OBS Studio 30.2 has begun its public beta phase today, introducing several impressive enhancements for Linux users to this robust, open-source, and free platform for video recording and live streaming.
With the new version, OBS Studio 30.2 extends compatibility for the native NVENC encoder on Linux, including support for the NVENC AV1 encode. Additionally, it enables shared texture support for NVENC, QuickSync, and VA-API encoders, integrates multi-track audio and video support for Enhanced RTMP/FLV, and introduces HEVC compatibility for WebRTC outputs.
The update also introduces an experimental “Hybrid MP4” output option. This format merges the resilience of fragmented MP4 with the broad compatibility and quicker accessibility of traditional MP4. It facilitates the insertion of chapter markers through a hotkey or API, compatible with most video players and editing tools.
A notable feature in OBS Studio 30.2 is the support for Multitrack Video streaming, which is initially available only on Windows with NVIDIA GPUs. The developers have announced plans to extend this support to additional platforms and GPUs in future releases of OBS Studio.
“When this feature is enabled, the following data about your system will be sent to the streaming service when starting a stream: OBS config info (canvas width and height, frame rate, encoder width and height, VOD Audio Track setting, OBS version), CPU info (name, speed, core counts), Memory info (free, total), OS info (name, version, arch, emulation), and Multitrack Video settings (maximum streaming bandwidth, maximum video tracks).”
Other noteworthy changes in OBS Studio 30.2 include closed-caption support for HEVC and AV1, unified PipeWire window/display capture into a single “Screen Capture” source, improved freetype2 text source performance, NVDEC decoder support for encoded DirectShow sources, and support for audio-only and video-only WHIP outputs.
It also promises a new Composable Themes system that simplifies theme creation and maintenance, while enabling future customization options, enforced Qt Fusion style by default on Linux, various performance improvements for texture encoding, and NVDEC decoder prioritization on NVIDIA systems.
OBS Studio 30.2 is available for public beta testing from the project’s GitHub page, from where you can download binaries for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS systems, as well as for Windows and macOS. However, please keep in mind that this is a pre-release version, not suitable for production use.
Last updated 14 hours ago