Broadcasting Surround Sound with OBS

Overview

Like OBS Studio Millicast's OBS version also supports surround sound streaming and recordings. Traditionally this is a feature reserved to professional broadcast appliances. Millicast OBS can stream and record up to 8 audio channels.
The audio channels can be surround sound channels or more general multichannel ones. The Millicast viewer will support playback of surround sounds.

Use cases:

  • gaming
  • music
  • virtual reality/360

Setup

Settings > Audio : just select a channel different from Mono or Stereo in the Channels list. Click OK to the Warning pop-up and restart OBS.

980

Settings > Output :

Output Mode : select Advanced
Advanced > Audio Tab : larger bitrates are unlocked for surround sound (up to 1024 kbs). Select a large bitrate. By default OBS-Studio selects 160 kbs for stereo. This is insufficient for surround sound. As a rule of thumb 64 kbs x number of channels should be CD quality.

964

Interfacing with a DAW

Windows

SAR (requires having an ASIO driver, for instance ASIO4ALL if you don't own an ASIO card).
rearoute (from Reaper, with up to 256 channels) if using ASIO plugin
Voicemeeter (Excellent guide here by Jack0r for Voicemeeter Banana)
Virtual Audio Cable (requires v.4.50 or later).

1111

MacOS

A few available apps.

Soundflower
Jack server
Loopback

Player Support

Millicast hosted player supports surround sound.

https://viewer.millicast.com/?streamId=accountId/streamName