How to add a looping video background in OBS Studio and Streamlabs

What you need

• OBS Studio (Windows, macOS or Linux) or Streamlabs Desktop
• A landscape 16:9 MP4 clip. A 1080p clip matches a 1920 x 1080 canvas exactly.

OBS Studio

1. Save the MP4 somewhere permanent, such as a Stream Backgrounds folder. If you move the file later, OBS loses it.
2. In the Sources panel of your scene, click + and choose Media Source. Give it a name like "Background".
3. Tick Local File and browse to the MP4.
4. Tick Loop.
5. Untick Restart playback when source becomes active if you want the loop to keep running in the background when you switch scenes, rather than starting again each time.
6. Leave Use hardware decoding when available ticked. It moves video decoding to your graphics card and keeps CPU free for your encoder.
7. Click OK, then drag the source to the bottom of the list. Sources higher up draw on top, so your camera, chat and alerts must sit above the background.
8. If the clip does not fill the canvas, right-click it and choose Transform, then Fit to screen.

Streamlabs Desktop

1. In your scene, click + in the Sources panel and add a Media File source.
2. Choose the MP4 and tick Loop.
3. Drag it below your other sources in the list.

Getting a clean loop

A short clip repeats many times a minute, so the loop point matters. On every product page the specs say "First and last frames match" when we measured the clip's last frame against its first. Those clips repeat without a visible jump. Clips without that line still loop, but you may catch the moment it restarts.

OBS sometimes shows a brief black frame at the restart on very old graphics drivers. Updating the driver usually fixes it.

Sound

None of our clips has an audio track. If you add music or ambience, put it on its own audio source so you can turn it down under your microphone, and only use music you have the rights to stream.