Facebook is apparently getting ready to give video producers much more flexibility with their live broadcasts. The company appears to be testing a web-based ‘Live Video Producer’ tool that would allow you to control footage from multiple cameras in one stream.
Previously, enterprising developers had spotted the tool hidden in Facebook code as far back as September, but it wasn’t actually functional yet.
NEW… Facebook Live Producer tool being tested to manage multi-input broadcasts in your browser?
h/t Devesh Logendran pic.twitter.com/PR4IjY9Bf6
— Matt Navarra ⭐️ (@MattNavarra) September 12, 2017
Now it seems to have rolled out to at least some users, as it was spotted by @AustinHunt, Social Editor for BuzzFeed. You can check if it’s available for you at facebook.com/live/producer.
I have it ? pic.twitter.com/fA3c8DZtft
— Austin Hunt (@AustinHunt) October 23, 2017
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From Hunt’s screenshot you can see the ability to add in multiple inputs, as well as choose different formats for displaying the videos, such as a split screen view, dividing into quarters, or a picture in picture mode. Based on the images, we know it should be able to accept at least four inputs.
It also seems you’ll be able to add different overlays to give your streams some more graphical pizzazz.
Previously, you could only use multiple cameras and overlays by leveraging Facebook Live’s API with third party solutions. This is the first time Facebook itself would offer something of the sort, which would make it much more accessible to a variety of creators (game steamers, for example).
We’ve contacted Facebook for more information and will update this post if we hear back.
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