General video and clip info for Twitch.tv

Listed here are some general info for videos and clips on the Twitch.tv platform.

A while ago twitch introduced a way to upload videos to the platform. What they didn't really make clear is how much of a priority uploaded videos get over highlights and past broadcasts.

If you are searching for videos on the platform, uploaded videos are shown first over other types even if other highlights have more total views.

Here is a example using the top search bar on Twitch and the video game Star Citizen.

Click image to enlarge

All the top listed videos are uploads, even thou the default filter for "popular" is listed its not working as intended. Another thing to note about upload videos is monetization, how that works is a mystery.  I speculate it only will do a pre-roll ad but nothing else so be aware if your creating hour long videos.

Uploaded videos also get the top spot in some game directories. Looks like any uploaded video from the past week or two are displayed.

Here is a screenshot from the videos section on battlefield 4 showing the trending uploads.

A quick tip that many streamers probably don't realize is happening on Twitch in regards to videos. At the end of your videos, it will automatically transition to the last "past broadcast" your channel has available.

Go investigate many of the top broadcasters on Twitch and see how most of their long session "past broadcasts" have thousands of views. The more you can syndicate short videos on twitch and around the internet that get consumed will help overall in boosting numbers for that video and past broadcasts. This is what generally is occurring for many top tier streamers.

Clips
Check clips that viewers generated during your stream session and combine them into a montage for uploading. Delete the clips afterwords so all views go to the uploads and not the clips. Clips from what I have seen are not monetized and create in a way leaks leading viewers elsewhere.

This is a major difference from creating highlights or uploads which when finished autoplay your last broadcast. 

Another option that clips can be very handy for is for use on twitter. Since downloading clips is very easy, this offers you a quick way to get some video content onto your twitter.

VodCast

Everytime someone is watching a VodCast on your channel, the video that is currently playing will get a view and also your channel's total viewcount.

Realtime viewer numbers during VodCast is exactly the same as if your live, if people are watching the VodCast, the viewer count will show how many are currently doing that on the channel

One thing to note, transition from VodCast to Live or Live to VodCast resets the realtime view count even if you time it to switch between each session really fast.

Personally I found extreme success with VodCasting and having the channel going for almost 24/7.  I previously was on the playlist beta, which was similar to vodcast expect that you were not listed on the game directory and view counts didn't count for the videos.

With the latest mobile app changes using VodCasting during times where your not able to stream can potentially gain you a major amount of followers.

Here is a peek at my channel stats from when the mobile app changes happen.

The app changes started around 6/30 - note the yellow marker on the image. Follower count has skyrocketed from what I usually have been receiving on the platform. Majority of this is happening during vodcasting sessions.

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Ok well thats all that I can think of at the moment for this topic! I hope someone out there gets something useful from this post. If you have any questions or comments fill free to write them below. 

New Twitch app auto follows streamers

Did you know the new Twitch app for ios and android auto follows channels based on which 3 games they have to pick in the start screen?



So this is something new that I haven't seen happen on Twitch before via their app.  I loaded up the new Twitch Andriod app on bluestacks to test it out to verify. Bluestacks is a android emulator, which is very handy for testing apps.

After you login (I used a freshly created Twitch account, this may make a difference), you have to pick 3 games to follow. For my test I picked EVE Online, Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous.

Here are the listed streamers that the app automatically followed for each game:

Elite Dangerous Auto Follow Streamers:

Star Citizen Auto Follow Streamers:

EVE Online Auto Follow Streamers:


Twitch Support tweeted out the following:

Interesting keywords here is "new-user onboarding flow" which I believe for the app is to get users to quickly see the benefits of following games and streamers.

At first glance it seems to pick channels with the most viewers most followers that are currently online for the game.

Update 7/7/2017 - Its picking the top three streamers in the game directory now, not most followers.

Update 7/25/2017 - You need at least 10 Viewers to be included in the top 3 of the game. If the top channels are all under 10 viewers, no one will be auto followed.

Tip:
Knowing the above fact makes this exploitable via the vodcasting feature. If your channel has generally more viewers (total followers) then others who are currently streaming the game you will benefit from the twitch app auto follow system.

Update 7/25/2017 - The tip above is no longer available, Twitch removed Vodcast streams from follower onboarding.

Twitch Support tweeted out the following (7/24/2017):



How do you feel about the Twitch app basically follow botting certain channels? Leave a comment below, thanks!

How to stream with one monitor?

Guide on how to stream with just one monitor using ghost screening.

Here is how I currently stream using just a single monitor with being able to see chat, webpages and other things at the same time without effecting the game capture.


First off the monitor needs to have dual inputs, the one I'm currently using has 3 different inputs: VGA, DVI and HDMI.



Next your video card has to support the two different types of input.

I'm using a 1080 GTX, it supports both DVI and HDMI.



I plug in both of the different types of connectors to the monitor.  The monitor can switch screens between DVI or HDMI. For my setup I use DVI at 1920 x 1200 native, the max supported resolution for this monitor (its a couple years old) and HDMI at 1920 x 1080.

Since both DVI and HDMI connections are plugged into the video card, it will show the system as having 2 monitors.



I made monitor #2 as default (make this my main display) and monitor #1 is where all the games go for screen capture.

Here is how the desktop looks with the game running, OBS and a webpage with the twitch chat viewing.


Basically you put the game on monitor #1 which is really a ghost screen (not there) and then you use the OBS monitor window to play the game while its on the ghost monitor. And since its in a window you can load up webpages and other apps to monitor chat and whatever else you like during your streaming sessions.

Using only 1 monitor, saves power, creates less heat and doesn't strain your head and/or neck muscles as much since you dont have to keep checking to the sides if you were using a multi monitor setup.

Events Posting

Note: Events Posting has been discontinued, use the new schedule system.

A short guide on how to use the new events featured recently added to Twitch. The new events manager option should be now showing up on your dashboard next to video manager.



Click on Create Event and fill out the details.


Once you create a new event it will show up in the future events tab section with some additional options.

• Edit - change the details, date, image and description
• Share - Displays the event URL and additional sharing options to various social media sites.
• Remind Me - Reminder option to automatically send a email 1 hour before the event. Plus additional links to add to calendar for apple, google, yahoo and outlook.
• Delete - remove the event

Viewers will see the new 'Event' tab showing across the top of your channel page next to collections and the followers number.  Also will show up in channel feed if you selected that option in the events detail form.


Tips
When you are creating a new event, a option to add in a image is available. Make sure to create a custom image or else it will auto use a default like the shown in the above screenshot.

For the description section make sure to add in a URL to your channel at the bottom linking back.  There is a link on the side (starring) but I think it stands out alot more if you add it in as text also so its more visible.

Live viewcount polling intervals

Live viewer count polling interval changes on twitch.tv

Recently many people noticed a change that showed directory viewer number vs dashboard (or stream page) vastly different.

On the twitch subreddit a response was given by flgr "viewcount lead";



"Live viewcounts (on the channel page below the live video) are finally updating much faster than they used to. We deployed a change on Friday that will update them around every 30 seconds (from 1 to 2m+ previously). We're planning to get this down further in the future (though it will take us some time). Directory viewcounts don't update quite as often so can be a little behind." - Source

Which means viewer count numbers are going to be less lagged and a little more accurate. Expect to see concurrent numbers for certain streamers lower then what they previously had due to this change.

Other note worthy effects from this polling change is the following:

• Disconnects / Small interruptions
  Any issues will cause your viewer numbers to reset to zero more frequently then what it was in the past.
• Playlist System / Embeds
  If your channel is setup with a playlist that automatically runs when your offline, as soon as you go back online all the viewers get cut off, which makes the view counter reset. In the past with a one to two minute buffer, it just continued the count for a majority of the time.

Update 6/2/2017 - Been noticing for the past couple of days another change happened and the counters are getting more skewed.

Update 7/28/2017 - Twitch Staff lead for view counts made the following statement on r/eve.

"Also sometimes viewcounts will stop updating for some viewers. This is purely a cosmetic/client-side problem (though a very annoying one). A page refresh usually fixes that. This is a problem in the JavaScript code that polls the number, and I'm reaching out to get that fixed too." - Source

Update 10/31/2017 - Since the change over from the FLASH Player to HTML5, the new player has issues automatically starting up from offline to live states.  If someone has your stream open during it being offline, and then you go online there is a good chance it wont start until the webpage or the player is restarted. 

Automatic Twitter followers and following by streamers?

How some streamers are using Twitter to market their content and promotions!

So today while logging into my twitter account I find this twitch streamer following me.




Notice anything weird about this screenshot? I do, 50k following!

Then if you check on social blade you can see a snapshot of daily trends. Here is a screenshot of that:


One day a huge amount of following, then a couple days later unfollows in what appears to be in a systematic way. So basically trying to exploit the 'I follow you and you follow me back' sort of a deal.

How do people even do this stuff? Searching around I found out its either thru scripting with API access to twitter or via 3rd party websites like tweepi.

If you plan on using any type of automation on twitter, it should be extremely limited in my opinion.

With Success comes hate

Everyone knows the saying with success comes hate right? Well here is how its happening against my small channel on twitch.

The main conduits typically seems to be on reddit, for me since I'm primarily a EVE Online streamer it would be r/eve.


Here are some examples of recent targeted hate towards myself and my channel.

r/Eve/comments/51n22u/gf_horde/d7dalic/

r/Eve/comments/5jrwjl/lets_watch_some_streamers_on_twitch_wait_what/dbileqw/

r/Eve/comments/5wii5g/every_time_this_streamer_streams_he_gets_over_500/



The common theme from all the attackers is viewership numbers. If I had a total of 10 viewers and 8 of those were from a external embed no one would care. But now since I'm more successful and averaging 100+ viewers all the time, more focus is coming my way. People are trying to figure out whats happening, why I have more viewers and are quick to assume things.

My approach to streaming is also very different from what you typically see on twitch which may add to the problem. I do not attempt to be a personality type of a streamer. My focus is being more of a support type of a stream for the games I play in a chill / relaxing setting. Additionally I aim to have good video quality, limited overlays, no gimmicks, limited voice commentary but huge chat interaction. If anyone asks questions it generally gets answered in the chat very quickly by me.

Since I've been going more full time with streaming I utilize embedding to advertise my stream across my portfolio of websites. My twitch stream runs 24/7 so its a great supplemental to my video game blogs and to this twitch guide site. Embeds get counted in the total live viewer number. Their is no separation between twitch site viewers and external embedded viewers.

Which leads to a huge lack of understanding when it comes to embeds. Many of the hater's kept calling it inflation or fake views, some kinda understand it but then say its cheating the system. I attempt to explain it but for some no matter how much you disclose and show examples they don't seem to care, they default and will continue to say its fake viewers. There is nothing fake about embedding, a person has to be there to generate a view.

Another thing a majority of people are very clueless about is the mere fact that anyone can take a embed code from any channel and post it up somewhere. I offer a very good example here (check viral bomb section), one of the biggest video game websites ran a story and featured my channel's embed on it. And guess what? That website has a extreme amount of affiliates who take their content and repost it. Over the many years of streaming, this type of event replicates, gets compounded and every little bit of that gets added up into the view count.

The salt, the jealously from other streamers fan base was also rampant on the reddit threads. People think being in the top spot in a game directory is the golden key to growth or something? There was even other streamers complaining about my stream on some sections like I'm the reason they are not getting viewers!

Here is a example of a EVE Online Streamer Erstschlag targeting my ellatha website which hosts my eve online fansite.



They are attempting to get their community to install a web browser blocker so they don't go to my eve website.

I've been streaming since 2009, been a content creator since 2000, thousands of hours have laid the foundation for what I have today. If you are a streamer and see other streamers success and numbers as some sort of a competition, your wasting brain power and time on something you cant control. Focus on what you can control, you, your brand, what makes you different. Try out different things, see what works, what doesn't. Need ideas? Welcome to my Twitch tips blog - many good guides and information available here.

Let me close out and say thanks for all the people who supported and defended my channel against the haters! Much appreciated!