How automatic scene switching works

You step into a lift, you lose coverage and the stream freezes. Automatic scene switching watches your feed the whole time and, when it sinks, puts something decent up front until you’re back.

What it watches

Two numbers from the feed arriving at your stream key:

• The bitrate, in kbps. What your phone or your encoder is actually pushing up.
• The latency (RTT), in milliseconds. It rises before the bitrate does when the network starts to choke.

What it does with them

You have three scenes assigned and it moves between them depending on the state of the feed:

Scene	When it comes in
Normal	Everything’s fine: bitrate above the threshold and reasonable latency
Low bitrate	The bitrate drops below the low bitrate threshold, or the latency rises above the high RTT threshold
No signal	The bitrate falls below the no signal threshold

The Low bitrate scene is usually a static shot or a camera with less movement; the No signal one, your “back in a minute” screen. You decide what they are.

When it acts and when it doesn’t

Only while you’re streaming. If OBS isn’t live, it touches nothing: you can prepare scenes in peace without them being switched out from under you.

It doesn’t jump at the first bump. Before switching it waits for several bad checks in a row — the retries, 5 out of the box. That way a one-second glitch doesn’t take you off shot.

It comes back on its own, and fast. As soon as the feed recovers, it returns to your Normal scene without waiting for anything or asking your permission. You don’t have to remember to go back.

The scenes have to exist with that exact name

Automatic switching doesn’t create scenes: it only switches to the ones already in OBS. If you assign a scene and then rename it or delete it, it’s left with nowhere to go and nothing changes. Check the names before you head out.

Where it’s set up

It’s configured per server, and there are two places depending on where your OBS is:

• On a Cloud OBS: the Scene switching tab in the server detail. Every Cloud OBS plan includes it. → Setting it up on a Cloud OBS
• On your own OBS: the Scene switching tab of your local OBS, with the dock already connected. → Setting it up on your OBS

The important difference between the two: on the Cloud OBS you can tie it to your chat and give your moderators commands; on your local OBS, you can’t. That’s in Chat commands.

About NOALBS

Automatic scene switching is built on NOALBS, an open-source project born in the IRL community. Thanks to whoever keeps it going: you can tell in every stream that doesn’t freeze.

Before you trust it

1. Create (or review) the three scenes in OBS and put real content in them.
2. Assign them in the dashboard and save.
3. Tune the thresholds to your real bitrate. The stock ones fit a stream of around 3 Mbps. → Recommended thresholds
4. Do an ugly test on purpose: go live and cover the antenna or kill your phone’s data. It should drop you to Low bitrate and then to No signal, and come back when you reconnect.

Next step

• Recommended thresholds — what numbers to use depending on how much you stream at.
• Setting it up on a Cloud OBS — the tab, step by step.