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VideoToolbox Encoders for OBS
A free, open-source plugin for OBS Studio on Mac. It adds H.264 and HEVC hardware encoders with settings OBS does not expose, plus automatic Multitrack Video integration.
What it adds to OBS Studio
OBS already ships Apple's VideoToolbox hardware encoders. This plugin adds two custom versions, Custom Apple VT H264 Hardware Encoder and Custom Apple VT HEVC Hardware Encoder, plus a settings window to tune their latency and quality trade-offs. It does not replace or modify the encoders in OBS.
Available settings
- RealTime: asks the hardware encoder to keep pace with real time, which is what streaming services expect.
- Prioritize Encoding Speed Over Quality: trades quality for speed if the encoder is struggling to keep up.
- Omit Expected Frame Rate: encodes each frame as fast as it can, useful when several outputs share the encoder.
- Custom Lookahead Frame Count: controls how many upcoming frames the encoder studies.
- Submit Frames From a Dedicated Thread: hands frames over from the encoder's own thread, so an overloaded encoder drops frames itself instead of making OBS skip frames on every output.
Everything is off by default, so a freshly installed encoder behaves exactly like the native one until you change something.
How to configure it
The settings live under Tools → macOS VideoToolbox Encoders…, with one section for H.264 and another for HEVC. They apply to every use of the encoder on that Mac, not to an OBS profile. Then pick the encoder in Settings → Output like any other.
As a rule of thumb, turn RealTime on for live streaming, where keeping up with the frame rate matters most, and leave it off for local recording, where the encoder is free to spend more effort per frame.
Automatic Multitrack Video
Enable Use these encoders for Multitrack Video and OBS picks the custom encoder for Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting, Amazon IVS and Dolby OptiView, with no per-stream setup. If it is unavailable, OBS falls back to the encoder you already had, so streaming is never blocked. Every other output stays untouched.
One encoder for streaming, another for recording
You can add more H.264 and HEVC pairs with their own alias and settings, for example one tuned for streaming and one for recording. They appear in the OBS encoder list like any other encoder.
Diagnosing skipped frames
The Log encoder timing statistics option writes per-encoder timing to the OBS log every 10 seconds. It helps you find which encoder causes skipped frames due to encoding lag.
More streaming tools
LivePilot helps you plan your broadcasts on YouTube, Twitch and Kick, and Optimized Previews lightens OBS previews while you stream or record.
