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Steam Broadcasting allows you to watch your friends play their favorite games. You can also set up Broadcasting to allow others to watch you play.
Read more about this feature from the official update.
There are a number of ways to watch broadcasts throughout the Steam Community:
As soon as you start playing a game, your friends will be able to send you a request to watch.
The first time a friend requests to watch your game, you'll be presented with Broadcasting settings. You can access these settings at any time from the broadcast tab of your Steam > Settings inside the client:
Exiting the game will end your broadcast. Alternatively, at any time you can press Stop from the Broadcast panel in the Steam Overlay (shift+tab).
You can invite friends to watch your game by selecting Invite to Watch from the drop down next to their name in the Friends List.
Video:
By default, Steam will only broadcast video recorded from the game you are playing. If you switch to another program or your computer’s desktop and Steam is unable to record video from the game you are playing while it is not active/in focus, viewers will see a placeholder graphic until Steam can again record video from your game.
You can optionally enable recording video of applications outside of your game through the Steam Client settings menu. Please remember that your broadcast viewers will be able to see any open windows when enabled.
Audio:
By default, Steam will only record audio from the game you are currently playing. You can enable recording a microphone or all audio played through your computer's default output device through the Steam Client Settings.
Steam Broadcasting is currently supported by the following browsers:
The above do not apply for mobile devices. Steam broadcasts are not currently supported on iOS devices.
Accounts that meet the following requirements are able to broadcast games:
As a Steam subscriber, you agree to abide by the Steam Subscriber Agreement, the Steam Online Conduct rules, and the Steam Community Rules and Guidelines. You are responsible for the use of your Account and for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from use of your Account. Your online conduct and interaction with other subscribers should be guided by common sense and basic etiquette.
From the broadcast window/page, select "Report Broadcast". When a broadcast is reported, Steam may save some or all of the broadcast for review.
If you select "Anyone can watch my game" as your broadcast privacy setting then your broadcast will be visible in that Game Hub.
You'll receive a notification when a friend either requests to watch or starts watching your game. At any time you can see a list of viewers from the Steam overlay broadcast box, or if you're watching your own broadcast, from the top of the chat.
No, broadcasts are currently live only. However, if a video is reported for review, Steam may save some or all of the broadcast for review.
For advanced Broadcast settings, access the Steam Client's Settings panel and select the Broadcast tab.
Steam Broadcasting is currently supported through the Steam Client on Windows 7, 8, and 10. Linux, OSX, and Windows Vista will be supported in the future.
If you are constantly encountering issues with Broadcasting, it's possible that something is interfering and preventing the Broadcast from working as expected.
It's a good idea to investigate the topics below and make sure that the machine having Broadcasting issues is optimized for using the feature successfully.
Because some of these topics are advanced and may involve things outside of Steam, we highly recommend that you work with local IT support in your area to make sure that they are performed correctly.
It's always a good first step to make sure that you restart Steam as well as your computer.
Restarting the computer flushes all kinds of system states and caches, while resetting other programs and releasing locks on files and other resources.
Make sure that your Broadcast settings are what you expect.
You can access these settings at any time from the Broadcast tab of your Steam > Settings inside the Steam client
The Steam installer can be downloaded here and reinstalled to the same location where it is already installed.
This will ensure that all files required by the Steam overlay are in a good state. This process will have no effect on your installed games.
WARNING! Uninstalling Steam will delete all game content.
This includes restarting all modems & routers. Network hardware can get into slow or broken state after running for a long time. This can cause broadcast requests to take longer than normal, or to timeout completely.
If you are using a wireless network connection, you will want to bypass this with a direct Ethernet connection between your machine and network hardware.
Some Internet providers cache or compress online data to save bandwidth (especially cellphone networks). This can cause issues with Steam. It is a good idea to test the issue by connecting to an entirely different network, preferably from a different service provider.
Certain firewalls may prevent Steam features like Broadcasting from talking to servers. You'll want to work with a tech support specialist to ensure that the Firewall is not interfering. You may even need to temporarily disable it for testing purposes or add exceptions to your firewalls for Steam.
AV software hooks very deep into user systems and can affect disk and network operations which may cause issues with Steam. Some games also use copy protection technology that can appear as malicious software to an AV scanner, resulting in potential false-positive alerts.
You'll want to work with a tech support specialist to ensure that your AV software is not interfering with any Steam functionality. You may even need to temporarily disable it for testing purposes. It may also be necessary to add exceptions for Steam in your AV configuration,
Any software that modifies or monitors system, disk or network activity can cause issues while downloading or running a game. These programs and services can run in the background and are typically associated with software like Anti-Virus, ad-blockers, web-optimizers, firewalls, system cleaners, recording software, proxies, performance boosters etc.
You'll want to work with a tech support specialist to ensure that these services & programs are not interfering with Steam. You may even need to temporarily disable them for testing purposes.
Check out the Steam Broadcasting Group Discussions to read more and find out answers to other frequently asked questions.