How to stream club cricket on YouTube

What you need

• One phone to score and a second phone to film, on a tripod or a clamp. A webcam, a camcorder with a capture card, or extra phones work too if you stream from a laptop.
• A YouTube channel with live streaming switched on. Do it at least a day ahead (youtube.com, Create, Go live): the first time, YouTube can take up to 24 hours.
• About 5 Mbps of upload where the camera stands. Check it at the ground, not at home.
• A power bank for the camera phone. Filming and sending video all afternoon empties a battery.
• Two people. One scores, one looks after the camera. Scoring and filming from the same phone does neither well.

Three ways to do it

Set-up	Good for	Needs
Two phones	Most club matches. No laptop, one camera, the score drawn on the video.	A ThisOverThisver organiser plan or the 7-day trial
OBS on a laptop	Two or three camera angles, switched live.	A laptop with OBS (free) and a plan
Your own stream, plus our score	You already stream with OBS, Streamlabs, Prism or vMix.	Nothing: the score overlay is free for every scorer

Where to put the camera

Put the tripod behind the bowler’s arm, or high up and square of the wicket, so the whole pitch is in view. Raise it to head height or above, keep the sun behind the camera, and turn the phone sideways.

Then get it straight. In ThisOverThisver’s camera preview, turn the tripod head until the level line goes green and the reading says Level, and tilt the phone until the pitch sits in the middle third of the grid, pointing slightly down. The grid and the level line are only on your screen, never on the stream.

Tip. Bright sun washing the picture out? Slide Brightness down. Evening shade or floodlights? Slide it up. If the colours look wrong, pick Daylight, Cloudy or Shade, and use Zoom to frame the pitch without moving the tripod.

With two phones, step by step

1. Phone one: score as usual. Start scoring the match. Streaming never slows scoring down, and if the stream drops, the scoring carries on.
2. Phone two: open the same match. In the Live tab tap Stream this match on YouTube. It is also in the scoring screen, under Actions, in the Live stream section.
3. Connect your channel, once. Tap Connect YouTube and sign in with the Google account that owns the channel. Check the title, and choose Unlisted (people with the link) or Public (anyone can find it).
4. Turn on the camera and line it up, as above.
5. Choose the quality. Standard (720p) suits most mobile connections. Low Data saves data on a weak signal. Match Day HD is 1080p, for strong Wi-Fi or 5G.
6. Tap Go live. The live starts on your channel, with the score strip, player cards and milestones on the video, and the match appears in Watch Live in ThisOverThisver straight away.
7. Run it from the scorer’s phone. Actions, then Camera controls, shows whether the camera phone is live and level, and changes brightness, zoom and white balance, the torch and the mic, or starts and stops the stream.
8. Finish. Tap End stream when the match is over. The recording stays on your channel and on the match page.

The four-minute video shows each step on the real screens.

With OBS and more cameras

For a main camera behind the bowler’s arm, a wide one square of the wicket and a close one on the batter or the crowd, mix them on a laptop with OBS.

1. Connect the cameras. Put everything on the same Wi-Fi or the laptop’s hotspot (a USB cable is the most reliable). Phones need a camera app such as Camo, DroidCam or Larix. Add each camera to OBS as a video source.
2. Create the live in ThisOverThisver. Open the match, then in the Live tab, or under Actions in the scoring screen, tap Stream with OBS and Create live for OBS. ThisOverThisver creates the live on your YouTube channel.
3. Copy the server and the stream key into OBS: Settings, Stream, Service: Custom. Keep the key private; anyone with it can stream to your channel.
4. Add the score. Copy the overlay link from the same screen, add it in OBS as a Browser source at 1920 by 1080, and keep it above every camera.
5. One scene per angle, with the overlay in every scene, then Start Streaming. Click a scene to switch angles; the score stays on top.

Already streaming? Add the score for free

If you already stream your matches, keep your set-up and add ThisOverThisver’s score on top. While scoring, open Actions and tap Copy overlay link. In OBS, Streamlabs, Prism or vMix add a Browser source, paste the link and set it to 1920 by 1080. The strip follows every ball, with pop-ups for fours, sixes, wickets and milestones.

Add &demo=1 to the link to line it up before the match, or open the overlay demo with no match at all. There are four looks: ThisOverThisver red, Turf green, Midnight blue and Graphite.

Then, so followers can watch inside ThisOverThisver, use Actions, then Link YouTube live, and paste the stream’s link.

Signal, data and battery

• Data: Standard quality uses about 1.8 GB an hour, so a three-hour match is about 5.5 GB. Low Data uses less, Match Day HD more.
• Signal: stand the camera where the upload is best. The scorer’s phone does not need a signal at all: it scores offline and catches up when it can.
• Battery: keep the camera phone on a power bank from the first ball. Dim the scorer’s screen to make its battery last.

Before every match

• Live streaming is switched on for the channel (done a day ahead the first time)
• Camera phone sideways, level line green
• Brightness set for the light you have
• Quality chosen for the signal at the ground
• Power bank plugged in
• Players who want their photo on the stream have switched on Show my photo on live streams; everyone else shows initials

Questions