What is the Aitum Vertical Plugin for OBS Studio?

The Aitum Vertical plugin is a free, powerful tool designed for OBS Studio that allows content creators to design, record, and stream vertical video content simultaneously alongside their standard widescreen broadcasts. This article explains what the Aitum Vertical plugin is, details its core features, and demonstrates how it simplifies layout management for platforms like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels.

Understanding the Aitum Vertical Plugin

Traditionally, OBS Studio only supports a single canvas resolution (usually 16:9 widescreen). To create vertical content (9:16) for mobile-first platforms, creators previously had to run a second instance of OBS, use complex nested scenes, or manually crop widescreen video in post-production editing software.

Aitum Vertical solves this problem by adding a fully integrated, independent vertical canvas directly inside your existing OBS Studio interface. It runs alongside your main canvas, sharing your system’s resources efficiently without requiring you to open multiple programs.

Key Features of Aitum Vertical

The plugin introduces several dedicated docks and tools to OBS Studio, making multi-format streaming and recording seamless:

• Dual Canvases: You get a standard 1920x1080 canvas and a vertical 1080x1920 canvas running side-by-side.
• Independent Scenes and Sources: You can build a completely unique layout for your vertical feed. Your vertical layout can use the same camera and game capture sources as your horizontal feed, but resized, cropped, and rearranged specifically for mobile screens.
• Vertical Streaming and Recording: You can stream horizontally to Twitch or YouTube while simultaneously streaming vertically to TikTok Live or YouTube Shorts. You can also choose to only record the vertical feed.
• The Backtrack Feature: Similar to OBS’s Replay Buffer, Backtrack runs in the background and saves a set number of seconds of vertical footage when you trigger a hotkey. This allows you to capture viral moments instantly in a mobile-ready format.

How It Helps with OBS Studio Layouts

Aitum Vertical fundamentally changes how broadcasters manage their screen real estate and workflow:

1. Eliminates Post-Production Cropping

Instead of spending hours in a video editor scaling, cropping, and repositioning 16:9 gameplay and webcam footage to fit a 9:16 frame, the layout is already perfectly aligned. When you hit record or capture a clip via Backtrack, the output is instantly ready to upload to TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram Reels.

2. Independent Layout Customization

Widescreen layouts do not translate well to mobile screens; a tiny webcam in the corner of a gameplay feed is unreadable on a phone. Aitum Vertical allows you to stack your sources. For example, you can place your gameplay capture in the center of the vertical screen and stack your webcam directly above it.

3. Linked Sources for Easy Management

While the layouts are independent, the sources can be linked. If you mute your microphone or transition scenes on your main horizontal feed, those changes can automatically replicate on your vertical feed, ensuring you do not have to manage two separate streams manually during live broadcasts.

4. CPU and GPU Efficiency

Running a second instance of OBS to capture vertical footage heavily taxes your computer’s CPU and graphics card. Because Aitum Vertical is integrated directly into a single instance of OBS Studio, it utilizes shared resources, resulting in a much lower performance impact on your gaming and streaming hardware.