How to Make a Waiting Screen for Live Streaming and Use Looping Video With OBS

When streaming, there are times when your content might not be live but you still want something on the screen to let your audience know that something is about to, or has been, happening. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to make and use one.

What is a Waiting Screen and Why Would I Use One?

The most common types of waiting screen are:

  • Starting soon
  • Be right back
  • Thanks for watching

They’re pretty self-explanatory, but using a waiting screen like ‘starting soon’ can help create anticipation as well as give you a holding page to promote your other social links to the audience before to your stream. ‘Be right back’ is useful if you have an unexpected problem or if you need the bathroom! ‘Thanks for watching’ is a way to make sure your stream doesn’t just drop off a cliff, and a nice way to thank your fans and again promote your social media links, upcoming shows, and hopefully send some watchers into following you elsewhere.

How to Make a Waiting Screen for OBS Studio

From Scratch

Have a little time, or need something custom? It's not too hard to create something yourself from scratch in a programme like Adobe Photoshop and Premiere or After Effects.

We've previously covered how to make a stream overlay in Photoshop. Here's a tutorial on how to take that overlay and combine it with looping stock video to make a Starting Soon screen. The process is the same with most video editing programmes, but demonsrtated here in After Effects:

Use a Template

Or you can use something pre-made and adjust it until it fits your brand. With PlaceIt you can create something quickly and easily right there on the website for a small fee or included as part of subscription, so you won’t need any additional software. Simply choose a 'waiting screen' template, edit it to suit your brand and render it out for use.

Let’s run through a quick example:

Twitch Starting Soon Screen Video Maker with Animated Wavy Lines

Twitch Starting Soon Screen Video Maker with Animated Wavy Lines
Twitch Starting Soon Screen Video Maker with Animated Wavy Lines available on PlaceIt

This template with wavy lines is simple and generic enough to use across any channel, with enough room for an additional link to another channel.

You can see that you have options to change the audio track, the background colour, wave colours, text, font (and colour) and the playback speed.

When you click the drop-down boxes you’ll see various alternatives to the pre-selected choices, and a ‘more’ button which will bring up the ability to search (for a font or music), or more colours including the option to put in a hex code.

some of the music track options available on PlaceIt

I searched ‘fun’ to find a new track, and picked Envato’s green as the colour of the waves, with white highlights.

You need to click Play All at the bottom of the screen before you can download your video.

play all

Once you've done that, the option to download will become available and when you click it you'll see this:

get your video

Your Starting Soon Video

Now you  have your video ready to go, you'll need to add it into OBS so it's ready to use.

 

How to Add Your Waiting Screen to OBS Studio

Use Scenes

The Scenes feature is great for creating collections of graphics that you can use across different broadcasts, and makes them more easily accessible. For example, if you have three waiting screens—Starting soon, Be right back, Thanks for watching—you can have them all set up to have on-hand when you need them

To add your starting soon video to a Scene (with it selected) right-click on Sources and choose Media Source from the options.

add media source

You'll be asked to create or select your Source. Since we're adding a new one, you'll click Create New and give it a title—I've called it 'starting soon'.

add a title for your source

Another window will appear for you to select some further options. Make sure loop is ticked otherwise your video will play through once and then stop. You want to stop it manually when you're ready to start your stream instead.

properties for video

Your Waiting Screen is Ready to Use

Now you'll be able to see your 'starting soon' screen in Sources and when on screen it'll loop until you're ready to stop it and begin streaming.

starting soon

When you've created other waiting screens, like 'BRB' and 'Thanks For Watching' just follow the same steps to add them and you'll see them appear in Sources. Remember to use Scenes to effectively group your sources together to make it easy to flip between them when needed.

More Help to Make Your Streaming Awesome

More Awesome Video Resources From Envato

Envato Video Marketing Guide

Boost your video marketing skills with our guide. You'll learn video marketing from start to finish to improve your next production — and connect with customers. 

Free Video Assets From Mixkit

Check out Mixkit for free stock videos, free stock music, and free templates for Adobe Premiere Pro.

Make Motion Graphics Video Online With PlaceIt

PlaceIt is an online video maker with professionally-designed motion graphics templates; you can make videos quickly, right in your browser.



from Envato Tuts+ Tutorials

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