So I was on Streamyard trying it out, and saw it had a countdown timer. Come to think of it, I also noticed other livestreams with a countdown timer. The one on Streamyard counts down and switches automatically to the host.

I was curious and had a look online on how to create my own timer for my Youtube Streams (currently just for PyLadies Dublin). And I found the following video:

And ticked all my boxes:

• OBS
• No need to download plugins
• Load up a script already part of OBS

And the video was easy to follow the steps and yeah, it worked!

1. Open OBS
2. Create a new scene for your streaming countdown
3. Add your image source as background
4. Add new text source like “Streaming starts in…”
5. Add another new text source called “Timer text” and name it “timer”
6. Go to menu on toolbar and open Tools > Scripts
7. Click on the “+” and click and add file called “countdown.lua”
8. Then set your duration time (mins only)
9. Once you are happy, hit close button
10. Load up the scene and the countdown starts! 🙌