Avoiding weird characters on Twitch Exports
Twitch allows for very convenient exports of past broadcasts and highlights to your connected YouTube channel: In the Video Producer, click on the little three-dot icon next to a video, the select Export. Moments later the video, including its title and description should be on YouTube. It’s rad! Sadly though, doing this will introduce rather strange characters caused by Twitch’s use of Markdown. Links for example are converted into Markdown, and extraneous hashes and such things are littered around the description as a result....
read morePrevent Steam on Mac from starting automatically
I’ve recently installed Steam on my Mac for the first time. I made sure to disable the auto startup option from the menu as I hardly use it on this underpowered machine (under Steam – Preferences – Interface). There’s no tick box there! Imagine my surprise when I restarted my Mac a couple of days later, only to be greeted by the familiar window showing “Updating Steam”. Bad software design at its best: do the opposite of what the user has selected. Good job, Steam! This being a Mac issue, there’s...
read moreHow to add allow ZIP files as uploads in WordPress
Years ago I added an additional MIME type to one of my websites so that I could allow a strange proprietary file type to upload directly. Back in those days, only a handful were allowed, and it included the ZIP format. I never had issues uploading those. As the world gradually becomes a shitter place, security is tightened and I guess sometime recently ZIP files were no longer allowed in WordPress by default. Thankfully I remember how I did it, and I thought I’ll share it with you. Add the following snippet to your functions.php file. I...
read moreFixed: macOS reports incorrect disk space usage
I had a weird issue on y MacBook today: after being low on space for what felt like months, I bit the bullet and deleted 50% of stuff from hard disk. I freed up about 250GB of files, emptied the trash, and checked under About this Mac – Storage. Sure enough, I finally had space again. But when I tried to install something, which instantly told me I only had 14GB available, and that’s just not enough. I thought, “pardon?” I double-checked on the command line with df -h, and the output corroborated the statement of the...
read moreHow to add custom emotes on Twitch
So I’ve made affiliate on Twitch last month (YEY!!!), and one of the perks is that I can upload my own custom emote. Which is super exciting! It takes a while for those little icons to get approved, but once they’re online they add a very personal touch to a stream. My first iteration wasn’t great, so I took another crack at it and wanted to upload the new design – having forgotten where in the deep and dark Twitch interface that setting was. I thought I’d make a not for next time, and anyone struggling with the...
read moreAdding Compression and Noise Reduction to your Microphone in OBS
Most voice recording sounds better with a little bit of compression applied. It’ll make the quieter bits louder, and make the louder bits quieter. In addition, there’s usually a little bit of noise that is picked up even with the best of microphones. It’s just a fact of audio life. Thankfully OBS has two great filters that can be used in combination to great effect, first compressing your voice, and then adding a bit of noise reduction afterwards. I’ll show you how to do it, and the values that work well for me in this...
read moreRouting and monitoring Audio Sources in OBS
I’ve been struggling to route and monitor some of my audio sources in OBS. Thankfully I’ve found two essential tools that make this possible, and I thought I’d jot down some notes in case I forget. I’ll also touch on how to monitor audio properly without causing an endless loop by recording what you’re monitoring. The tools we need for ultimate success are: VB Audio Cable and Audio Router In principle, we use the latter to route a source into the VB-Cable (a virtual destination), then we pick up the VB-Cable...
read moreHow to add your Twitch URL to Reddit
I’ve been meaning to join Reddit about 20 years ago and never got round to it. Sadly my last name and site name are gone by now, but I finally managed to sign up – new for 2020 and all that. While I was there, I accidentally stumbled upon the option that lets you add your Twitch URL next to your user name. I had read how to do it recently, but it didn’t mean anything until I saw it. Here’s how it works. The option is not set on your user profile, but on the community, i.e. the Twitch Subreddit. You must join it first,...
read moreHow to start a Rerun on Twitch (2020)
I’ve heard good things about Twitch Reruns, but had no idea how to get the going. I found the upload option, but I thought it would be ridiculous to download my own stream, then re-upload it for a Premiere. Turns out Reruns are a new panel you have to add to the re-designed Broadcast Dashboard. Let me show you where to find it and how it works step by step (with screenshots, because I’ll probably forget a week from now). Head over to your Dashboard, or the “Stream Manager” as they call it as of 2019. You get there via...
read moreFlaky with a Capitol F: My Elgato HD 60 Pro review
I wanted a top quality capture solution for my PS3 and PS4 consoles, something that would last a few years and that I could use for high-quality HDMI capture of other devices too. I’ve had a cheap USB solution before and as you can imagine, the quality just wasn’t great. I finally bit the bullet and purchased an ELGATO HD60 Pro. This is a PCI-e card with a dedicated video encoder, HDMI in and out, and from what the sales brochure tells you, it’s the proverbial Dog’s Bollocks. I’ve had it for several months now...
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