Building The BEST Streaming Setup Possible Under $500

The Setup of My RGB Lighting and Webcam System

As I began setting up my new RGB lighting system, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and curiosity. The lights arrived in a small package, and I was eager to see how they would perform. Upon opening the box, I was surprised to find that the lights were much smaller than I had expected. However, I was reassured by the manufacturer's instructions, which told me not to worry about the size.

To test out my new lighting system, I decided to install it in a room where I could easily see how it would look. The first thing I noticed was that the lights didn't come with any remote control to change their colors, but they did come with a QR code that allowed me to download an application to do so. After scanning the QR code and downloading the app, I discovered that I could indeed change the color of my lighting system using the provided software.

The RGB Lighting System

The lighting system consists of two lights that can be easily placed in front of any wall or background. The lights are adjustable, allowing me to customize their brightness, saturation, and sharpness to achieve a specific look. One of the features I found particularly useful was the ability to adjust the white balance, which allowed me to match the color temperature of my lighting system to the surrounding environment.

I also discovered that there were several pre-set settings available in the software, including automatic lighting, which automatically adjusts the brightness and color based on the surrounding environment. Another feature that caught my eye was the noise reduction option, which significantly improved the image quality by reducing any unwanted artifacts or distractions.

The Webcam System

Next, I decided to set up my new webcam system, which consisted of a high-quality webcam with built-in RGB lighting. The webcam itself looked very premium and had a sleek design, but when I lifted it out of its case, I was surprised to find that it was surprisingly light.

To test out the webcam's performance, I connected it to my OBS studio software and began experimenting with different settings. One of the first things I noticed was the excellent image quality, which looked very professional and sharp. The contrast and saturation options allowed me to customize the look to suit my needs, while the automatic white balance feature ensured that my lighting system worked seamlessly with the webcam.

The Noise Reduction Feature

One of the features that really impressed me about this webcam system was its noise reduction capabilities. By enabling or disabling this feature, I was able to significantly improve the image quality by reducing any unwanted artifacts or distractions. This was especially noticeable when I disabled the noise reduction option, and it made a big difference in terms of image quality.

The RGB Lights Behind Me

To complete my setup, I decided to add some RGB lights behind me using the same software that controlled my lighting system. These lights were much brighter than the ones included with my webcam system and could be adjusted to shine at different angles. While they weren't as adjustable as I had hoped, they still added a nice pop of color to my setup.

Conclusion

Overall, I was very impressed with both my RGB lighting system and my new webcam. The lighting system was easy to set up and use, while the webcam provided excellent image quality and features like noise reduction. While there were some minor drawbacks to each system, they were largely outweighed by their many benefits. As someone who is serious about creating high-quality content, I highly recommend investing in a good RGB lighting system and a high-quality webcam.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni spent 500 to buy all this stuff so we can turn this basic pc setup into an amazing streaming setup the total price of all this stuff is just under 500 we have quite a bunch of things to unpack let me put all this stuff aside now i'm very excited because in the previous episodes we didn't have the budget for this microphone the elgato wave you can buy it on amazon for around 130 dollars by the way links to all products in the description now there's nothing inside this box because i've been using it for a while this is the microphone and it's a great one because of the software you get with it which is the wavelink software but more on the software later the mic comes with a stand but you can also detach the microphone from the stand and then connect it to a microphone arm and i think it came inside of this box i don't remember correctly there it is i need to clean by the way my desk is a mess just like my life i will link it below in the description but i think it was around 15 to 20 dollars it comes with one of these big pop filters as well as another pop filter that you can put on your mic but i don't think it'll look good on this elgato microphone it's like a little hat this is the mic arm itself it's very similar if not identical to the one i just showed this is the desk clamp that they give you and then the last thing that they give you is one of these holders for your microphone but we will not need this elgato delivers this with their microphones it's a small converter that you can connect to your mic and by doing that you can connect it to a bunch of different microphone arms because there's a few different sizes within this converter oh there's one last thing inside of this it's this kind of tape that you can put around something when it's too small to fit are you looking for new emotes then the new emo maker from onto tv is perfect for you after choosing your starting character you can customize it further to create a character that looks very similar to you when you're done customizing simply click on generate emote and then you will be able to select the modes you want to buy the more you select the cheaper it gets per emote if you're interested then go to on.tv or click the first link in my description to start creating your own emotes today so i'm gonna connect the stand of disarm to the side of my desk now let's attach the microphone arm to this and then tighten it and there you go it keeps the position that you put it in and then you can route the cable like this through the middle of the arm i think this will make it very clean so now that the mic is connected to the pc i've installed the software here and as you can see this is what i was talking about you can control the volume of the music for the stream for example very loud but then you can make it very quiet in your headphones same with the game you can make it loud for yourself so you hear footsteps and stuff but then make it pretty quiet for the stream and trust me once you're getting used to this being able to control everything on your stream you get this kind of feeling of safety while being live because you've got all the control on your second screen which we're gonna add later so one extra thing you could add to this setup is this right here i also bought this but i tested a bit and it's not really necessary but you can add a shock mount from elgato to this mic it just clips on like this and that will reduce any vibrations of the desk next i want to do two and potentially three different types of lights these are rgb lights four in the back but first i wanna unbox this big one right here i've used it in the previous episodes of streaming on a budget too it's an led panel and like i've said in other episodes it's basically a budget elgato key light by the way in case you're wondering that's an elgato key light there that shines on the back of my head and then i have this big softbox that's sliding the front of my face but let's be honest a softbox like this is definitely overkill for starting to stream so this led panel will be perfect to light your face and then the reason i set potentially three types of lights is the small light that you see under this so this light here is basically the small brother of the light we just unpacked let me quickly open this as you see it's definitely much smaller and our budget is big enough to use this light as our main light but if you want to use a hair light like i am using the elgato key light that i showed you before right you can use a small light like this and then position it behind you more to the top of the ceiling because that will create some depth and will make it look more professional so i wanted to give it as an option i think this small light is 30 dollars and then this one is 50 or 60. and to be able to add this slide to our setup we need something to attach it to the desk which is this right here the therian desktop stand is what we've been using in previous episodes and it worked perfectly fine it's very sturdy so we're gonna use it again it costs around twenty dollars and i will link everything in the description all the amazon links i can't show any amazon screenshots or screen recordings in my videos anymore because i received an email from amazon i also had to cut out all amazon ports in my previous episodes which completely destroyed them sadly but here we go i'm making another episode without any amazon screenshots the arm just screws into the like like this and then there's something else included for the top of the arm which will allow you to reposition your light and aim it at your face so you can just shove it on the back of your desk and then tighten it and then you can just add your light on top of it if you loosen this part here you can make it higher but we don't need that much height with the light it just needs to shine above our monitor and then with this here you can just aim it at your face in the box you will also find this power plug which you just plug into your light and then into a power outlet the light has a simple on and off switch and on the screen you can see the color temperature which you can change right here and then you can also change the brightness with this i think this looks pretty nice but before adding the rgb lights to the setup i forgot something we need to add a second screen i'm gonna take the same one as in the previous episode where we had 250 dollars as a budget because the screen doesn't really matter well it's to say the screen matters but the specs don't the only reason we need a screen like this is to put information on the screen that we can see while we are gaming on the first screen so for example the software of this microphone can go right here then our obs can go right here and maybe our chat can go here you know what before we check out the expensive webcam i want to show you the rgb lights i bought because it's just too funny this is what i wanted to order on amazon just big powerful rgb lights however i got a small feeling that these are gonna be extremely small what i ordered the wrong size you versus the guy she tells you not to worry about let's test it out now it doesn't come with any remote to change the colors but it does come with a qr code so i guess we will be able to scan it and then download the application there we go let's see where it brings us and this will be the application to change the colors with and if it works then the color will change right now so as you can see it definitely gives the walls some color and we've got two of them so let's check out the webcam because it's supposed to be a very good one and then after that let's check out everything together in obs and it seems like this webcam is a great stepping stone from something like this which is a cheap webcam we used in the 100 video and this one was the c920 from the 250 video but right now we have the budget for a high quality webcam so let's check it out so this is what's inside i'm really curious how big it will actually be i think the lens will be quite big this definitely looks very premium and high quality look at how clean this looks now i gotta be honest even though the webcam definitely looks very premium it pretty much feels like there's nothing inside of it it's very light you're connecting it on top of your monitor it shouldn't weigh that much but if you're comparing it to other high quality webcams some of them are much heavier than this right here let's add it to obs studio and then see how it will look okay so i've disabled all the lights in my room and this is with the light we installed here and i also installed the software now the first thing you want to do when you enter the software is you want to disable the automatic lighting by the way my apologies it's in dutch i will say the things in english this is zooming in and zooming out i will just keep it as wide as possible this quality is definitely very good right it looks pretty professional right now the next thing is the contrast you can increase it decrease it to create some kind of a washed out look then this is a saturation you can add more color remove color this is the sharpness this is completely sharp you can see it right here at my beard if it's something i can call a beard i'm not even sure what this is to be honest like then this is the lighting the automatic lighting that we removed and you can add iso if your room is too dark but then here we have automatic white balance you can also just disable this and then you can choose the white balance yourself if you want a more cold look you go to the left to the blue for a warmer look you go to the right we did set our light to 5600 kelvin so that's what i'm gonna select to get a really balanced natural look and then here we have noise reduction and look at the wall behind me i'm gonna enable the noise reduction right now this is much better it's a big difference look at here i'm gonna disable it enable disable it's a big difference and right now i wanna add the rgb behind us and there we go you could also position them higher and make them shine right there on the wall if you want these rgb lights and you're really serious about it then i would try to go for something like this which is 50 watts instead of 15 because that will light up a bigger part of your wall but i will link a few other options in the description if you want to see final results of stuff i'm building you can follow me on instagram i will put the link on top of the description because there i post everything that i'm working on you can follow me there if you want like the video because that helps a lot in the youtube algorithm subscribe to the channel for future videos and i will see you in the next one have a nice dayi spent 500 to buy all this stuff so we can turn this basic pc setup into an amazing streaming setup the total price of all this stuff is just under 500 we have quite a bunch of things to unpack let me put all this stuff aside now i'm very excited because in the previous episodes we didn't have the budget for this microphone the elgato wave you can buy it on amazon for around 130 dollars by the way links to all products in the description now there's nothing inside this box because i've been using it for a while this is the microphone and it's a great one because of the software you get with it which is the wavelink software but more on the software later the mic comes with a stand but you can also detach the microphone from the stand and then connect it to a microphone arm and i think it came inside of this box i don't remember correctly there it is i need to clean by the way my desk is a mess just like my life i will link it below in the description but i think it was around 15 to 20 dollars it comes with one of these big pop filters as well as another pop filter that you can put on your mic but i don't think it'll look good on this elgato microphone it's like a little hat this is the mic arm itself it's very similar if not identical to the one i just showed this is the desk clamp that they give you and then the last thing that they give you is one of these holders for your microphone but we will not need this elgato delivers this with their microphones it's a small converter that you can connect to your mic and by doing that you can connect it to a bunch of different microphone arms because there's a few different sizes within this converter oh there's one last thing inside of this it's this kind of tape that you can put around something when it's too small to fit are you looking for new emotes then the new emo maker from onto tv is perfect for you after choosing your starting character you can customize it further to create a character that looks very similar to you when you're done customizing simply click on generate emote and then you will be able to select the modes you want to buy the more you select the cheaper it gets per emote if you're interested then go to on.tv or click the first link in my description to start creating your own emotes today so i'm gonna connect the stand of disarm to the side of my desk now let's attach the microphone arm to this and then tighten it and there you go it keeps the position that you put it in and then you can route the cable like this through the middle of the arm i think this will make it very clean so now that the mic is connected to the pc i've installed the software here and as you can see this is what i was talking about you can control the volume of the music for the stream for example very loud but then you can make it very quiet in your headphones same with the game you can make it loud for yourself so you hear footsteps and stuff but then make it pretty quiet for the stream and trust me once you're getting used to this being able to control everything on your stream you get this kind of feeling of safety while being live because you've got all the control on your second screen which we're gonna add later so one extra thing you could add to this setup is this right here i also bought this but i tested a bit and it's not really necessary but you can add a shock mount from elgato to this mic it just clips on like this and that will reduce any vibrations of the desk next i want to do two and potentially three different types of lights these are rgb lights four in the back but first i wanna unbox this big one right here i've used it in the previous episodes of streaming on a budget too it's an led panel and like i've said in other episodes it's basically a budget elgato key light by the way in case you're wondering that's an elgato key light there that shines on the back of my head and then i have this big softbox that's sliding the front of my face but let's be honest a softbox like this is definitely overkill for starting to stream so this led panel will be perfect to light your face and then the reason i set potentially three types of lights is the small light that you see under this so this light here is basically the small brother of the light we just unpacked let me quickly open this as you see it's definitely much smaller and our budget is big enough to use this light as our main light but if you want to use a hair light like i am using the elgato key light that i showed you before right you can use a small light like this and then position it behind you more to the top of the ceiling because that will create some depth and will make it look more professional so i wanted to give it as an option i think this small light is 30 dollars and then this one is 50 or 60. and to be able to add this slide to our setup we need something to attach it to the desk which is this right here the therian desktop stand is what we've been using in previous episodes and it worked perfectly fine it's very sturdy so we're gonna use it again it costs around twenty dollars and i will link everything in the description all the amazon links i can't show any amazon screenshots or screen recordings in my videos anymore because i received an email from amazon i also had to cut out all amazon ports in my previous episodes which completely destroyed them sadly but here we go i'm making another episode without any amazon screenshots the arm just screws into the like like this and then there's something else included for the top of the arm which will allow you to reposition your light and aim it at your face so you can just shove it on the back of your desk and then tighten it and then you can just add your light on top of it if you loosen this part here you can make it higher but we don't need that much height with the light it just needs to shine above our monitor and then with this here you can just aim it at your face in the box you will also find this power plug which you just plug into your light and then into a power outlet the light has a simple on and off switch and on the screen you can see the color temperature which you can change right here and then you can also change the brightness with this i think this looks pretty nice but before adding the rgb lights to the setup i forgot something we need to add a second screen i'm gonna take the same one as in the previous episode where we had 250 dollars as a budget because the screen doesn't really matter well it's to say the screen matters but the specs don't the only reason we need a screen like this is to put information on the screen that we can see while we are gaming on the first screen so for example the software of this microphone can go right here then our obs can go right here and maybe our chat can go here you know what before we check out the expensive webcam i want to show you the rgb lights i bought because it's just too funny this is what i wanted to order on amazon just big powerful rgb lights however i got a small feeling that these are gonna be extremely small what i ordered the wrong size you versus the guy she tells you not to worry about let's test it out now it doesn't come with any remote to change the colors but it does come with a qr code so i guess we will be able to scan it and then download the application there we go let's see where it brings us and this will be the application to change the colors with and if it works then the color will change right now so as you can see it definitely gives the walls some color and we've got two of them so let's check out the webcam because it's supposed to be a very good one and then after that let's check out everything together in obs and it seems like this webcam is a great stepping stone from something like this which is a cheap webcam we used in the 100 video and this one was the c920 from the 250 video but right now we have the budget for a high quality webcam so let's check it out so this is what's inside i'm really curious how big it will actually be i think the lens will be quite big this definitely looks very premium and high quality look at how clean this looks now i gotta be honest even though the webcam definitely looks very premium it pretty much feels like there's nothing inside of it it's very light you're connecting it on top of your monitor it shouldn't weigh that much but if you're comparing it to other high quality webcams some of them are much heavier than this right here let's add it to obs studio and then see how it will look okay so i've disabled all the lights in my room and this is with the light we installed here and i also installed the software now the first thing you want to do when you enter the software is you want to disable the automatic lighting by the way my apologies it's in dutch i will say the things in english this is zooming in and zooming out i will just keep it as wide as possible this quality is definitely very good right it looks pretty professional right now the next thing is the contrast you can increase it decrease it to create some kind of a washed out look then this is a saturation you can add more color remove color this is the sharpness this is completely sharp you can see it right here at my beard if it's something i can call a beard i'm not even sure what this is to be honest like then this is the lighting the automatic lighting that we removed and you can add iso if your room is too dark but then here we have automatic white balance you can also just disable this and then you can choose the white balance yourself if you want a more cold look you go to the left to the blue for a warmer look you go to the right we did set our light to 5600 kelvin so that's what i'm gonna select to get a really balanced natural look and then here we have noise reduction and look at the wall behind me i'm gonna enable the noise reduction right now this is much better it's a big difference look at here i'm gonna disable it enable disable it's a big difference and right now i wanna add the rgb behind us and there we go you could also position them higher and make them shine right there on the wall if you want these rgb lights and you're really serious about it then i would try to go for something like this which is 50 watts instead of 15 because that will light up a bigger part of your wall but i will link a few other options in the description if you want to see final results of stuff i'm building you can follow me on instagram i will put the link on top of the description because there i post everything that i'm working on you can follow me there if you want like the video because that helps a lot in the youtube algorithm subscribe to the channel for future videos and i will see you in the next one have a nice day