So it's been nearly a year since I last streamed, at least according to YouTube. I used to stream all the time, but I just got so exhausted and I wasn't having much fun with them, so I quit, and I haven't had much reason to pick them back up because I'm either busy or we're having a group call, and that takes care of my "interacting in voice with the group" quota, really.

Jake linked a cheap chinese HDMI capture device he apparently successfully used to stream Xbox Minecraft a few months back, and at like $7 or so, I took the gamble. This wound up becoming a much larger project involving a component-to-HDMI adapter (that I already had) and an HDMI splitter (that I did not have) and a ten foot HDMI cable (that I will be picking up from work tomorrow or so), but this sorta looks feasible, if messy! I tested the adapter this evening, and it works and doesn't add any extra latency to the game, though on my TV, it cuts off the top of the screen, which means I need to play it partially blind. That's something I've experienced with other HDMI devices on this TV as well, so thankfully, it's nothing that you'll see on your end.

At the moment, I've got the Wii hooked up for GameCube and Animal Crossing purposes, though of course, between Wii, GameCube, and Virtual Console, there's a gigantic library of stuff I'd be able to play on stream. And on real hardware! I'm used to just streaming emulators, but there's something special about being able to use a real controller on a real console while I'm streaming. The setup is gonna get incredibly messy, I already know that—but I'll figure out a way to be able to monitor chat while sitting comfortably in range of my game. Probably time to get Streamlabs going as well, and not just rely on my old OBS setup with the popout YouTube chat.

Everything is very tentative, but it's a fun kind of tentative. Stay tuned; you may just be able to chatter with me live again very soon.