Why I Chose Ecamm Live (Mac only)

so on my channel i teach about how you can make better presentations using streaming software like ecamm and obs and those are the two that i focus on but a question that i've been getting recently is why do you prefer ecam because it's no secret if you've been around here that i am an ecam lover lover i love it that's a weird term but hey we're gonna we're gonna work with it i love this product and it's one of the reasons that i use it for my streams i use it to record content and i do use it for my zoom calls primarily now i've learned obs because it's a great option for people who maybe don't have a mac or don't have the budget they're just looking to up their virtual camera game and they need something simple so there are a lot of reasons why you would choose it but i thought i would actually get into what are the main reasons like really think about this and so i have four main reasons that i choose to use ecamm and why why i love it why it is my preferred product over other ones and also at the end i'll share a few considerations that you should think about if you are trying to decide so maybe you've been contemplating ecamm and that's something that you are considering but you're kind of on the fence what are some things so i will talk about that as well and if you are new to the channel i am not just an ecamm lover i am also a person who teaches how to create more professional and engaging online presentations and many of the times that is using a virtual camera so using a streaming software like ecam live or something like obs so what are some of the reasons what are the four reasons that i prefer to use ecamm live and if i haven't said it already but i think many of you know this is a mac only product so i apologize to my windows friends but that is something that it's just it's going to be mac centric today all right number one the user interface so in my opinion i find not only is the user interface attractive i like the way it actually looks on my screen there are some other things that i really like about it so let's actually hop into demo mode so you can see my screen so is this i push the demo mode button but i'm not getting the thing so i'm going to do this manually and go into live demo mode there we are so now we are in live demo mode and you can see how i have set up ecamm right now this is just ecamm on my screen often when i'm running a workshop or doing a live stream i might have notes on this screen but i decided to just keep it clean and so you can see my preview screen my different windows that i have set up and i can actually move these and arrange them however i want i can also hide these and i love that i can do that so if i don't want to see my sound levels i can just hide that if i don't want to see my overlaid information or maybe my camera effects maybe i want to keep it super simple and if i'm not doing a live stream i might actually want to hide comments and reactions because it's only with a live stream but i can always just pop them back up and see these different things i see the different windows whenever i want them and pop them back up i actually don't often have sound effects up and we also have the camera effects if you're doing an interview we can have the interview window open so i really like the customized customizability of ecm and the fact that you can lay it out however you want so if i wanted to have my comments maybe in a little bit closer here i can do that if i want to have my overlays over here you can move them all around i think that that is a wonderful feature and personally i find it really intuitive meaning when i look at for example the overlays window i can start to see quickly what exactly is the option that i want to add so i have personally found that with ecamm i have not had to guess what's going on i downloaded it have a little bit of an orientation and once i started using it i found that it was pretty easy for me to start using so the interface is definitely one the other thing that i will say is a leg up over something like obs is i can repeat the same name over and over and i know that that sounds trivial to some people but the fact that i can have main camera repeated as a title over and over and over again is really nice i could even name a folder the same name but when you are using obs that is something where you cannot repeat a name and i get it i understand why they do not want you to have scenes with the same name or to have sources with the same name i get it but i love that i can actually have the same name over and over all right i'm gonna pop out of demo mode for a second and yes i see here a comment and here's another thing i can put a comment up on the screen really easily and that leads me to my next thing which is that i really love the built-in features and that is one of the built-in features that i absolutely love is that if you are someone who is doing live streaming whether that is to youtube or facebook or twitch you can show your comments on the screen and i've had a number of people write to me and say how do you do that in obs and my answer is i don't actually know i did a little bit of searching but it's not it's not built in obviously if you are an obs user you are probably aware that you have to get plug-ins or different things not everything is built in so when it comes to using ecamm i love that i can post the comments during live streams but some of the other things that i really appreciate is something like the round picture in picture so simply being able to share my screen and have myself in around a circular window is not something that you can do very easily you can do it i have a lesson on how to create a circular mask for obs so there's an option but once you do that then you have to re-add another source because of the mask etc not going to get all into that simply saying there are a lot of built-in things that i really like another built-in feature that i really really like is the timer so if you have seen my video on how to add timers and having a countdown timer you will see that there are two very different approaches when it comes to it so let's go back into our demo mode here so when it comes to a timer on ecamm it's as simple as clicking the little timer button picking the time so maybe i want this to be five minutes long and then you have these options for and you can change the font that you want you can change the color the appearance really easily you can have it auto start you can also go to the next scene when you are finished this is amazing if you are setting up an automatic introduction or if you are doing an exercise or activity with people being able to set a time and then have it just automatically go to the next slide so you're not just sitting there with the zero that to me is great and there are other options so you can count down a date or time a clock a stopwatch it's not just the timer but then you simply add it and then you put it wherever you want it obviously i usually use some sort of background or animation to go with it but this is the type of thing that's so easy to do whereas if you have seen a tutorial how to do it in obs there are more steps involved it's a little bit more complicated and it's not as easy to add multiple timers so if i'm running a workshop and i want to have three different breakout sessions and i want to actually put or i wouldn't do it for a breakout session if i had exercises that i wanted people to do and i want to put up a timer maybe three different scenes with three different times piece of cake it's not a headache or it's not all that confusing so that is another thing and wait before i go the interview feature so here you saw when you have the pro plan so you get the virtual camera you also get the interview feature the interview feature is so easy to use you can copy your link send it to people and say hey just grab this link from a browser and they can join your call and so you can host a panel you can host interviews you can place everybody in advance which is something i did recently i hosted a panel on ecamm live and i was able to just set them all up have it ready to go and then i set up my stream deck but you can also have hotkeys so you can see here beside the scene i can type in a hotkey so i don't have to have an external tool like a stream deck so you can see that you have these different features that are built in that are already there and that work really really smoothly and they make your presentation run much smoother so those are some of the things that i absolutely love what's the next thing so scene control this sounds strange but it's something that as i was explaining to something to students real recently i realized that i prefer the control that i have over a scene and so let's take for example my countdown so at the start of every live stream i have a two minute countdown timer i usually take a drink of water because i like to be hydrated before i speak and it gives me a chance to kind of review what is my opening line what am i going to say i can say hello to a few people in the chat i can do all that stuff during that countdown when i think about the scene it means that i can have my countdown timer playing i can have my animation going i can set music directly in that specific scene so that i know music is going to play when it starts and i can mute my microphone then because i have that countdown timer set to automatically go to my main camera scene then i don't have to think about anything it's like a set it and forget it you know you can have everything ready to go whereas when i have this is limited played around with audio in obs it is just i do not feel like i have as much control over what is happening and what isn't and then the other thing that we can look at so let's take a look at our i'm going to go back into demo mode so here you can see in the overlays window which i have here on this to this area here so my bottom left so there is a show in all scenes and i have an example here where i have it set up so i have my name if i ever am in a call i've got ecamm for my virtual camera all i have to do is trigger this and it will play my name doesn't matter which scene i am in obviously i want to pay attention to whether or not this scene has an overlay or something already on it i don't want it to be distracting but i can quickly have this animation play regardless of whichever scene then i can also though show in specific scenes this is a main camera so this is a previous comment that had come up in one of these scenes so it's tied to this scene and if i do have an old comment you can just click on it and delete it but if i wanted something specific just to show up only in the scene like my countdown at the start i want the animation just in that scene not in all scenes i can quickly add it to that one scene so what i really like is to have full control over these different the overlays do i show it in all do a show in some same with music is the music playing in this one specific scene or is this music just playing overall across those scenes so that is the type of thing that i also really big fan of okay so scene control also the timer option if i go back to that i love that it will just advance and now i know some people that makes them nervous at the idea that a countdown timer is going to count down to zero and then advance the next scene but if you have a countdown timer you should be paying attention regardless so whether you are manually going to change to the next scene or whether it automatically changes you need to pay attention if you have a timer that is about to run out so that is my advice when it comes to countdown timers i like knowing that it's going to advance so i don't have to time it right i don't want it stuck sitting on zero but you also have to be attentive if you've got any kind of countdown because you're sending a message and setting expectations for the people who are watching and so you want to make sure that you actually do what they said they were going to do now i see a quick question that i'm going to address now and it's can you stream on multiple platforms using ecamm so the answer to this is no not natively so right now if we i because i'm live right now i can't show you but when you open up ecamm you can select your destination are you going to record only so that'd be locally are you going to go to youtube are you going to go to facebook do you have a custom stream key so you can enter a stream key from a certain site that you want to go live to however you can connect with restream so restream you can connect directly to that through ecm and then on the restream side you can actually figure out where you want to do a multicast and full disclosure i tried it for a while but i just didn't i didn't love the experience more so from the fact that your audience is divided and so i didn't love that i prefer also as a person who watches and consumes other people's content and live streams i actually really like being in one community being able to chat with people all together right now if i was multi-streaming or multicasting to more than one location some people are having a conversation in the chat in one place and some people are having a conversation in the chat somewhere else or only two people are in one place and then five people are in the other you get the idea so i personally choose my strategy for live streaming is to pick one place and to go there but the simple answer is no not natively but it is something that you can set up you just have to use another tool and yes i agree the countdown timer is a nice feature and it's available in other ones it's just i find not as pleasing so if you've ever seen setting up the timer in obs you have like all the extra zeros you have to kind of crop those out and you have to be really strategic about it whereas here you just don't have to it's just less of a headache and so okay those are so my first three i had the user interface was the first one the built-in features that i really like are the second one and then scene control so what's the last one because this is not actually about the physical product or the software it's actually the people and the community so this one actually really matters to me and i didn't notice until i really sat down and asked myself why am i such a fan of ecamm and a lot of it has to do with the people and the community now when i say people in community i mean that i know the people behind the product so i know that ken and glenn brothers came up with this product and then they have a team and i've now met people from the team like katie and caleb and doc rock and the people in the community there are actual faces behind it and there is nothing against open source free software i think that is a great thing to have i love that there's something that's universally accessible to people and that other people can build on that's wonderful at the same time i really like as a consumer to know who created the product and where to go for help because i have found that i've spent quite a considerable amount of time trying to find a reputable source to answer some of my problems when i am looking for issues related to obs and i don't know necessarily whose advice is correct if someone has created a plugin an open source plugin i don't really know anything about them and while most of the stuff is trustworthy there is something to be said about knowing who's responsible and who is behind the software that you are using and in this case i really like the ecamm community as well i find it to be a very warm welcome open community they're very transparent about what they're working on and what they're not and anytime i have a question i know where to go and look and find the answer really quickly so there is that trade-off there and that to me is something that i really like so i like knowing the people i also like having that community that to me is really valuable and so yeah i see rey is saying the same thing agree on the open source so i mean i do i think open source i think it's accessible that is wonderful and i would never never dispute that that's a great thing i think that there's just that trade-off is are there people directly behind it do you know them is there customer support etc versus an open source option which is a really great option and it just might not be the best fit for every person so that being said so those are my four big reasons when i narrowed it down there are other little things that i am a fan of and that i really enjoy but for the most part those are the ones that i kind of narrowed down to however i know there's no perfect software for any one person and there's always going to be changes and adaptations that are happening and so one of the things i want to talk about is some considerations so when it comes to choosing a streaming software whether that is for your virtual camera for presentations whether that is for you deciding to go live in front of a group or if you want to record your own content those are all three things that i do with ecam i go live like i am right now i record lessons and i also use it to present in zoom and other web conferencing platforms so i use it for all those things i would say if you are contemplating a streaming software for whatever reason first of all know your reason what is your primary use case and what are you looking for that tool to do and then see does it do that because that's first and foremost your most important thing the second thing is you want to consider what is really important to you so for some people cost and accessibility is going to way out above some of those other things like i said it's really important to have that people in community i didn't know it at the time when i signed up but i learned it by being part of it i really value that but someone else might say you know what no for me it's having that open source having it be free having sort of this infinite amount of plugins and opportunity they like that people are building different features that will fit with it so everyone values things differently and so i think that's really important for people to consider and the other thing obviously is that it's for one ecosystem this is for max the other thing is that you do have to have a strong enough computer and that is just a reality my first computer my laptop it struggled a bit i could do streaming with it i could make my presentations but as i started to add more elements and more features doing screen sharing etc i found that my computer could not cut it which is one of the reasons i invested in a better stronger computer so that is absolutely a consideration and that might be a deal breaker you might not have a strong enough computer that has happened with some of the people i've worked with they really want it to work and it's just not compatible so obviously you have to do that the other thing is if you are let's say just looking for something for streaming it's possible that depending on your scenario whether it means that you are moving around or mobile or you're working with different people that perhaps having an account with a web-based version might also be a better fit for you but you're only going to know that when you actually ask what are the things that i want to do with the tool what are my personal circumstances am i going to be traveling am i going to be sharing this account with other people that's maybe where a web-based one might work more am i multicasting to other places so asking all those questions in advance are really helpful and then the other thing is give it a try see if this is actually something you want and that's why a lot of programs most programs have a free trial use the free trial and see if you actually like it see if your computer is equipped to do it but i would say for me for all the reasons that i mentioned that user interface the built-in features the scene control and the community those are the things that make me gravitate towards ecamm live so for you and your decision making you want to ask what is it for what matters to you what do you actually like and then also consider the trade-offs so if you do prefer something that is more affordable or more accessible but there you might spend more time doing research on troubleshooting great for me i really like to pay for a product where i can get help a little bit easier and have some of those features already ready to go so for me that's the trade-off that i want to consider and think about and so hopefully with a little bit of this information and maybe a bit of a peek behind the scenes you can get an idea of whether that's the direction that you want to go in

Channel: Cat Mulvihill

Views: 1,634

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Id: 8hGlwP-nclc

Length: 21min 43sec (1303 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 07 2021