Question / Help OBS Preview looks different than output

[podonnell]

What I am trying to achieve is to create a 40-80 pixel black border on the bottom of my stream. I'm trying to place some information in this area as to not cover my actual gameplay.

The best way I've found to do this is to change the "base resolution" from 1920 x 1080 to 1820 x 1120

When starting a new preview in OBS, this increases the vertical size of my stream. I am also using a 1.5 downscale so it ends up being something like 1280x746

When testing in preview mode, it looks pretty good. However the one issue is my .exe game capture -- it adds black bars to the top and bottom of it's capture... so it seems the Y axis scales based on the overall resolution specified.

Anyway, I'm able to combat that by raising the game capture .exe up so the top black bar is not visible, which adds a bit more black padding to the bottom of my screen. However, when I actually see the output, there are black bars on the left and right of my stream:

This does not look like this in OBS preview or stream mode at all -- only the bottom has the black bar going across -- which is the desired effect. Something about the resolution is forcefully stretched to 16:9 by Twitch I believe.
So at this point I feel I need to re-think the entire approach.

How can I add black bars to the bottom of my stream while preserving the general image and not overlapping?

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[dping]

What I am trying to achieve is to create a 40-80 pixel black border on the bottom of my stream. I'm trying to place some information in this area as to not cover my actual gameplay.

The best way I've found to do this is to change the "base resolution" from 1920 x 1080 to 1820 x 1120

When starting a new preview in OBS, this increases the vertical size of my stream. I am also using a 1.5 downscale so it ends up being something like 1280x746

When testing in preview mode, it looks pretty good. However the one issue is my .exe game capture -- it adds black bars to the top and bottom of it's capture... so it seems the Y axis scales based on the overall resolution specified.

Anyway, I'm able to combat that by raising the game capture .exe up so the top black bar is not visible, which adds a bit more black padding to the bottom of my screen. However, when I actually see the output, there are black bars on the left and right of my stream:

This does not look like this in OBS preview or stream mode at all -- only the bottom has the black bar going across -- which is the desired effect. Something about the resolution is forcefully stretched to 16:9 by Twitch I believe.
So at this point I feel I need to re-think the entire approach.

How can I add black bars to the bottom of my stream while preserving the general image and not overlapping?

Thanks for any ideas!

without stretching the picture out of wack? you can frame your whole game capture in a black frame adding in bits of detail like a gradient color (or just black) to give a you a final 16x9 look OR crop or stretch your game capture (this will not look as good though) that it follows 16x9.

 

[podonnell]

without stretching the picture out of wack? you can frame your whole game capture in a black frame adding in bits of detail like a gradient color (or just black) to give a you a final 16x9 look OR crop or stretch your game capture (this will not look as good though) that it follows 16x9.

Hi dping -- thanks for trying to help out.

So your first suggestion would be to actually keep 16:9 and therefore accept the 4-sided black borders as a necessary consequence in order to preserve picture quality and ratio, right? I could make this work if I had to.. it's not ideal, but it might be the only option to 'add' space to my picture.

It seems that Twitch is enforcing that my overall output has to be framed in 16:9, as it is automatically adjusting the aspect ratio of my broadcast. Therefore there is no way to add vertical space without adding horizontal space as well.

The one thing I didn't like about the black frame was that the picture was shrunk.. and my goal was to preserve the quality of the primary content. but it seems that unless place my additional content over the primary capture, I will have to increase the overall resolution.

The second idea would be to crop or stretch my game capture... I'm willing to experiment with this to see how it would appear. Since it's a very slight change in resolution I am thinking it might be bearable, but I was unable to figure out how to change my game capture settings. It seems it will only accept the native resolution it is running in, and did not allow any changes outside of shrinking and enlarging proportionally.

Are you aware of a way that I can do this?

 

[dping]

Hi dping -- thanks for trying to help out.

So your first suggestion would be to actually keep 16:9 and therefore accept the 4-sided black borders as a necessary consequence in order to preserve picture quality and ratio, right? I could make this work if I had to.. it's not ideal, but it might be the only option to 'add' space to my picture.

It seems that Twitch is enforcing that my overall output has to be framed in 16:9, as it is automatically adjusting the aspect ratio of my broadcast. Therefore there is no way to add vertical space without adding horizontal space as well.

The one thing I didn't like about the black frame was that the picture was shrunk.. and my goal was to preserve the quality of the primary content. but it seems that unless place my additional content over the primary capture, I will have to increase the overall resolution.

The second idea would be to crop or stretch my game capture... I'm willing to experiment with this to see how it would appear. Since it's a very slight change in resolution I am thinking it might be bearable, but I was unable to figure out how to change my game capture settings. It seems it will only accept the native resolution it is running in, and did not allow any changes outside of shrinking and enlarging proportionally.

Are you aware of a way that I can do this?

on the game capture double click and enable ignore aspect ratio and I think from there you can just "edit scene" from the main OBS window. I cant recall if there are some tricks to manipulating the capture source more...

 

[podonnell]

So I am still getting the black bars even when forcing "ignore aspect ratio. Certain games were adding their own top and bottom black borders without that option checked, but it seems that Twitch is automatically forcing 16:9 on any similar resolution.

Is this a known thing? Does Twitch force 4:3 streams into 16:9?

 

[Bamse]

No, no recode is being done on non-partnered streams.
The player window on twitch is however hard coded and made for a 16:9 stream, so if another format is being used black borders will appear since no resize is being done or will be made. The player will not stretch or reformat the source, think of it as if you're watch a 4:3 movie on your 16:9 monitor in fullscreen with maintained aspect ratio.

 

[podonnell]

No, no recode is being done on non-partnered streams.
The player window on twitch is however hard coded and made for a 16:9 stream, so if another format is being used black borders will appear since no resize is being done or will be made. The player will not stretch or reformat the source, think of it as if you're watch a 4:3 movie on your 16:9 monitor in fullscreen with maintained aspect ratio.

Understood, thanks Bamse. So it sounds like if I want to utilize the most amount of screen space then I should make sure my stream output is 16:9 in OBS.

I think the best way to get a black bar underneath then would be to increase the overall resolution proportionally. I would then unfortunately have a black bar on one side as well.

The only other option would be to find a program that would take cs.go executable and resize it, as OBS does not let me change the resolution of the .exe itself.

 

[podonnell]

on the game capture double click and enable ignore aspect ratio and I think from there you can just "edit scene" from the main OBS window. I cant recall if there are some tricks to manipulating the capture source more...

Okay so this is even weirder... when I look at my VODs in fullscreen, there is no black border. Twitch & YouTube both cut it off and the game capture fills to the edge of my screen.

However when I view in non-fullscreen, just how it would typically look if someone browsed to my channel without going in fullscreen... there is added black borders on the left and right side.

 

[podonnell]

I'm assuming the web player is forced 16:9, and the fullscreen player changes that. I've viewed my VOD on a 16:9 and a 16:10 in fullscreen and both cases the black bars on the side are removed.

It's confusing, but I have the desired output in fullscreen at least.