Where our facts come from

Equipment specifications

Each product page names the maker’s own product page, manual or support article behind its facts. Older models stay available for people who already own them. A fact two sources disagree on stays marked as unconfirmed rather than guessed.

Product photographs come from Amazon and are shown under its Associates terms. They help you recognise the exact model; they are not our photos and say nothing about how the product performs.

Platform settings

Bitrates, resolutions, keyframe and audio settings come from each platform’s own help page. Each has a page here with the full table: Twitch, YouTube Live, Kick, Facebook Live, TikTok LIVE.

OBS

OBS settings and menu names come from the OBS Project’s knowledge base. The meter levels and default audio bitrate the tools mention come from the OBS Studio 32.2.2 source code, which the OBS Project publishes openly.

• OBS quick start
• OBS Knowledge Base: Audio Mixer Guide
• OBS multitrack recording
• OBS standard recording output guide
• OBS stream connection troubleshooting
• OBS encoding performance troubleshooting
• OBS stream buffering troubleshooting
• OBS support: capture the log for a reproduced issue
• OBS output profiles
• OBS scene collections
• OBS Knowledge Base: Filters Guide
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: interface labels (Advanced Audio Properties, Sync Offset)
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: audio Channels setting and the Mono checkbox in Advanced Audio Properties
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: Image and Image Slide Show source names
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: output, video and audio settings names
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: the streaming service list and the settings it applies (Keyframe Interval, audio bitrate limit)
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: the keyint line each encoder prints in the log
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: filter names (Video Delay (Async), Render Delay)
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: Sync Offset range (-950 to 20,000 ms)
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: Video Delay (Async) range (0 to 20,000 ms)
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: Render Delay range (0 to 500 ms)
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: volume meter levels
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: default output settings
• OBS Knowledge Base: Audio Sources
• OBS Studio home page
• OBS Knowledge Base: Video Capture Sources
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: noise gate filter defaults and behaviour
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: compressor filter defaults and behaviour
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: limiter filter defaults
• OBS Game Capture troubleshooting
• OBS Chroma Key filter
• OBS Knowledge Base: Virtual Camera Guide
• OBS Knowledge Base: Virtual Camera Troubleshooting
• OBS Knowledge Base: Application Audio Capture Guide
• OBS Knowledge Base: Hybrid MP4 & Hybrid MOV Formats
• OBS Knowledge Base: Smartphone Camera Guide
• OBS Studio 32.2.2 source: the Twitch VOD Track setting
• OBS Studio: Game Capture Source
• OBS Studio 32.2.2: capture source labels and warnings
• OBS Studio: Window Capture Sources
• OBS Studio: Display Capture Sources
• OBS Studio: Laptop Troubleshooting
• OBS Studio: System Requirements
• OBS Studio: Hardware Encoding
• OBS Studio: Media Sources
• OBS Knowledge Base: OBS Studio Overview Guide
• OBS Forums: Multiple RTMP outputs plugin
• OBS Forums: Aitum Vertical

Browser tests and your computer

The webcam, microphone and headphone tests use your browser’s own camera and audio features, as MDN Web Docs describes them, and the brightness reading uses the luma formula in the ITU’s BT.709 recommendation. When a test finds a problem, the first steps come from Microsoft’s and Apple’s own support pages for your system. Nothing you see or record in these tests leaves your device.

Our own arithmetic

Some numbers are ours, worked out from the published figures, and each tool says so where it shows them: the upload a stream needs with 20% kept free (YouTube’s recommended margin, also applied where a platform publishes none), where a stream sits inside a published bitrate range, the bits per pixel of an output, and the brightness and level bands in the browser tests. None of them is a measurement of a product.

Correct a fact

If a model, a connection or a setting here is wrong, the corrections page says what evidence settles it. A new product generation gets its own entry; it never inherits the older model’s facts.