NVIDIA, Twitch and OBS introduce Enhanced Broadcasting: multi-encode streaming with higher quality, reduced latency and AV1 support

NVIDIA announced improvements to video streaming on Twitch, powered by OBS

Enhanced Broadcasting, Source: NVIDIA

NVIDIA has announced an important update at CES 2024 focusing on video streaming in collaboration with Twitch. The upcoming Enhanced Broadcasting, set to launch in BETA later this month, will utilize the NVIDIA NVENC encoder to enhance the performance and quality of video streaming on both GeForce RTX and GTX GPUs.

The primary objective is to improve the viewer’s experience by enhancing video quality and reducing latency. This technology will rely on new standards and take advantage of enhanced streaming capabilities of the streamer’s hardware, enabling multi-encoded video streams. Additionally, it enables AV1 encoding when possible.

NVIDIA’s collaboration with OBS, an important tool for video streaming, aims to enable simultaneous streaming in up to three resolutions at a maximum of 1080p. Future plans involve testing higher bit rates, progressing to 4K resolution, and supporting up to four concurrent streams.

The noteworthy addition is the support for AV1, a royalty-free codec, which requires less bandwidth for higher quality video, but will requires that streaming hardware supports encoding in this format. For viewers, this should become less of a worry as modern GPUs, APUs and even mobile SoC continue to be updated with AV1 decoding. Furthermore, the AV1 encoding will not be limited to NVIDIA hardware.

[NVIDIA Studio] Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting (Multi-Encode Streaming) Powered by NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs (1,052 views)

As explained by EposVox, Enhanced Broadcasting relies on Enhanced RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) specifications. Transcoded video is sent to Twitch with all parameters such as encoder settings, resolution, bit rate, and encoding parameters. Twitch will assess and validate these parameters with a focus on quality of the connection, ensuring optimal settings. This makes streaming easier for content creators by taking care of complicated settings directly by Twitch, rather than the user.

As of now, the Enhanced Broadcasting feature is not publicly available to all streamers. Only a chosen group of participants and those who opt to enroll in the beta phase will have the privilege of accessing this feature. Twitch plans to gradually include more creators. Regardless, video streaming will greatly benefit from this technology. Once people start using it, AV1 video coding should also become more popular.

Source: NVIDIA, Twitch, EposVox