The other is to emulate the app using a phone emulator like Bluestacks.
#Instagram live stream on mac windows#
One is to use their official cross-compatible app that only works in Windows 10. As of right now, as near as I can tell, there are only two ways to broadcast to Instagram via a PC. Instagram has historically always been a mobile-only platform, and that includes limitations on their streaming.
#Instagram live stream on mac software#
The software necessary to broadcast to either platform is free, though I’ll discuss that more in the next section. If you don’t have a webcam or a microphone, a cheap headset and webcam – or even just a webcam with a serviceable microphone built in – will only run you a small fee, likely under $100.
The primary advantage, as I mentioned, is that you likely already have everything you need to set this up. If you’re using a good modern phone, but an old webcam and a headset mic, your computer-based stream might look and sound worse. If you’re using a powerful desktop computer with a good camera and a good microphone, your phone stream is probably going to look and sound significantly worse.
The primary downside of using this option is that one stream is going to look and sound somewhat worse than the other, depending on the devices you’re using. This has the advantage of only using devices you probably have on hand, though you may need to purchase a webcam and a microphone or headset to broadcast via your computer. One phone cannot broadcast to both platforms, but you can use a phone to broadcast to one and a computer to broadcast to the other. Hybrid SolutionsĪnother option is to go with a hybrid solution. If you want to broadcast to both platforms, I highly recommend using a computer. Plus, if you have two different phones rather than two copies of the same phone, you might run into differences with configuration, video or audio quality, memory, or another issue that can hinder one stream while the other works fine.Īs is, I consider this more of a workaround than an actual solution. There are plenty of other uses you can find for a second phone, even one that doesn’t have a cell data plan and relies entirely on your wifi, but it’s still an expense you don’t really need. This isn’t necessarily an ideal solution either, since needing two phones means needing two expensive technological devices. Set the two devices side by side in front of you so you can see the chat feeds from both, and so that the cameras are roughly in the same place, so you don’t look or sound dramatically different from one to the other. Set one phone up to broadcast to Facebook, and the other phone to broadcast to Instagram. The other option is to simply use two phones. This is less than ideal, because it loses all of the real-time engagement from the secondary platform. Option 1 is to pick one platform and broadcast to it, then save and upload the video to the other platform once it’s done.
If you’re not able to use a desktop computer of any sort to do your broadcasting, and are limited to just your phone, you have two options. Granted, a computer is likely doing more processing, adding more effects, and broadcasting at a higher quality level, but the fact remains. Some full-size computers have issues with it, so a phone with much lower specifications will have a correspondingly harder time. Since you would need to be using both Facebook and Instagram in app form to broadcast, they would both need access to your camera (and microphone), and your phone will not allow that.Įven if your phone did allow simultaneous access, encoding and broadcasting video is very hardware intensive. What this means, specifically, is that you can’t use your phone’s camera from two different apps at the same time. It’s simply not possible, for one technical reason: one app can’t be accessed by more than one other app at the same time. There is no way to broadcast a live stream feed to two different platforms at once from your phone. It depends on the resources you have and the effort you want to put into it. If you’re broadcasting via a phone, you may be out of luck.