Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has been back on Twitch for a few months now following the shutdown of Mixer, though it’s clear he still misses one key thing from his days on the Microsoft-owned platform.
[jwplayer mfcRpjb4]
With the shocking end of Mixer back in June, shroud was left with a hugely important choice. Should he return to Twitch where he first came up or should he venture to another new livestreaming platform? The answer was always “obvious.”
After shattering expectations with his return stream, shroud has settled comfortably back with the purple brand. Other high-profile Mixer streamers such as Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins also made the jump back as well. Though is there anything the world’s most popular content creators miss from their previous home?
Despite claiming that “Twitch is the best,” there’s one major aspect that shroud believes they’re missing the mark on: bitrate.
While chatting with viewers in a recent stream, he mentioned how most of the tools on Twitch go right over his head. “Streaming is streaming,” he joked. “Mixer didn’t have a lot of tools which kind of sucked. Twitch has all of the tools.
“They have a lot of stuff that Mixer didn’t have, but I never used that stuff anyways… I just stream.” As a specific example, shroud still uses Straw Poll to engage his viewers, rather than using the poll system available directly on Twitch.
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Clearly, the difference in features across Twitch today and what Mixer used to provide isn’t a huge concern. However, he was quick to point out the one thing he truly misses from his time with the Microsoft-owned platform. “The bitrate… I miss it.”
“Maybe Twitch will get there soon,” he followed up. “Fingers crossed. Twitch is a much bigger platform so we’ll see. I mean, if YouTube can do it… I’m just saying.”
The relevant topic begins at the 8:08 mark.
In the simplest terms, bitrate impacts the overall quality of any given stream. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality of your stream. Twitch currently offers a maximum of 6,000kbps for 1080p streaming, whereas Mixer used to offer up to 10,000kbps for a much higher quality.
Being one of the biggest streaming platforms in the world, this improvement could soon be on the way. It’s clear shroud would be one of the first content creators to take advantage of any new bitrate adjustments.