Capture Premiere Pro Timeline with OBS Studio

Capturing your Adobe Premiere Pro timeline output in OBS Studio is a highly effective way to livestream your editing sessions, record tutorials, or present real-time progress to clients. This guide outlines the two most efficient methods to achieve this: using Premiere Pro’s built-in Mercury Transmit feature for a clean feed, and using OBS Window Capture for a quick, single-monitor setup.

Method 1: Mercury Transmit (Best for a Clean Video Feed)

This method sends a dedicated, clean full-screen feed of your Program Monitor to a secondary monitor, which OBS then captures. This is the professional standard as it excludes the Premiere Pro interface, timeline tracks, and toolbars.

  1. Connect a Second Monitor: Ensure you have a dual-monitor setup connected to your computer.
  2. Configure Premiere Pro:
    • Open Premiere Pro and go to Edit > Preferences > Playback (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Settings > Playback (macOS).
    • Check the box for Enable Mercury Transmit.
    • Under the Video Device list, check the box next to your secondary monitor.
    • Click OK. Your Program Monitor timeline output will now display full-screen on the second monitor.
  3. Configure OBS Studio:
    • Open OBS Studio.
    • In the Sources dock, click the + icon and select Display Capture.
    • Name the source and click OK.
    • In the properties window, select the secondary monitor showing the Premiere Pro full-screen output.
    • Click OK.

Method 2: Window Capture with Cropping (Best for Single Monitors)

If you only have one monitor, you can capture the entire Premiere Pro window and crop it so only the Program Monitor (timeline output) is visible in OBS.

  1. Configure OBS Studio:
    • Open OBS Studio.
    • In the Sources dock, click the + icon and select Window Capture.
    • Name the source and click OK.
    • In the Window dropdown menu, select [Adobe Premiere Pro.exe].
    • Set the Capture Method to Windows 10 (1903 and up) or BitBlt depending on which renders the preview more smoothly. Click OK.
  2. Crop to the Program Monitor:
    • In the OBS preview window, select the red bounding box around the captured Premiere Pro window.
    • Hold down the Alt key (Windows) or Option key (macOS) on your keyboard.
    • Click and drag the sides of the bounding box inward to crop out the timeline, project panels, and menus, leaving only the Program Monitor visible.
    • Release the keys and resize the remaining clean feed to fit your OBS canvas.

Audio Configuration

To ensure your stream or recording captures the audio from your Premiere Pro timeline:

  1. In Premiere Pro, go to Preferences > Audio Hardware.
  2. Note your Default Output device (e.g., your headphones or system audio).
  3. In OBS Studio, go to Settings > Audio.
  4. Set Desktop Audio to match the same output device used by Premiere Pro. This guarantees that any audio played back on your timeline is successfully routed into OBS.