Last updated: 2026-01-20

For most creators in the U.S., the easiest way to stream in landscape and portrait at the same time is to use StreamYard’s browser-based Multi-Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS), which outputs both formats from one studio.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS) If you need deep scene-by-scene control or complex plugins, desktop tools like OBS or Streamlabs can work, but they require more setup and technical comfort.

Summary

• Multi-aspect ratio streaming lets you go live in landscape and portrait from one workflow, so desktop and mobile viewers each get a tailored experience.
• StreamYard’s MARS feature sends both orientations simultaneously from a single browser studio, including dual-orientation YouTube streams.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)
• Alternatives like OBS and Streamlabs can achieve similar outcomes, but they rely on manual configuration, plugins, or paid multistream features.OBS Studio overview Streamlabs Getting Started
• For most non-technical creators, the time saved with StreamYard’s browser-based approach, easy guest experience, and built-in MARS is worth more than the subscription cost.

What is multi-aspect ratio streaming software, really?

Multi-aspect ratio streaming software lets you create and send multiple versions of your live video—most commonly 16:9 landscape and 9:16 portrait—at the same time from a single production setup.

Why this matters now:

• Desktop vs mobile: YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitch viewers often watch in landscape, while TikTok, Shorts, and Reels audiences live in vertical.
• Algorithm distribution: Platforms increasingly favor vertical feeds; ignoring portrait is leaving reach on the table.
• Workflow reality: Running two separate shows (one horizontal, one vertical) doubles your prep, tech risk, and mental load.

Instead, multi-aspect ratio streaming tools act like a splitter: you run one show, and the software handles creating the right shapes for each audience.

StreamYard’s take on this is MARS (Multi-Aspect Ratio Streaming), which lets you broadcast both landscape and portrait simultaneously from a single studio session.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)

How does StreamYard’s MARS work in practice?

At a high level, MARS does three things for you:

1. Runs one studio, outputs two shapes
   With MARS enabled, your StreamYard studio produces a landscape output and a portrait output at the same time, so you can reach both desktop-style players and mobile-first feeds from the same live session.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)

2. Supports dual-orientation YouTube streaming
   You can send both landscape and portrait versions to the same YouTube presence; this counts as two destinations and requires a paid plan.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)

3. Lets you design for each orientation with dual assets
   Using "dual assets" you can pair a landscape overlay/background with a portrait version inside a single asset, so viewers on each orientation see a layout tailored to their screen.Dual Assets for MARS

From a creator’s perspective, the workflow stays simple:

• You open your browser and enter a StreamYard studio.
• You add your camera, mic, screen shares, and branded overlays.
• You toggle MARS on and choose which destinations get landscape, which get portrait, or both.
• You go live once; StreamYard’s cloud does the rest.

Because encoding and distribution are handled in the cloud, your computer is only responsible for sending a single upstream feed, rather than separately encoding every destination. For many creators on older laptops or travel setups, that’s a meaningful difference in day-to-day reliability.Streamlabs Desktop System Requirements

Which platforms and orientations can you actually stream to?

In practice, multi-aspect ratio streaming is only helpful if your software understands what each destination expects.

StreamYard supports native streaming to Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X (Twitter), Twitch, and Kick, plus additional services via custom RTMP.StreamYard Supported Platforms Each of those platforms supports specific orientations—landscape, portrait, or both—and StreamYard documents which orientations are compatible where.StreamYard Supported Platforms

That matters because:

• Some destinations prefer or require landscape (traditional desktop players).
• Some are portrait-first (short-form feeds and mobile-only features).
• Some can show either, but crop or pillarbox if you send the wrong shape.

With MARS you can:

• Send landscape to destinations where that’s the default (e.g., a standard YouTube livestream).
• Send portrait to mobile-first endpoints.
• Send both to platforms like YouTube when you want a traditional livestream and a vertical viewing option from the same show, with the understanding that this counts as two destinations on paid plans.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)

For most U.S. creators, the realistic mix is some combination of YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and maybe Twitch. MARS slots into that reality cleanly: you decide per-destination what orientation makes sense and let the studio handle the rest.

How does this compare to OBS and Streamlabs for multi-aspect workflows?

You can absolutely create multi-aspect outcomes with desktop tools; the question is how much work you want to do to get there.

OBS

OBS lets you define a Base (Canvas) Resolution and an Output (Scaled) Resolution, so you can set up vertical canvases (for example, 1080x1920) or traditional 16:9 landscapes.OBS Studio overview However, out of the box OBS expects you to run one canvas at a time, and it sends that to whichever streaming destination you configure.

To stream to multiple platforms or orientations simultaneously from OBS, creators typically:

• Run multiple OBS instances or scenes and send each to a different RTMP endpoint.
• Install community plugins like the obs-multi-rtmp plugin, designed to output multiple RTMP streams at once.obs-multi-rtmp plugin
• Or, send a single OBS output to a third-party cloud restreaming service that fans it out.

This gives you a lot of power and flexibility, but it also assumes you’re comfortable managing:

• Local CPU/GPU load for multiple encodes.
• Plugin compatibility and updates.
• Bitrate, resolution, and scene layout trade-offs per output.

For creators who enjoy tinkering and want maximal low-level control (especially around game captures, filters, or custom transitions), OBS is a strong fit. For those who just want to invite guests and go live in both orientations, this overhead can feel like a tax.

Streamlabs

Streamlabs Desktop is built on OBS and also lets you configure your base and output resolutions for vertical or horizontal streams.Streamlabs Getting Started It adds a built-in multistream feature that can send to integrated platforms and custom RTMP destinations from a single app window.Streamlabs Getting Started

Key points for multi-aspect use:

• You can create a vertical canvas if you want to design specifically for portrait.
• Dual-output mode lets you stream to two destinations for free when your computer is doing the encoding.Streamlabs Multistreaming explainer
• To multistream to more destinations with Streamlabs cloud encoding, you need the optional Streamlabs Ultra membership.Getting Started with Streamlabs Ultra

Streamlabs can be a good option if you want an OBS-style experience plus overlays and monetization tools in a single desktop suite. The trade-off is similar: you’re still responsible for local hardware, installations, and configuration.

Why many creators default to StreamYard instead

When you compare these approaches with a typical U.S. creator in mind—limited time, mixed guests, reasonable but not high-end hardware—a browser studio with built-in multi-aspect support is usually the path of least friction.

Creators regularly tell us they prioritize ease of use over complex setups like OBS or Streamlabs, and that they switched because those tools felt too convoluted for their everyday shows. Guests also consistently say StreamYard passes the “grandparent test”: they can join reliably without downloads or tech drama.

So a practical framing is:

• Use StreamYard with MARS when you want to run one show that looks great in both orientations, add guests quickly, and not worry about plugins or encoders.
• Consider OBS or Streamlabs when you explicitly want to customize every scene and are willing to invest more time and hardware budget into your streaming rig.

How do multi-aspect streams interact with multistreaming limits and destinations?

Multi-aspect ratio streaming is about shape; multistreaming is about how many places you send that content. They overlap but are distinct.

In StreamYard, multistreaming is handled in the cloud. You send one upstream feed and we fan it out to your chosen destinations. On paid plans, you can stream to 3, 8, or 10 destinations at once, depending on your tier.How to Multi‑stream

When you bring MARS into the mix, there are two key nuances:

1. Dual-orientation counts as multiple destinations
   For example, sending both a landscape and a portrait stream to the same YouTube presence counts as two destinations on paid plans.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)

2. Guest destinations expand your reach further
   On paid plans, each guest can add up to 2 of their own destinations, with up to 6 guest destinations per broadcast.Guest Destinations That means your co-hosts and panelists can bring their own audiences, whether they’re watching in landscape or portrait.

For most real-world shows, this is more than enough reach. Very few creators need to hit dozens of endpoints at once; the mainstream pattern is 2–6 destinations, mostly on the same major platforms.

By contrast, with OBS or Streamlabs, your multistreaming story usually involves:

• Running multiple RTMP outputs or instances from your own machine.
• Or sending a single stream to a third-party cloud restream service, which then applies its own limits and pricing.

It works, but you’re trading simplicity and built-in guest workflows for more manual wiring.

How should you design your show for both portrait and landscape viewers?

The biggest mistake in multi-aspect streaming is treating both shapes as identical and just hoping the crop works out. A bit of intentional design goes a long way.

Here’s a simple playbook using StreamYard’s MARS and dual assets:

1. Define your primary framing
   Decide which orientation is your “home base.” Many talk shows and webinars treat landscape as the primary layout, then adapt for portrait.

2. Use dual assets to respect each screen
   With dual assets, you can assign one background and overlay for landscape, and a different one for portrait in a single asset.Dual Assets for MARS In portrait, you might:

   • Tighten the framing on faces.
   • Move lower-thirds higher so they’re not blocked by mobile UI.
   • Simplify on-screen text.

3. Favor centered, vertical-safe composition
   Put the most important content (host, guest, key text) in the central vertical strip so neither orientation cuts it awkwardly.

4. Test on an actual phone before going live
   Run an unlisted test stream, open it on your own phone, and check where overlays, chat, and reactions sit. Adjust dual assets accordingly.

5. Keep layouts flexible
   StreamYard’s live studio lets you switch layouts, bring guests on and off screen, and share screens dynamically while MARS is running. That makes it easier to keep both orientations legible without pre-building dozens of scene variants.

If you were trying to achieve the same thing in OBS or Streamlabs, you’d generally need to:

• Build separate scene collections for vertical and horizontal.
• Configure separate outputs (instances or plugins) for each aspect.
• Manually keep both versions in sync as your show evolves.

It’s doable, but for most non-technical teams the ongoing maintenance feels heavy compared with tweaking a few dual assets in a browser.

When should you not worry about multi-aspect ratio streaming yet?

Multi-aspect streaming is powerful, but it’s not mandatory for everyone on day one. You might hold off if:

• You’re still figuring out your show format and cadence.
• You’re only streaming to a single destination like a weekly LinkedIn Live.
• Your audience is overwhelmingly desktop-based and not yet consuming vertical video from you.

In those cases, a single-orientation StreamYard workflow—plus the ability to record in high-quality, multi-track formats and use tools like AI Clips to generate vertical highlights later—may cover your needs without extra complexity.

As your show matures, MARS becomes a lever you can pull when you’re ready to:

• Run a weekly show that simultaneously serves a YouTube livestream and a vertical viewing experience.
• Collaborate with guests who each bring their own audiences to landscape and portrait destinations.
• Maximize live visibility across feeds without running two separate productions.

At that point, having multi-aspect built into the same studio you already know tends to be simpler than rebuilding your pipeline around a plugin-heavy desktop stack.

What we recommend

• Default path: Use StreamYard with MARS as your starting point for multi-aspect ratio streaming—one browser studio, both orientations, minimal tech overhead.Getting Started With Multi‑Aspect Ratio Streaming (MARS)
• Shape + reach together: Combine MARS with StreamYard’s cloud multistreaming and guest destinations to cover your key platforms without overthinking infrastructure.How to Multi‑stream Guest Destinations
• Step up only when needed: Reach for OBS or Streamlabs when you know you need detailed scene graphs, local capture pipelines, or plugin-dependent workflows and you’re comfortable managing the extra complexity.OBS Studio overview Streamlabs Getting Started
• Focus on outcomes, not knobs: Most creators grow faster by spending their time improving content, hosting, and promotion—not by hand-tuning multiple encoders. Let your multi-aspect ratio software remove friction so you can stay focused on the show.