The StreamUps Streaming Glossary
Every term you hit mid-setup and had to go and look up. Encoders, bitrate, keyframes, browser sources, raids — defined properly, with the numbers that actually matter and no marketing language.
Streaming has an unusually hostile vocabulary. Most of it comes from broadcast engineering, arrives in your life through a settings dropdown you didn't ask for, and gets explained by people who already know what it means.
These pages fix that one term at a time. Each one is a complete answer: what the thing is, what number to put in the box, what breaks when you get it wrong, and who is actually affected. They're written for the moment you're stuck at, not for the moment you're browsing.
If you already know the term and just want the number, our bitrate calculator and OBS multistream settings reference skip straight to the values.
Encoding & Quality
AV1
The royalty-free codec that needs your GPU, your platform and your viewers to agree before you can use it.
Encoder
The thing that turns your frames into a stream, and the single biggest quality decision in OBS.
NVENC
NVIDIA's dedicated encode chip, its presets, and what it actually costs your frame rate.
x264
Software H.264 encoding on your CPU, its presets, and when it still beats hardware.
CBR
Why every live platform mandates a constant bitrate, and what the buffer is really doing.
VBR
Variable bitrate, CQP and CRF for recording — and why they break a live stream.
Bitrate
What bitrate actually measures, and why more of it stops helping past a point.
Keyframe Interval
The two-second setting every platform demands, and what breaks when you ignore it.
OBS
Browser Source
How OBS renders a web page as a layer, and why every overlay you own is one.
Scene Collection
The container above scenes, and the right way to run more than one show from one OBS.
OBS Dock
The panels around the OBS canvas, and how to pin a web tool inside them.
Platform Features
Raid
Sending your audience to another channel at the end of a stream, and the etiquette around it.
Host
The feature Twitch deleted in 2022 and Kick still runs, and what replaced it.
Delivery
Latency
Where the delay between you and your chat comes from, and which parts you control.
Related Guides & Tools
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