Learn, how to quickly install and configure OBS Studio for FreeBSD and use it for recording desktop, streaming and more.

OBS Studio is a neat, light-weight and powerful open source desktop recorder and streamer for FreeBSD. It’s supported by YouTube, Twitch and Facebook, which are platform, often used for live streaming. It is also a nice alternative to old school command line FFmpeg desktop recording or other desktop recording software.

Screenshot of OBS Studio for FreeBSD with XOrg and GNOME. OBS Studio is showing a scene with Firefox browser on a background image.
Screenshot of OBS Studio for FreeBSD with XOrg and GNOME. OBS Studio is showing a scene with Firefox browser on a background image.

OBS Studio is available from the default package system in FreeBSD.

# pkg search obs
obs-audio-spectralizer-1.3.4   OBS Studio Plugin: Audio visualizer
obs-ndi-4.9.1                  OBS Studio Plugin: Network Device Interface
obs-qtwebkit-g2018090201_2     Browser source plugin for obs-studio
obs-scrab-1.1                  OBS Studio Plugin: Screenshot plugin
obs-streamfx-0.9.3             OBS Studio Plugin: Modern effects
obs-studio-27.0.1_4            Open source streaming/recording software
obs-transition-matrix-1.0.4    OBS Studio Plugin: OBS Transition Matrix
obs-v4l2sink-0.1.0.12          OBS Studio Plugin: Output as Video4Linux2 device
obs-websocket-4.8.0            OBS Studio Plugin: WebSockets API

Install OBS Studio from the command line in FreeBSD.

# pkg install obs-studio
The process will require 28 MiB more space.
7 MiB to be downloaded.

Run OBS Studio from the command line or the desktop launcher. OBS Studio gives a lot of valuable information to default output, which can be seen, when run on the command line.

% obs

Go through the default configuration wizard and finish off by going through the advanced settings and change as necessary. You probably want to change the output format from MKV to MP4.