32:43SPEAKERand, you know, it's gonna be like tens of thousands
32:46SPEAKERof lines long and it's pretty nuts.
32:49SPEAKERSo I basically had to hire somebody else
32:53SPEAKERto help me out with that
32:54SPEAKERand to be able to properly review that.
32:56SPEAKERAnd it's going to be very expensive
33:00SPEAKERbut it was just so much beyond my own capability
33:04SPEAKERthat I just had no choice in the matter to do that there.
33:07SPEAKER- Usually I can get through it myself.
33:10SPEAKERJust depends like on what the changes are
33:13SPEAKERand if it's like a 10,000 line plus code review,
33:18SPEAKERthen usually what happens is it just ends up
33:22SPEAKERkind of sitting there for sometimes months
33:25SPEAKERjust because it's so difficult to get through those.
33:28SPEAKERIt's incredibly difficult.
33:29SPEAKER- I'm really curious about the dynamics
33:31SPEAKERof corporate sponsorship of an open source,
33:34SPEAKERthe free and open source project.
33:36SPEAKERYou mentioned that some of your corporate sponsors,
33:38SPEAKERyou know, you've got some pretty prominent ones
33:40SPEAKERas far as the streaming context.
33:42SPEAKERTwitch, YouTube, Facebook, Logitech and video,
33:44SPEAKERyou've got all listed on your website.
33:46SPEAKERYou mentioned that they will make
33:47SPEAKERkind of feature requests of you
33:48SPEAKERbut how involved are they in your day to day
33:51SPEAKERand the direction of the project?
33:53SPEAKERLike is there a give and take?
33:54SPEAKERLike do they share their, I assume their product roadmaps
33:57SPEAKERwith you to some extent to help guide, you know,
33:59SPEAKERthe direction of the project from that direction?
34:01SPEAKERHow hands-on are they?
34:03SPEAKER- For some of them we have biweekly meetings
34:07SPEAKERor monthly or quarterly meetings.
34:10SPEAKERNow some of them are very hands-off.
34:12SPEAKERSome of them are just happy that the project exists
34:15SPEAKERand want to fund it to keep it existing
34:17SPEAKERbecause it, you know, benefits their user base.
34:19SPEAKERSo sometimes you get lucky like that
34:21SPEAKERand you just get like a sponsor who is just like,
34:25SPEAKERhey, keep doing what you're doing, you know,
34:27SPEAKERand just kind of throws their hat into the pool.
34:30SPEAKERAnd sometimes you get ones that want like weekly
34:34SPEAKERand biweekly involvement and you know,
34:37SPEAKERjust to meet up and sync and things like that.
34:40SPEAKERSo I'd say it's another one of those situations
34:43SPEAKERwhere it's about half and half.
34:45SPEAKER- How do you prioritize new features?
34:46SPEAKERLike I'm curious, like what your,
34:48SPEAKERdo you have a thought process
34:50SPEAKERthat you go through for everything
34:51SPEAKERor do you kind of take it on a case by case basis
34:53SPEAKERor is there like a collection period
34:56SPEAKERwhere you talk to the different involved parties
34:57SPEAKERand users and feedback from the different community areas
35:01SPEAKERthat you have?
35:02SPEAKER- Well, I have a team that helps out with that
35:06SPEAKERand we all decide collectively what needs to be worked on
35:12SPEAKERand what, you know, can be put on the back burner
35:15SPEAKERand things like that.
35:16SPEAKER- Are there common paths for people
35:17SPEAKERwho want to become contributors to OBS?
35:20SPEAKERLike, is it come in and, you know,
35:23SPEAKERdo some pull requests and write some code
35:24SPEAKERand then, you know, more and more and more
35:26SPEAKERand then all of a sudden you're working full time
35:28SPEAKERon the project or is it a little more amorphous than that?
35:31SPEAKER- The best way to become a contributor is,
35:34SPEAKERit's firstly to get involved with the community,
35:36SPEAKERyou know, see what we're doing, see what's up,
35:38SPEAKERmake comments, you know.
35:41SPEAKERIf you feel like you're experienced with something,
35:43SPEAKERyou know, you can take a look at stuff
35:45SPEAKERand see if anything can be improved
35:47SPEAKERor if you have some particular interest,
35:49SPEAKERyou can make a pull request
35:51SPEAKERfor something you're interested in.
35:54SPEAKERMost of the time, when a contributor comes around,
35:57SPEAKERthey're usually trying to add a feature
35:59SPEAKERthat they're specifically interested in,
36:01SPEAKERwhich is usually fine, but we would generally prefer it
36:04SPEAKERif you're going to write stuff
36:07SPEAKERthat it's going to benefit the majority of the users
36:10SPEAKERrather than, you know, some specific niche use case,
36:13SPEAKERyou know, there are always little things like that
36:14SPEAKERthat help out a lot.
36:16SPEAKERYeah, just getting involved in the community,
36:18SPEAKERbeing proactive, especially being positive, you know,
36:21SPEAKERwe really value our contributors, you know,
36:26SPEAKERbeing upstanding people and things like that,
36:29SPEAKERpatient, all the good things that you would expect from,
36:32SPEAKERyou know, just a mature individual.
36:34SPEAKER- Good at giving and receiving feedback,
36:36SPEAKERworking for the team, all of the usual things
36:38SPEAKERthat you want in a coworker or a teammate, right?
36:41SPEAKER- Uh-huh.
36:42SPEAKER- At the start of the pandemic, you all rolled out,
36:44SPEAKERthe virtual camera support suddenly became
36:47SPEAKERa really prominent feature
36:49SPEAKERand I think helped a bunch of people.
36:51SPEAKERAnd I was, it seems like it took you one step closer
36:53SPEAKERto being like a pure consumer product
36:56SPEAKERrather than a content creator product,
36:58SPEAKERwhich I thought was really interesting.
37:00SPEAKER- I remember when the pandemic started,
37:02SPEAKERpretty much our entire team was like,
37:06SPEAKERwe need this like right now, it's super important.
37:10SPEAKERSo I basically had to stop everything I was doing.
37:13SPEAKERI went through our current plugins, you know,
37:17SPEAKERbecause there were plugins that supported it,
37:20SPEAKERbut the problem was that I didn't really like
37:22SPEAKERhow they were handling it.
37:24SPEAKERThere was a massive delay.
37:25SPEAKERThere was like multiple hundreds of milliseconds.
37:28SPEAKERI was like, no, this isn't gonna be acceptable
37:30SPEAKERfor like real time communication.
37:31SPEAKERSo I had to, I went over the code
37:34SPEAKERand I had to figure out how to get it
37:38SPEAKERas low latency as possible.
37:39SPEAKERI nailed it down to about one or two frames maximum latency.
37:46SPEAKERAnd after that, I was like, okay, this should be good.
37:50SPEAKERAnd then, you know, inevitably people were asking,
37:52SPEAKERyou know, for virtual audio support, you know,
37:55SPEAKERaudio output from OBS into their programs.
37:58SPEAKERAnd that was, I was like, no, that's not gonna happen.
38:01SPEAKERSo, but at least the virtual video
38:05SPEAKERended up being a complete success.
38:08SPEAKERAnd yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one.
38:10SPEAKERI actually had to work on that one myself
38:12SPEAKERjust because it was just such a pressing issue.
38:15SPEAKERSo I basically stopped everything I was doing,
38:17SPEAKEReverything I was reviewing,
38:19SPEAKERand I started hammering it out, you know, until it was done.
38:27SPEAKER- Let's make Jim talk about adding
38:28SPEAKERthe virtual camera support really kind of exemplifies
38:31SPEAKERone of the things I love so much
38:33SPEAKERabout the kind of open source movements
38:34SPEAKERand community and philosophy,
38:35SPEAKERwhich is that it's a bunch of people doing the work,
38:38SPEAKERI think largely because they love it, right?
38:40SPEAKERAnd they want it to be the best it can be, you know?
38:42SPEAKERI mean, he talks about like the plugins
38:44SPEAKERthat were out there for that feature
38:45SPEAKERwere at a, you know, a hundred milliseconds of latency,
38:47SPEAKERwhich is just not acceptable, which A, he's right about,
38:49SPEAKERbut B, he put the work in to get that latency
38:51SPEAKERdown to basically nothing.
38:52SPEAKERNow, like a frame or two of latency
38:54SPEAKERmight as well not exist.
38:56SPEAKERAnd that's what I get out of a lot of the open source
38:58SPEAKERprojects that I touch is that the people that are doing them
39:00SPEAKERare doing it primarily because they love good software,
39:04SPEAKERbecause they want to add functionality to the world
39:06SPEAKERby writing good software that they kind of enjoy
39:09SPEAKERthe pursuit of perfection, at least as it is defined
39:12SPEAKERwithin the scope of the little project that they're doing.
39:14SPEAKERYou know what I mean?
39:15SPEAKERLike he put the work in to make that thing
39:17SPEAKERas good as it could be in this project
39:19SPEAKERthat exists on the sponsorship and goodwill
39:22SPEAKERof a few companies and end users, right?
39:24SPEAKER- Well, and that's the thing.
39:25SPEAKERLike this started as Jim wanting to stream StarCraft in 2012.
39:31SPEAKERHe built the software, he built this team.
39:35SPEAKERLike he's a really sweet, unassuming guy
39:38SPEAKERwho just likes talking about the tool that he makes,
39:41SPEAKERthat he's making, and it's really hard to remember
39:44SPEAKERthat he's in charge of this software
39:45SPEAKERthat's kind of a juggernaut
39:47SPEAKERin this exploding industry right now.
39:50SPEAKERSo, and at the same time as all that,
39:53SPEAKERwhile OBS is really, really important
39:55SPEAKERand is helping drive this whole thing forward,
39:58SPEAKERyou know, you look at what's happening on Twitch
40:00SPEAKERand on YouTube gaming and YouTube live streaming
40:03SPEAKERand Facebook gaming and all the other places
40:05SPEAKERaround the world that games are streamed
40:07SPEAKERand people are live streaming with OBS,
40:10SPEAKERit's still really underfunded compared
40:12SPEAKERto what a commercial product of similar scale would be.
40:15SPEAKER- Yeah, it's interesting to hear him
40:16SPEAKERand kind of almost in the same breath talk about,
40:18SPEAKERyou know, they're doing well for who they are
40:21SPEAKERand for what they need.
40:22SPEAKERYou know, he says like they make pretty good income,
40:24SPEAKERbut at the same time, he can't go out
40:25SPEAKERand get the kind of like Silicon Valley talent
40:27SPEAKERthat they would truly need to add
40:29SPEAKERlike all the advanced features
40:30SPEAKERthat they would like to have, right?
40:32SPEAKERLike it's this, again, this tension
40:34SPEAKERof the free software model kind of running up
40:36SPEAKERagainst the requirements of living in the world.
40:39SPEAKER- Well, and part of that is, I think,
40:41SPEAKERa unique problem to OBS because, you know,
40:43SPEAKERwhen you're talking about subsets of subsets of subsets
40:46SPEAKERand when you're talking about engineers
40:47SPEAKERwho have like video codec expertise are,
40:49SPEAKERthere's not very many of them compared
40:51SPEAKERto software developers and engineers in other specialties.
40:55SPEAKERAnd those people have really, really huge demands
40:58SPEAKERwhen you look at like Netflix doing double digit percentages
41:01SPEAKERof all traffic on the internet
41:03SPEAKERbecause they stream so much video.
41:05SPEAKERSo, you know, it's an interesting place for Jim
41:07SPEAKERand it gave us a good opportunity to talk about
41:10SPEAKERwhat the future of the project is as he sees it
41:12SPEAKERand where he's going and what he views as his contribution
41:16SPEAKERfor the next 10 or more years of OBS.
41:22SPEAKERSo you've been at this for almost 10 years now.
41:24SPEAKERAre you gonna keep at it forever, Jim?
41:26SPEAKERIs this the remainder of your career, you think?
41:29SPEAKER- It's pretty much all I've ever had.
41:32SPEAKERSo it's very important to me.
41:34SPEAKERSo I'll continue doing it as long as humanly possible.
41:40SPEAKERI would love to get back into video games
41:41SPEAKERbecause I was originally trying to be a video game developer
41:45SPEAKERbut you know how video games are.
41:46SPEAKERVideo game industry is completely saturated
41:50SPEAKERand it's very difficult to get into
41:53SPEAKERand especially to be successful.
41:55SPEAKERYou can make a great game and then you could only make
41:58SPEAKERlike $100,000 on that single video game
42:01SPEAKERor something like that.
42:02SPEAKERAnd I know that $100,000 seems like much but I mean,
42:05SPEAKERI'm talking like over a period of years
42:08SPEAKERand that ends up being kind of bad.
42:10SPEAKER- It's hit driven in a way that's really dangerous.
42:14SPEAKER- Yeah, I would love to be able to get into games
42:16SPEAKERand I am working on my own game.
42:18SPEAKERI'm not sure if it'll ever come out
42:21SPEAKERbecause let's face it, OBS takes up almost all of my time.
42:26SPEAKER- Have you established structures inside the project
42:29SPEAKERthat if you're not able to work on it anymore or you decide
42:32SPEAKERyou're just like, I'm done, I'm walking away,
42:34SPEAKERthe project will go on or is that not at that point yet?
42:38SPEAKER- No, I feel like it's actually at that point.
42:40SPEAKERIf something ever happens to me, I'm pretty sure
42:43SPEAKERthat the project is in very good hands at this point.
42:46SPEAKERThere are just so many good people
42:47SPEAKERwho are working on it all the time.
42:49SPEAKERI am actually not worried about that in the slightest.
42:52SPEAKERI would have been worried about that a few years ago
42:54SPEAKERbut these days, yeah, the project is just basically
42:58SPEAKERchurning by itself and it's really nice to see.
43:01SPEAKERThe fact that it's so well-sponsored
43:04SPEAKERis really what drives it, you know, everybody,
43:07SPEAKERI'm actually able to pay everybody
43:09SPEAKERand as long as that's something that can keep going on
43:13SPEAKERin my absence, should something ever happen to me,
43:15SPEAKERfor example, I'm pretty confident that it will keep going
43:19SPEAKERand somebody else will be able to take up the mantle
43:22SPEAKERand take my place.
43:24SPEAKERYou know, you don't wanna be subject to the,
43:27SPEAKERwhat is it called where you're hit by the truck syndrome?
43:31SPEAKER- Oh, the bus-proofing is what we call it at our studio.
43:33SPEAKER- Yes, yes, you definitely don't wanna be in that situation
43:37SPEAKERand unfortunately, we're not, fortunately, we're not.
43:39SPEAKER- I'm curious from a legal standpoint,
43:41SPEAKERlike what defines ownership of a project like this?
43:43SPEAKERI mean, you know, in a private company,
43:45SPEAKERobviously it's a private company
43:46SPEAKERand it owns its intellectual property and so forth
43:48SPEAKERbut in a free and open source context,
43:50SPEAKERif you were to hand maintenance of the project
43:53SPEAKERover to someone else, for example,
43:55SPEAKERare there legal considerations there
43:56SPEAKERor is it truly open, even from an ownership standpoint
44:00SPEAKERthat you could just kind of do that?
44:01SPEAKER- We don't have contributor license agreements
44:03SPEAKERso everybody has their own little piece of the project.
44:07SPEAKERWe would have to get permission from users
44:09SPEAKERor not from users, from contributors
44:11SPEAKERif we ever wanted to do anything with the project
44:15SPEAKERand I feel like if that scenario, you know,
44:19SPEAKERthe hit by the bus scenario ever happens,
44:22SPEAKERit would probably be a little bit of a pain
44:23SPEAKERto get the trademarks settled
44:27SPEAKERbut that would be pretty much it, I feel.
44:29SPEAKERJust the transferring trademarks over to somebody else
44:32SPEAKERor transferring rights of the company
44:35SPEAKERthat owns the trademarks, my company,
44:38SPEAKERover to somebody else,
44:39SPEAKERthat would probably be the only stepping stone.
44:42SPEAKER- So pie in the sky question,
44:44SPEAKERif you had infinite time and infinite resources,
44:47SPEAKERis there any one thing that you would just love
44:50SPEAKERto add to OBS, is there anything about it
44:52SPEAKERthat's like your kind of top of your wish lists,
44:54SPEAKERwould love to be able to do at some point?
44:56SPEAKER- I feel like, well, obviously the first thing I would do
44:59SPEAKERis hire like a legion of highly skilled maintainers
45:03SPEAKERjust so we can get stuff through
45:06SPEAKERand get better or faster code review
45:09SPEAKERand better code review
45:10SPEAKERbecause having everything funneled through me
45:13SPEAKERis just not gonna cut it.
45:14SPEAKERThat would be like, if I had like infinite resources,
45:16SPEAKERthat would be like the top.
45:18SPEAKERWe just like have a hierarchy of maintainers
45:21SPEAKERis similar to Linux or something like that.
45:24SPEAKERThat would be so nice.
45:25SPEAKERBut we're managing to do pretty okay without that.
45:28SPEAKERSo what other features would I really want?
45:32SPEAKERI know that one of the big issues for a lot of users
45:36SPEAKERis that they have a single monitor
45:38SPEAKERand if you wanna be able to use OBS,
45:41SPEAKERyou have to constantly alt tab between OBS
45:44SPEAKERand if you're capturing a game, your game
45:46SPEAKERand it just doesn't make it very good experience.
45:49SPEAKERSo I know that one thing that we really need
45:52SPEAKERis overlay support for games and it's just so complicated.
45:56SPEAKERI just don't wanna do it.
45:58SPEAKERI just don't want it.
45:59SPEAKERI'm so done with the game capture stuff
46:00SPEAKERand having to hook into video games.
46:02SPEAKERIt's just like, I just want to put that aside
46:06SPEAKERas much as possible.
46:07SPEAKERIt's kind of like working on anything related to direct show.
46:10SPEAKERI don't want anything to do with it anymore,
46:12SPEAKERespecially after virtual cam, which was all direct show code
46:15SPEAKERand it's the API I hate the most.
46:17SPEAKERI just hate working with it, it's so incredibly painful,
46:21SPEAKERbut yeah, I would just hire a league of maintainers
46:24SPEAKERat this point.
46:25SPEAKER- I'm curious to how you feel about the general state
46:28SPEAKERof real-time streaming right now in terms of codecs
46:30SPEAKERand protocols like the tech end,
46:32SPEAKERbecause it feels like H.264 and RTMP still rule the world
46:36SPEAKERand they have for basically the last decade, right?
46:38SPEAKERBut there are all these successor technologies out there
46:40SPEAKERthat feel like they're just waiting
46:41SPEAKERfor somebody to adopt them.
46:42SPEAKERDo you feel like as 4K becomes a bigger thing,
46:45SPEAKERdo you feel like we're gonna be moving into territory
46:47SPEAKERwhere some of the protocols with lower latency,
46:49SPEAKERsome of the codecs with better efficiency
46:51SPEAKERare gonna start being adopted by the major players?
46:53SPEAKER- Yeah, I have a lot to say about all of this,
46:57SPEAKERjust because this is one of those things
46:59SPEAKERthat I just hear about a lot from a lot of the sponsors.
47:03SPEAKERThey want all of those things, they want 4K, lower latency,
47:08SPEAKERthey want newer codecs or they wanna switch protocols
47:11SPEAKERor they want this feature or that feature.
47:13SPEAKERAnd for codecs, yeah, H.264,
47:17SPEAKERI don't see it not being a dominant force in five years.
47:21SPEAKERI still feel like in five years
47:23SPEAKERit'll still be a dominant force,
47:24SPEAKERbut I am trying to move things
47:26SPEAKERtowards the newer codecs, such as particularly AV1,
47:32SPEAKERbecause the thing I like about AV1 is that it's royalty-free.
47:35SPEAKERYou know, that's a thing
47:37SPEAKERthat all of those big companies really like about it.
47:40SPEAKERBut that's something that I've been pushing.
47:43SPEAKERI actually added AV1 support for the most recent beta patch
47:48SPEAKERand I'm pretty proud of it.
47:50SPEAKERAnd actually AV1 runs pretty well,
47:53SPEAKERas long as you have enough cores.
47:54SPEAKERThis is all software encoding.
47:56SPEAKERI'm hoping that eventually we'll see AV1 hardware encoders
48:00SPEAKERsooner than later.
48:01SPEAKERWe already have hardware encoders for HEVC,
48:04SPEAKERbut the problem with HEVC is that, you know,
48:06SPEAKERroyalties again, and we're not even sure if we're allowed
48:10SPEAKERto use it or not.
48:11SPEAKERWe might just be limited to hardware encoders for it.
48:15SPEAKERWe'll see where we need to check the patent pool
48:18SPEAKERto make sure that we aren't liable for massive payments
48:22SPEAKERor anything like that, because that's something
48:24SPEAKERthat I don't know if we could afford on our budget.
48:27SPEAKER- I was gonna say, is that a thing
48:28SPEAKERthat like your corporate sponsors can help with?
48:30SPEAKERLike if you're working with Google,
48:32SPEAKERcan they sub-license out access to patent pools
48:34SPEAKERand stuff like that?
48:35SPEAKERIs that a thing that the world doesn't work that way?
48:38SPEAKER- I'm not entirely sure.
48:39SPEAKERThat would be nice if they did,
48:40SPEAKERbut I think usually what's going to happen
48:43SPEAKERis they're going to probably cover it for their own websites
48:47SPEAKERbecause they don't want to have to cover
48:48SPEAKERfor like somebody else's website, you know?
48:50SPEAKERSo it kind of becomes complicated in that respect, you know?
48:53SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I have to imagine it's an absolute nightmare
48:57SPEAKERdealing with like IP as an open source project
48:59SPEAKERand dealing with the codec licensing.
49:01SPEAKERYeah, it's a mess.
49:03SPEAKER- It is a mess.
49:03SPEAKERIt's a nightmare.
49:05SPEAKER- You talk about the virtual camera support
49:07SPEAKERbeginning as a plugin.
49:08SPEAKERHow do you feel about the state of the plugin ecosystem
49:10SPEAKERand OBS at this point?
49:11SPEAKERAre you still using the same API for plugins
49:14SPEAKERthat you were at the beginning?
49:16SPEAKERHas there been any change or evolution there?
49:19SPEAKER- Our API has not changed in around eight years.
49:23SPEAKERIt's pretty ancient at this point and antiquated.
49:25SPEAKERIt needs a major update.
49:27SPEAKERFor the plugin ecosystem,
49:30SPEAKERI'm not happy with how you have to install plugins.
49:33SPEAKERI mean, you have to like download a plugin zip.
49:36SPEAKERYou have to like move it into the right location
49:39SPEAKERso the OBS will see it.
49:40SPEAKERAnd then, you know, you have to open up OBS.
49:43SPEAKERAnd for most people, you know,
49:45SPEAKERthat's asking a little bit much
49:46SPEAKERbecause, you know, they don't want to have to mess
49:48SPEAKERwith their folders on their system or anything
49:49SPEAKERto be able to get a plugin working.
49:51SPEAKERThey just want to be able to click a button
49:53SPEAKERand get it installed.
49:54SPEAKERThe average user, yeah, it's a bit much.
49:56SPEAKERIt's kind of like installing a Minecraft plugin.
49:59SPEAKERMinecraft still has a problem to this day.
50:02SPEAKERIt's kind of crazy.
50:03SPEAKERBut what we want to do is we want to be able to make it
50:06SPEAKERso you can grab and install plugins
50:09SPEAKERfrom within the program itself.
50:11SPEAKERAnd that way we can kind of control, you know,
50:16SPEAKERwell, it's not about control, actually.
50:17SPEAKERIt's more about making it easier for the user.
50:20SPEAKERBut what we're really trying to do
50:22SPEAKERis just keep things stable.
50:25SPEAKERAnd hopefully in version 28, this is kind of a,
50:30SPEAKERwe haven't really told people about this.
50:32SPEAKERI'm not sure if I'm going to get in trouble
50:33SPEAKERfor telling people about this,
50:34SPEAKERbut we really want to make the plugin manager.
50:37SPEAKERAnd I've already put in a little bit of work for that.
50:39SPEAKERSo basically you would open up the program
50:43SPEAKERand open up the plugin manager within the program
50:45SPEAKERand be able to browse and install common plugins
50:49SPEAKERthat people use every day
50:51SPEAKERand just be able to install it easily within the program.
50:54SPEAKERThat way you don't have to like download a zip file
50:57SPEAKERand move the files into some particular location
51:00SPEAKERor something like that.
51:01SPEAKERAnd it has the other effect of
51:03SPEAKERwe get to vet the source code
51:04SPEAKERand we get to compile it ourselves
51:08SPEAKERand make sure that everything is working relatively okay.
51:12SPEAKERIt will also help us be able to do more testing
51:15SPEAKERon the program in general.
51:16SPEAKERSo I'm pretty excited about it.
51:19SPEAKER- Building a piece of software
51:20SPEAKERthat's designed to work with games
51:21SPEAKERwhere it's a weird industry
51:23SPEAKER'cause basically every game is its own island
51:25SPEAKERand uses its own renderer.
51:27SPEAKEREven when everyone's using Unreal or Unity
51:29SPEAKERor a handful of engines,
51:30SPEAKERlike there's still constant, constant challenges.
51:33SPEAKERI have to imagine getting render X to capture right
51:37SPEAKERwith the game capture source
51:39SPEAKERor whatever it happens to be.
51:41SPEAKERLike how much of your time is spent
51:42SPEAKERmaintaining functionality versus with new renderers
51:46SPEAKERor new OSs or new updates to Windows or Mac OS
51:49SPEAKERor whatever it happens to be
51:51SPEAKERversus like looking at,
51:52SPEAKERhey, what can we do to drive this whole thing forward?
51:55SPEAKER- It's actually been kind of a pain
51:56SPEAKERto deal with all the new rendering technologies sometimes.
52:00SPEAKERFor example, I think only in the last two or three years
52:04SPEAKERhave we actually properly implemented
52:06SPEAKERlike Vulkan support for capturing Vulkan games,
52:09SPEAKERwhich actually ended up being
52:10SPEAKERprobably the best capture method.
52:12SPEAKERIf a game is using Vulkan,
52:14SPEAKERthat's going to be a happy time for OBS,
52:17SPEAKERbut if it's using DirectX 12,
52:19SPEAKERnot going to be quite as happy as the time,
52:21SPEAKERbut we still managed to figure it out in either case.
52:24SPEAKERWe had this issue for like the longest time
52:27SPEAKERto where there was like this stuttering issue
52:29SPEAKERwith Direct3D 12,
52:31SPEAKERand it was a nightmare
52:32SPEAKERbecause I didn't really know what to do,
52:33SPEAKERand I don't really understand the new renderer stuff.
52:37SPEAKERI'm only experienced with single-threaded pipelines,
52:41SPEAKERand Vulkan and Direct3D 12 are the multi-threaded pipelines.
52:46SPEAKERThey add their more down to the metal, so to speak,
52:50SPEAKERso I wasn't experienced with them,
52:52SPEAKERso I basically had to rely on other people
52:54SPEAKERto be able to fix that particular issue up.
52:57SPEAKERAnd then there's also the issue of Apple
53:00SPEAKERdeprecating OpenGL on Mac OS.
53:03SPEAKERI don't know if they'll ever actually remove it,
53:06SPEAKERbut we rely on OpenGL for non-Windows operating systems,
53:10SPEAKERand it's basically a situation
53:12SPEAKERwhere it's like we have to write like a metal renderer,
53:15SPEAKERwhich is a brand new renderer for software,
53:17SPEAKERand it's, yeah, I'm not sure
53:20SPEAKERwhen the heck we'll ever get around to that.
53:22SPEAKER- How closely do you work with operating system vendors,
53:24SPEAKERor do you at all at this point?
53:26SPEAKERAre you just a customer at this point?
53:28SPEAKER- We work with them sometimes.
53:30SPEAKERSometimes they come around and email us
53:33SPEAKERand connect with us and try to work on issues.
53:37SPEAKERWe are quite friendly with the GPU vendors,
53:42SPEAKERor the GPU hardware manufacturers,
53:44SPEAKERlike NVIDIA and AMD and Intel,
53:46SPEAKERso if we need something, we can basically contact them
53:50SPEAKERand say, "Hey, can you figure out who to contact
53:53SPEAKER"at Microsoft or maybe Apple or something like that?"
53:56SPEAKERApple is actually quite difficult to get in contact with,
54:00SPEAKERor to report bugs for as well,
54:01SPEAKERbut even they have contacted us at some point, so.
54:08SPEAKER- I wanted to ask about some of your advanced functionality.
54:10SPEAKERSo I actually use OBS with FFmpeg's SRT support,
54:14SPEAKERSRT being a more modern, kind of lower latency
54:16SPEAKERstreaming protocol to stream video to a coworker
54:19SPEAKERwho then kind of composited it into a larger scene
54:22SPEAKERand restreams it.
54:23SPEAKERWe kind of share gameplay back and forth that way
54:25SPEAKERat a very high quality, low latency enough
54:27SPEAKERthat it's actually suitable for rebroadcast.
54:29SPEAKERDo you feel like there's a lot of other untapped potential
54:31SPEAKERin OBS, kind of features like that working below the surface
54:34SPEAKERthat people should be looking for?
54:36SPEAKER- I feel like there's so much you could do with the API
54:39SPEAKERthat people are unaware of.
54:40SPEAKERThe API, or the scene structure,
54:42SPEAKERis basically a basic hierarchical scene structure,
54:46SPEAKERand you could create some incredibly complicated scenes,
54:50SPEAKERbut making the program in such a way
54:52SPEAKERto where you can set it up to do those sort of things,
54:56SPEAKERI mean, it's mostly about like user experience.
54:59SPEAKERFor the program, we focus on making the user experience
55:01SPEAKERvery, as easy as we possibly can,
55:04SPEAKERor we don't always succeed at that,
55:06SPEAKERbut at the same time, if you make things super easy,
55:11SPEAKERkind of hinders the ability to do advanced stuff
55:14SPEAKERin some ways, or makes it a little bit more difficult
55:16SPEAKERto do more advanced stuff, if that makes sense.
55:18SPEAKERAnd internally, the system is capable of so much.
55:23SPEAKERI mean, you could have like countless streams running
55:26SPEAKERat the same time under the same compositor.
55:29SPEAKERYou could have like this incredibly complicated
55:31SPEAKERhierarchical mix structure,
55:34SPEAKERand it would be mixing audio and video
55:36SPEAKERautomatically behind the scenes,
55:38SPEAKERbut it's very difficult to be able to get
55:42SPEAKERthat complicated structure to the user.
55:45SPEAKERWe're not really sure how to do that,
55:47SPEAKERand we're not even sure if we should do that at this point,
55:50SPEAKERbecause it pretty much provides things
55:53SPEAKERfor like 99% of the people,
55:55SPEAKERand that's really the important thing.
55:57SPEAKERYou could end up down a bad rabbit hole
56:00SPEAKERif you spend too much time in niche stuff.
56:02SPEAKER- One thing I am curious about is if you're finding
56:05SPEAKERthat more folks who are kind of UI or UX experts
56:10SPEAKERare starting to come into the open source world more,
56:13SPEAKER'cause that is the classic problem, right,
56:14SPEAKERis how do I take this complicated functionality
56:17SPEAKERand make it in an application simple enough
56:19SPEAKERfor people who don't necessarily need
56:20SPEAKERthat complicated functionality to use?
56:24SPEAKER- Yeah, that is the question.
56:25SPEAKERI'm clearly not very good at answering it,
56:27SPEAKERand I wish that I had proper user experience designers
56:33SPEAKERfrom the start, but it's not that bad as it is.
56:39SPEAKERSometimes certain things in the program
56:41SPEAKERare a little bit janky.
56:43SPEAKERSometimes we're limited by the toolkit that we use,
56:47SPEAKERQT or Qt, and it makes it kind of difficult
56:51SPEAKERfor us to do everything that we want.
56:53SPEAKERBut yeah, I wish that I could have thought about it
56:56SPEAKERa little bit more from the beginning,
56:58SPEAKERso things aren't quite as janky as they can be,
57:01SPEAKERhaving a separate filters window
57:03SPEAKERor having even things like the plugin system
57:06SPEAKERor the hotkeys section.
57:09SPEAKERThere's so many things, or the advanced audio settings.
57:12SPEAKERIt's like how do you get those advanced features
57:16SPEAKERin front of the users without them being overwhelmed?
57:19SPEAKERThat's the thing that I care about the most
57:21SPEAKERis I don't want users to be overwhelmed
57:23SPEAKERwhen they open the program.
57:24SPEAKERAnd I feel like for the most part, we succeeded with that,
57:27SPEAKERbut I feel like we kind of got stuck in a lot of ways
57:32SPEAKERlike those examples I listed.
57:34SPEAKERIt's just like, what do you do there?
57:36SPEAKERHow do you get users that advanced functionality
57:40SPEAKERwithout shoving in their face 24/7?
57:44SPEAKER- I have to imagine you have people using OBS
57:47SPEAKERon all the continents.
57:49SPEAKERAnd do you know if people are using OBS in space
57:53SPEAKERat any given point?
57:54SPEAKEROr what's the weirdest place you've heard of OBS being used?
57:58SPEAKER- I'm not sure if there's really any weird places
58:00SPEAKERthat it's been used.
58:01SPEAKERMore like weird applications that it's been used for.
58:04SPEAKERI know that NASA, I'm pretty sure has used it at some point
58:08SPEAKERbecause I remember getting an email from them
58:10SPEAKERand going through their security procedures
58:14SPEAKERjust to get it approved for them to use.
58:17SPEAKERAnd they had to ask me a whole bunch of questions about it.
58:20SPEAKERAnd so that was interesting.
58:22SPEAKERI'm pretty sure some governments use it as well
58:24SPEAKERand things like that.
58:25SPEAKERIt's pretty nuts.
58:27SPEAKER- Was it tempting to say to the government,
58:28SPEAKER"Hey, the source is just open.
58:29SPEAKER"You can go look at it yourself."
58:31SPEAKER- Well, I mean, it's usually just like checking
58:36SPEAKERthe authors and checking the software.
58:38SPEAKERAnd I usually try to say stuff like that,
58:41SPEAKERbut it's just standard procedure.
58:44SPEAKERSo you have to go through.
58:45SPEAKER- When NASA comes calling,
58:46SPEAKERI guess it's kind of a slightly different protocol.
58:49SPEAKER(upbeat music)
58:51SPEAKER- So that's OBS.
58:52SPEAKERThanks to Jim Bailey, of course,
58:54SPEAKERfor coming by and sitting down and talking to us
58:55SPEAKERfor our first episode of the FOSPOD.
58:58SPEAKER- Yeah, it's honestly kind of an honor
59:00SPEAKERto talk to somebody at the heart
59:01SPEAKERof such an important piece of internet infrastructure.
59:04SPEAKER- It's literally a tool I use every single day.
59:06SPEAKER- Yeah, totally.
59:07SPEAKERAnd then that ended up being my favorite part
59:08SPEAKERof the interview, hearing him talk about
59:10SPEAKERjust like the nuts and bolts, nitty gritty,
59:11SPEAKERlike the future of where it's going,
59:13SPEAKERfeatures that they would like to add and stuff.
59:14SPEAKERI mean, hearing him talk about that AV1 support.
59:17SPEAKERThere's a lot of interesting stuff going on
59:18SPEAKERin internet video out there.
59:19SPEAKERHe's just starting to expose that stuff on OBS
59:21SPEAKERand a lot of the other major software out there
59:23SPEAKERisn't really employing it quite as much yet as well,
59:25SPEAKERbut like very, very low sub 500 millisecond latency
59:29SPEAKERand like super high quality.
59:31SPEAKERThere's a lot of really interesting stuff going on out there.
59:32SPEAKERAnd like, I'm so fascinated to hear him talking
59:34SPEAKERabout the plugin manager, the potential for an overlay
59:38SPEAKERon top of games, which I agree would be fantastic to have.
59:41SPEAKERIt's really exciting to hear him talking
59:43SPEAKERabout all of that stuff.
59:43SPEAKER- I guess I realized it, but I hadn't really considered it
59:45SPEAKERbefore talking to him, was how much of the work,
59:48SPEAKERhe can only do so much to push things forward, right?
59:51SPEAKERAt the end of the day, it's up to Twitch and YouTube
59:53SPEAKERand Facebook and all the other streaming services
59:58SPEAKERand the hardware vendors to give him the hardware and code
1:00:02SPEAKERand the end points for these new data code
1:00:05SPEAKERand these new codex and things like that.
1:00:07SPEAKERSo if he adds AV1 support today,
1:00:09SPEAKERit's great for people who record video,
1:00:12SPEAKERbut if you're streaming, it doesn't do a whole lot of good
1:00:14SPEAKER'cause there's nothing to do with it at this point.
1:00:16SPEAKERBut anyway, again, if you wanna know more
1:00:19SPEAKERabout the OBS project, you should go to obsproject.com.
1:00:22SPEAKERYou can download the software.
1:00:24SPEAKERThere's a Wiki there that has a ton of information
1:00:26SPEAKERabout things you can do with it.
1:00:27SPEAKERAnd the forums are an incredible resource
1:00:29SPEAKERfor people who are learning to use OBS,
1:00:31SPEAKERboth in terms of there's a wealth of knowledge
1:00:34SPEAKERcollected over the years there,
1:00:36SPEAKERand also a really great community of folks
1:00:38SPEAKERwho are happy to help out people who are having trouble
1:00:40SPEAKERor have questions.
1:00:42SPEAKER- Well, Will, I think that's our first FOSPOD.
1:00:45SPEAKERAre you ready to say the thing?
1:00:48SPEAKER- The FOSPOD is brought to you by Google Open Source,
1:00:51SPEAKERbringing all the value of open source to Google
1:00:54SPEAKERand all the resources of Google to open source.
1:00:57SPEAKERFind out more at opensource.google.
1:01:00SPEAKER- I don't know if I'm ever gonna get used to that.
1:01:02SPEAKERI'm just gonna wait for the .com every single time.
1:01:04SPEAKER- It's a perfectly fine, normal, top-level domain, Brad.
1:01:08SPEAKERThe sponsors have their own top-level domain.
1:01:10SPEAKER- I mean, hey, if you could get your own top-level domain,
1:01:13SPEAKERyou probably would too.
1:01:14SPEAKER- Like, I'll take .will.
1:01:15SPEAKERI'm available.
1:01:17SPEAKER- .shoe doesn't exist yet.
1:01:19SPEAKERI would be waiting for that.
1:01:20SPEAKER- They could get .maker and get shoe.maker, though.
1:01:23SPEAKER- Ooh, okay, that's not the worst.
1:01:24SPEAKERYeah, so, I mean, I just wanna say
1:01:26SPEAKERI am very excited to be doing this podcast.
1:01:29SPEAKERThose who know me, including you,
1:01:31SPEAKERknow how much of my time, outside of work,
1:01:33SPEAKERI spend digging into open source stuff.
1:01:36SPEAKERAnyway, it's kind of the most exciting and inspiring thing
1:01:39SPEAKERout there on the internet to me in a lot of ways,
1:01:40SPEAKERand I'm just very excited to get to actually do it
1:01:43SPEAKERin some kind of officially official way.
1:01:44SPEAKER- Yeah, it's one of the few things
1:01:46SPEAKERthat people do for betterment of all humankind.
1:01:50SPEAKER- That's really what it is for me.
1:01:51SPEAKERI mean, obviously, you heard Jim talk about this
1:01:54SPEAKERbetween sponsorships and Patreon and things like that.
1:01:57SPEAKERIncreasingly, it seems like there are a lot of ways
1:01:59SPEAKERfor people doing quote-unquote free work on free software
1:02:02SPEAKERto make a living at this point.
1:02:04SPEAKERBut still, at its core, the genesis of a given project
1:02:08SPEAKERis not necessarily I'm gonna make a ton of money with this.
1:02:11SPEAKERIt is like, I have a cool idea.
1:02:13SPEAKERI have these highly technical skills.
1:02:15SPEAKERI'm gonna make a cool thing.
1:02:16SPEAKER- Or I want this thing and it doesn't exist,
1:02:18SPEAKERis the other big one, right?
1:02:20SPEAKER- Yes, it's a way for everyone benefits,
1:02:22SPEAKERand it's just, I find it to be a very appealing thing,
1:02:26SPEAKERkind of philosophically.
1:02:27SPEAKER- So anyway, visit opensource.google,
1:02:29SPEAKERand you can find out more about Google Open Source,
1:02:32SPEAKERand we really appreciate the sponsorship for the show.
1:02:34SPEAKERWe're excited about doing this.
1:02:34SPEAKERWe're gonna be doing it every other week.
1:02:36SPEAKERYou can find out more at phosphod.content.town.
1:02:40SPEAKERIf you like the show,
1:02:41SPEAKERplease subscribe in your favorite podcast app of choice.
1:02:43SPEAKERTell a friend, leave a review.
1:02:44SPEAKERWe love all of that stuff.
1:02:46SPEAKERAnd you should check out our Discord,
1:02:49SPEAKERwhich is also linked at phosphod.content.town.
1:02:53SPEAKERThank you all so much, and we will see you all
1:02:55SPEAKERin a couple of weeks with another episode.
1:02:57SPEAKERThanks for listening.
1:02:58SPEAKER(upbeat music)
1:03:05SPEAKERThank you all so much, and we will see you next week,
1:03:08SPEAKERweek after next, something like that.