Once you send a 9:16 feed, through Twitch Dual Format, YouTube’s encoder mode, TikTok LIVE Studio or a Whatnot canvas, you need an overlay for it. A 16:9 overlay dropped into that frame either shrinks or gets cut off. There are three common ways out: buy or make art drawn for 9:16, build a second set of scenes and arrange everything by hand, or use a live overlay that lays itself out for each shape.
We make the third kind, so read this with that in mind. It tries to be fair about where the first two are the better choice, because for a lot of streamers one of them is.
What a static pack gives you
A pack is art: frames, panels, starting-soon and break screens, alert graphics, made by someone who designs for a living. If it includes a 9:16 set, that set was composed for the shape. A person decided where the eye goes, how the frame meets the edge and what the empty space is for. A layout engine moving boxes around does not do that, and does not pretend to.
A pack is also simple. It is a set of files. Once they are in your scene nothing depends on anyone’s server, nothing updates under you, and you can open it in an editor and change it.
What a pack does not do is change. A frame does not know your death count. The pieces that move during a stream, such as a counter, the ticker text, a poll or a giveaway, come from some other tool, and that tool has to work in 9:16 too. A pack’s vertical art also has to guess where the app will draw over it, and TikTok, Twitch and YouTube each cover different parts of the frame. A design that suits TikTok’s comment column may waste space on Twitch.
What a second scene collection gives you
This is the do-it-yourself route, and it costs nothing. Aitum Vertical, a free OBS plugin with over a million downloads on the OBS forum, gives you a separate vertical canvas with its own scenes. You add your existing sources to it, rearrange them for portrait, and link each vertical scene to a horizontal one so switching one switches the other. Twitch’s Dual Format guide uses the same canvas.
You get full control. Every element sits exactly where you put it, for exactly the platform you stream to. Nothing is guessed.
The cost is upkeep. Every scene now exists twice, and every change has to be made twice. Browser-source widgets are the awkward part: one built for a 16:9 layout just shrinks when you scale it down for the vertical canvas, and a second copy set up for portrait is a second configuration to keep in step with the first.
What a live dual-format overlay gives you
The third option moves the layout into the overlay itself. Kloot’s overlay reads the size of the browser source it is drawn in. Add the link as a 1920×1080 source and it renders exactly as before. Add the same link as a 1080×1920 source and it notices it is tall and lays every tool out for a phone. A square source gets the 9:16 layout at 16:9 sizes.
Each tool has its own rule for the tall frame. Tickers and lower thirds sit above the bottom band, counters move away from the comment corner, and cards for polls and giveaways centre in the area people actually see. That area depends on the platform, so you choose a safe-zone profile: TikTok, Twitch, YouTube, Generic or None. The bands are estimates, and two sliders adjust the bottom and right ones.
Because it is one overlay, there is one state. The counter has one value, and both feeds show it. In the panel, a 16:9 · 9:16 · Both chooser shows the two shapes side by side, and a key you press plays in both. The chooser only changes what the panel shows, never the overlay. The copy menu offers “Copy for 1920×1080” and “Copy for 1080×1920”, and both copy the same link.
16:9 · 1920×1080
9:16
The same overlay link in a 16:9 and a 9:16 frame. Press a key and it plays in both.
Where each one is the wrong answer
A live overlay is the wrong answer if the look is the point. Kloot can’t take a separate 9:16 image for a screen, cover or border yet; landscape art is letterboxed on the tool’s background colour in a tall frame rather than cropped. Its layout is a rule, not a designer, so if you want a tool in one exact spot on the phone, you set that per tool with Custom for 9:16, which is Pro at $9/month. Hiding a tool in 9:16 is free. And Kloot fires when you or a mod press a key. It never reads gifts, subs or chat. If you want on-screen reactions to TikTok gifts, tools such as TikFinity and TikOps list gift-triggered actions, and they can run beside it.
A pack is the wrong answer on its own if live pieces matter to your stream, or if you stream to two platforms whose apps cover different parts of the screen. A second scene collection is the wrong answer if you change your layout often, or if you would rather spend the evening streaming than moving boxes.
They stack
None of this is either-or. A vertical canvas still needs scenes, so if you use Aitum Vertical you will have vertical scenes anyway. Put your pack’s 9:16 art in them, then add the same Kloot link to both canvases for the pieces that change. The art stays exactly where its designer put it, and the counter, ticker and cards lay themselves out around the platform’s interface.
| Static pack | Second scene collection | Live dual-format overlay | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Art files for each shape | Your scenes rebuilt on a vertical canvas | One overlay link that lays itself out per shape |
| Looks | Designed for the shape | Whatever you arrange | Rule-based layout; your 16:9 art letterboxed |
| Live pieces | None | Your widgets, configured twice | Counters, tickers, polls, giveaways, alerts |
| Platform UI | Designer’s guess | You place around it | Estimated bands per platform, adjustable |
| Upkeep | Low | Every change twice | One configuration |
| Cost | Varies by seller | Free (Aitum Vertical is free) | Free; Custom for 9:16 is Pro, $9/month |