StreamChum Studio

StreamChum Studio is a ground-up desktop for going live on Windows and Apple Silicon. It is not OBS with a coat of paint. Download it from Downloads. Windows: run the installer (Start menu shortcut, no unzip). Mac: unzip, drag StreamChum Studio.app into Applications, then open it. Mac needs Apple Silicon and macOS 13.3+. Intel Macs are not supported.

Sign in and go live

1. Open Studio. If you are not signed in, you get a black sign-in screen. Register Free creates the account, then Studio continues. Log in if you already have one. Your channels come with you.
2. Build a scene: display capture or game, camera, and the StreamChum overlays you already branded.
3. In the StreamChum app, Settings, Channels, enable each platform as a go-live destination.
4. Hit Go live. Studio opens the same pre-stream checklist and title/category steps as Live Center, then sends one encode to every destination you turned on. Keys never appear in the browser. If you are not signed in, Studio asks you to sign in or create an account. If no channel is ready, it sends you to Settings, Channels.

Record locally

Record, next to Go Live, writes an .flv of one layout on this computer. It asks whether that file should be the full screen layout or the mobile layout. It does not go live, and it does not need a channel. Files land in Videos/StreamChum on Windows and Movies/StreamChum on Mac. Change that under Settings, Output, Local recording. Each take gets its own file. Stop the stream before you record, and stop the recording before you go live. While it is recording, click Recording in the header to show the file. When you stop, a dialog shows the file name, size, and full path. Show in folder opens that place. Copy path puts the path on the clipboard. Settings, Output, Show file opens the same file later. A full disk or a folder you cannot write stops the recording and the same dialog says so.

Ask Studio to build the scene

The Scene Builder button above the scene list takes a sentence (game full frame, camera bottom-right, chat on the left) and can add or change any scene, not only the one you have selected. Overlay Settings still has an AI tab for that overlay. New overlays can join a themed collection so they match. Scene Creator turns spend creative AI credits on Plus or Pro. Free includes Studio on one platform, with 0 credits until you subscribe.

Edit the canvas

Click an element on the preview to select it, or click it in the Elements list. Arrow keys nudge one pixel (Shift arrows move 10). Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V (Cmd on Mac) copy and paste elements. Shift-click (or Ctrl-click) to add more, then drag or resize them together. Shift on a resize handle stretches freely. Alt crops a single element.

Dual format streaming

Studio can send Twitch the wide program and a tall layout together. Above the preview, Full screen and Mobile switch the stage. Each layout has its own elements. Dual format streaming on Twitch is a checkbox on the go-live sheet, off by default, only when Twitch is a destination. Studio asks Twitch whether this computer can send both layouts before you go live. If Twitch says no, the option stays off and says why, and the mobile stage says this computer cannot send a phone layout. YouTube and Kick stay on the horizontal encode. Frame rate must be 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, or 60, or Twitch stays horizontal. The phone app does not send this.

Display, window, and game

Add capture is one sheet with Display, Window, and Game. On Windows, Window stays on that window. Game remembers the exe and follows a new window after a restart or when a launcher opens the game. Use borderless or windowed; exclusive fullscreen is not hooked unless you turn on Low GPU Usage Mode. On Mac, Display, Window, and Game use ScreenCaptureKit. Game follows the window; it is not a Present hook. The first Mac capture asks for Screen Recording, Camera, and Microphone in System Settings, Privacy & Security. Grant those to StreamChum Studio, or the frame stays black. New Window and Game layers land at the window's pixel size, centered. If the window is larger than your canvas, it scales down to fit. Changing the window or game in Element Settings does the same resize when the new window is a different size. Mouse cursor is optional per source and starts off for window and game. Select a capture already on the canvas and change the monitor, window, or game from Element Settings on the right.

Profiles and themes

Cloud profiles live in the Studio header. The look card shows the profile name and its theme. Click it to switch profiles. The cog next to a profile opens Edit theme (or Add a theme if that profile has none). New profile: name it, then generate a themed collection (vibe, optional Look / Logo / Character pictures), reuse a look you already locked, pick a marketplace pack that already has Studio scenes, or start blank. After a new look locks, Use this theme attaches the look. Build starter scenes, next to that button, opens the same scene picker as the web collection page (Intro, Playing, Chatting, and BRB by default, Outro and Transition optional). That spends overlay credits. Build creates the new profile right away and starts generating. Progress is in that sheet. If you close it, you are already on that profile: scenes and overlays appear on the canvas as they finish, and progress stays in the center of the stage. Skip if you want the look only. You land on an empty Main scene if you skip, unless the pack you reuse already has Studio scenes. Marketplace themes opens a sheet of published packs that already have Studio scenes: search, filter by category, and click one to add it to this profile. That installs the pack onto your account the same way the web marketplace does, then seeds those scenes onto the profile you named (or onto the profile you are already on if you opened Add a theme). Open Edit theme from the cog, then Save scenes to pack, to write this profile's scenes onto the linked themed collection (overlays stay, captures become empty slots). Installing a marketplace pack with scenes from the web creates a Studio profile you can switch to. Studio's new-profile wizard uses that same pack on the profile you just named instead of creating a second one. Published packs on the free stream elements site show those scenes. OBS still uses the pack as browser sources; it does not get those scene layouts yet. Edit theme changes the name, vibe, or pictures for that profile's look. On a new scene, the AI asks once whether to use that profile theme as inspiration (yes by default). When that pack has overlays, Scene Builder places those first and only looks in other collections if you ask or nothing there fits. A new overlay created in Studio (chat or Element Builder) joins that profile theme so it matches. A Look image can draft the look-and-feel paragraph from the picture. Locking a collection look does not spend creative AI credits. In the control panel, Studio lists those cloud profiles. Edit in Producer opens that profile on the Live Center overlay desk so you can move overlays without switching the one on the streaming PC.

Chat from your stream

When no scene or element is selected, the right inspector is Chat: stream events, then unified chat from Twitch, YouTube, and Kick, then the last-chatter AI brief at the bottom. Send a reply as the connected channel. Click a scene or element on the canvas or in the list to open Settings (General and AI; overlays also have Filters). Scene General holds scene-wide filters plus Layouts. Close Settings to go back to Chat. Timeouts and bans stay in Live Center.

Scene filters

Click a scene (not a layer) to open Settings. General has Filters: the same kinds as overlay Filters, applied to the whole scene after it is composed. Overlay filters stay on that one layer. You can use both, for example chroma on the camera and Color on the scene.

• Color: brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, temperature, tint, gamma, opacity.
• Chroma key, sharpen, flip, rotation, corner pin, rounded card.

Live captions

Studio can transcribe a microphone in real time. Turn it on in that mic's element settings. It taps that microphone only: game, desktop, and overlay audio stay out. Audio goes from Studio to AssemblyAI. StreamChum never receives the voice recording. Plus includes 20 hours a month, Pro 40. Captions do not spend creative AI credits. Free has 0 hours until you subscribe.

• Turn on Transcribe this mic in the microphone's element settings. One mic per scene. Listening starts when you go live and stops when the stream ends. Switching to a scene with no transcribed mic also stops listening.
• On-stream captions are a custom overlay that listens for live caption packets. Ask Element Builder to add captions on a widget.
• Off-air, Test in that mic's settings listens for 30 seconds, then turns off. Caption hours tick while you are speaking. Mute and silence do not count.

Duck when I talk

Studio can lower game, music, desktop, and app audio when you talk. In the mixer, turn on Duck when I talk, then set how much (default 70%). Overlay alerts stay loud unless you duck that track too. The local microphone level drives it. Live captions are not the trigger. Mixer faders go to 200% (unity is 100%), including on the Producer tab. Producer can mute, set volume, and change duck for the current scene's tracks, including when Studio is closed (those edits land on the cloud profile).

Canvas and encoder

Under Settings, Canvas and encoder, pick a preset: 1080p 60, 720p 60, 1440p 60, 4K 60, or Custom. That fills canvas size, framerate, and a starting bitrate. Save, then restart Studio for the encode to pick this up. Stopping the stream and going live again is not enough. On Windows, Studio picks the live H.264 encoder from the GPU: NVIDIA NVENC, AMD AMF on a Radeon, or Media Foundation (Intel Quick Sync / software) if those drivers are not there. Keep the graphics driver current. Studio uses the encoder in that driver. On Mac, live H.264 is VideoToolbox.

The same Output page has Advanced encoder, collapsed by default. Live stays on constant bitrate. Leave it alone unless you know you want something else. Save, then restart Studio so the encode picks it up. On Windows you can change keyframe interval, NVENC preset (P1 to P7), tuning, multipass, H.264 profile, look-ahead, adaptive quantization, and B-frames. Defaults are P5, high quality, two-pass quarter, High profile, AQ on, two B-frames, and a 2 second keyframe interval. AMD maps preset to quality, balanced, or speed. Intel and software map preset to quality vs speed; look-ahead, multipass, and adaptive quantization do not apply there. Ultra low latency turns off two-pass, look-ahead, and B-frames. On Mac the same page shows keyframe interval, quality vs speed (Speed, Balanced, Quality), latency tuning, and H.264 profile for VideoToolbox. Quality, high quality, High profile, and a 2 second keyframe interval are the defaults.

A System test button on that same Settings page measures this machine's GPU, encoder, and upload speed, then recommends canvas size, fps, and a starting bitrate. Use these settings, then Save and restart Studio so the encode picks it up. It runs on Windows and on Apple Silicon.

If a stream looks slow

Studio writes a small support.log on this PC (encoder, fps, skips, drops, GPU). Settings, About can send that log to StreamChum when you ask, with an optional note. Sign in first. Nothing is uploaded unless you send it. You can also copy the log or open the folder and attach it yourself. Quote the report code Studio shows after a send if you write in.

Turn on advanced stats on the program preview if you want to see the encoder name (NVENC, AMF, Media Foundation, or VideoToolbox) while you are live.

Live Center, Actions, and chat keep running in the browser while Studio carries the stream. One product, one login. Owners, admins, and Producers can also lay out overlays from the Producer tab in Live Center: edit any scene without cutting program, pick a cloud profile, mute/volume/duck from the mixer, and if Studio is closed they still edit that profile. See staff invites and Producer.

Studio ships for Windows and Apple Silicon (macOS 13.3+). Intel Macs are not supported. If a newer build is required, Studio tells you on launch. Use Update and restart, or on Windows run the new installer.

Console streamers can start in Live Center with no extra hardware. A capture card is the later path into Studio. See Xbox and PlayStation.