I got a lot of questions/requests about using a camcorder when streaming on Streamate. It should be pretty straight forward that if you have a PC but when it comes to MAC it can be a little more complicated.

Usually, you can’t just plug a camcorder or any other video device and hope to be recognize by your computer as a “webcam”. First you need a few things to set that up before you can stream successfully on Streamate.

What you need

– A camcorder

For camcorders you have multiple options and it’s ultimately up to you. For the purpose of this post I’m using a Panasonic HDC-HS80

– A video capture device

Here again you can use many things but for this example I will be using Elgato HD-60

Game Capture HD software

Of course a computer. Duh! In this case I’m using a Macbook Pro.

Setting up Elgato HD Capture

There’s multiple ports on the Game Capture. One one side you have an HDMI output. This one won’t be used unless you’re gaming and want to record your awesome Fortnite session;)

On the other side you have an HDMI input and a USB or USB-C if you have the new HD-60S, which by the way is the best option.

You wanna first plug the provided USB cable from the Game Capture device to your computer. You device should light up which means it’s ready to roll.

elgato hd60s

Now it might be different depending on the camcorder you have but you should have an HDMI output on your camcorder. In this case this is a mini HDMI out. You might need to get a mini HDMI (or micro HDMI) to HDMI cable. You’ll find that at Best Buy or even on Amazon. Now plug one end to the HDMI output of your camcorder and the other end to the HDMI In of the Game Capture. If you did everything correctly you should have one side of Elgato Game Capture with two cables, one being the USB power cable and the other one HDMI plugged to your camera.

panasonic camcorder live streaming

Download Game Capture HD

This is the easiest way to do this as, at least on a MAC I’m not too sure about PC, your computer won’t just recognize the device as a video device(webcam). The most complicated way, if you want to still use Flash Media Live Encoder or OBS or even Streamate SMB you will need another software like Camtwist for example. I won’t go into this as it means running multiple softwares and it might not be the best unless you have a kick ass fast computer.

You need to download Game Capture HD. Once you downloaded it, install it of course and open it. This is how it looks like.

game capture hd

If you plug everything correctly you should already see the video from the camcorder at this point. If not the software will tell you to plug your input device.

From there, it’s pretty straight forward.

Start streaming

Now you should be ready to stream. Log in to your Streamate account and click start my show. At this point you should have a window that pops up with FMS URL and STREAM.Streamate live streaming camcorder

Now go to Game Capture HD. One the right end side, Scroll down to the “Live Streaming” section.

Click “+” and select “rtmp://”. Copy the FMS URL and STREAM in the RTMP URL and Stream Key fields and click add. There’s a little dial on the left, move it between 1.6Mbps and 2.0 Mbps. You can test that out. If your equipment is slower or older choose lower but between 1 and 2 Mbps is the appropriate bitrate to use.

streamate elgato game capture

At the bottom of this screen there’s a Stream button. Click on it. Voila you’re live!

Camcorder specifics

Each camcorder is different but you might need to change a few settings on yours like remove the date on the screen, turn power to off, change the resolution etc…don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll look into it for you based on what you have.

Final thoughts

Using a camcorder to stream on Streamate can be very good as a camcorder has way more capabilities than any webcam on the market…except may be if you have the expensive yet awesome Logitech Conference Cam which will cost you about $1500!

The only problem with using a camcorder is that it’s not the easiest case scenario and if you are used to SMB or any other HD encoder software like OBS, you might need to add an extra layer or go into complicated settings. With OBS of example you can make it work but Game Capture HD still has to run and you will have to choose “window capture” on OBS to add your camera and crop/resize all the things you don’t want to show on the window. I’m not getting into specifics, it might be the subject of a different posts if I have lots of questions about it.

Another good thing about using a non webcam to broadcast is that you can have lots of fun like using a gopro for example. Gopro has a good video quality, especially the latest models, and has a nice wide angle which allows you to do some fun stuff on cam.

Good luck.