You can show album art on a YouTube internet radio stream by adding the radio audio and an Image source to the same OBS scene. This gives you a stable visual, such as one album cover, station logo, or branded background.
If you want the artwork to change with every song, a fixed Image source is not enough. You need a player or service that exposes current-track metadata, plus an overlay that can read that metadata and update the artwork.
Choose between fixed and changing artwork
Start by deciding whether the visual really needs to change. A fixed image is usually the better choice for a devotional channel, a station playing a long programme, a local information loop, or a small business that wants its logo visible throughout the broadcast. It has fewer moving parts and is easier to test overnight.
Changing artwork makes more sense when the viewer needs to identify the current song. A now-playing card can show the cover, title, artist, and sometimes a progress indicator. It can make a music stream feel more informative, but it depends on the playback system supplying accurate metadata.
| Choice | Best fit | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Static OBS Image source | One cover, logo, or background | It remains unchanged and needs no track metadata. Confirm that you have permission to use the image. |
| Metadata-driven browser overlay | Per-track cover art with title and artist | The player must expose compatible track and artwork data. The overlay must remain connected while the stream runs. |
| Hosted radio feed into OBS | A station that already has an audio delivery workflow | The audio route and metadata route may be separate. Confirm what the particular player actually provides. |
A static image does not update automatically when a song changes. It also does not tell YouTube which song is playing. The image is simply one visual layer in the video that OBS sends to YouTube.
For a station that already has a working audio source, the fixed route is often enough. If you are building a longer-running channel, you may also want to read about how to loop videos in a 24/7 YouTube livestream, because the same scene-planning principles apply when your visual content is pre-recorded rather than live audio.
Add the radio audio and an Image source in OBS
OBS builds the outgoing picture from a scene and its sources. The audio can come from a station feed, a player on the computer, or an audio-capture route. The album art is added separately as a visual source.
Create or select the scene used for the radio broadcast. Then add the audio route that carries the station sound. The exact source depends on how the radio reaches the computer. A hosted station feed may be opened through a compatible player, while a locally playing station may be captured through an audio input or desktop-audio route.
A provider guide such as Radio.co's OBS setup documentation shows the general arrangement: route the station audio into OBS and use an Image source for a static visual. That guide describes one provider's workflow, not a requirement that every internet-radio station use Radio.co.
To add the image:
- In the Sources panel, select the plus button.
- Choose Image.
- Give the source a clear name, such as
Station Artwork. - Select the image file from your computer.
- Confirm the source and inspect it in the preview.
Use a file that is large enough for the intended output but not unnecessarily difficult for OBS to load. A square cover can sit inside a wider station layout, while a landscape background can fill the canvas behind text and logos. Keep a copy of the original artwork outside the OBS scene so you can replace it later without losing the source configuration.
Check the audio meters before you stream. A visible picture does not prove that the audio route is reaching OBS, and an active meter does not prove that the correct station feed is selected. Listen to the source locally before relying on it for a continuous broadcast.
If your aim is an always-on channel rather than a short live session, consider how the audio source behaves when the computer sleeps, the player reconnects, or the station feed changes. A scene can remain visible while the audio route has stopped. This is one reason to keep the first version simple and test it for longer than a few minutes.
Position and size the fixed artwork
Select the Image source in the preview and use its handles to place it. You can make the cover the main visual, place it beside the station name, or use it as a small panel over a wider background.
Avoid stretching a square cover into a rectangle. If the source looks distorted, resize it proportionally or place it inside a frame that matches its shape. You can hold the appropriate modifier while transforming in OBS, or use the Transform controls to set a more precise position and size.
A simple layout might contain a dark background, a square album cover on the left, the station name on the right, and a small line identifying the broadcast. Another layout might use the cover as a full-screen image with a translucent strip at the bottom. The right arrangement depends on whether the artwork or the station identity should remain the most prominent element.
Keep important information away from the extreme edges. YouTube viewers may watch on a phone, television, or cropped browser window, and different screens can make edge-aligned text harder to read. Preview the scene at the same aspect ratio you intend to send to YouTube.
Layer order matters. Sources higher in the Sources list can appear above sources lower down, depending on the scene arrangement. Put the artwork behind any text that should remain readable, and check that a logo or lower-third has not been hidden by the cover.
For a first broadcast, do not add an animated visualiser, several browser widgets, and multiple moving elements at once. Each extra source creates another thing to reconnect or troubleshoot. A fixed cover with clear station branding is a good baseline. You can add motion after the audio, picture, and stream connection have survived a proper test.
Prepare a metadata-aware overlay
Automatic album-art changes require a metadata path. When the song changes, the playback system must know the new title and artwork, and an overlay must receive that information. OBS itself does not infer the current song from arbitrary audio and does not automatically search for the matching cover.
There are several possible designs. The player may provide an API. A separate now-playing service may publish a web page. A custom page may call a compatible endpoint and display the returned artwork. These approaches are not interchangeable, and a method built for one player may not work with another.
YTMDesktop2 documents one example of this route for its supported playback environment. Its overlay can display artwork alongside title, artist, and progress, with different layouts for a card, compact display, ticker, text-only presentation, or fullscreen art. The important point is not the appearance of the card. It is the connection between that particular player, its metadata, and the browser page loaded by OBS.
This should not be treated as a universal internet-radio solution. If your station uses a different player, first find out whether it exposes the current title, artist, and artwork URL in a usable form. Some radio feeds provide only audio. Others provide text metadata but no artwork. Some expose metadata through a format or API that a particular overlay cannot read.
Before building the scene around changing covers, answer these questions:
- Which application is actually playing the audio?
- Does it expose the current track and artwork data?
- Does the data change when the song changes rather than only when the page is refreshed?
- Can the overlay reach the metadata while the stream is running?
- What should appear if a track has no cover or incomplete artist information?
A sensible fallback is a station logo or neutral background. If the metadata disappears overnight, the broadcast should still have a readable visual rather than a broken page or a blank rectangle.
Changing artwork also has a content-rights dimension. Permission to stream a sound recording does not automatically grant permission to reproduce its cover image. Check the terms for both the music and the artwork before using them in a public video broadcast.
Enable the YTMDesktop2 local API
If YTMDesktop2 is the application playing the relevant music, follow its current documentation for enabling the local API. The API is the part that allows a separate overlay page to obtain playback information rather than relying on a fixed image.
The documented workflow uses the application's settings to enable the local API, then uses its OBS-related overlay settings to prepare a browser URL. The precise controls may change between releases, so check the YTMDesktop2 project documentation instead of relying on an old screenshot or copied configuration.
The local API is not a promise that every audio source in your station will become metadata-aware. It is tied to the application that provides it. If your radio audio comes from a hosted station feed, but YTMDesktop2 is not the application controlling that playback, enabling YTMDesktop2's API will not magically describe the hosted feed.
When you configure the overlay, choose the layout that matches the scene. A compact card is useful when the cover shares the screen with a logo or other information. A default card can include artwork, title, artist, and progress. A fullscreen layout gives the artwork most or all of the visual area, which may suit a simple music channel but leaves less room for station information.
Keep the API and overlay settings documented for your own setup. Note which application is running, which layout you selected, and which OBS source uses the URL. This makes it easier to restore the scene after a computer restart or to identify whether a failure is in the player, the local API, the browser source, or the YouTube connection.
If your goal is to avoid leaving a personal computer running through the night, StreamNeo removes the need to keep the local playback and OBS session operating on your own machine by taking an uploaded video and running the YouTube broadcast from the cloud. That is a different workflow from the YTMDesktop2 overlay route, so it should not be treated as a built-in integration with that application.
Add the overlay as an OBS Browser Source
Once the overlay URL is ready, add it to the scene as a Browser Source. In OBS, select the plus button in Sources, choose Browser, give it a descriptive name such as Now Playing Overlay, and paste the URL into the source properties.
Set the source dimensions to suit the layout. The YTMDesktop2 documentation suggests a source size around 480 by 140 for a compact card. Use the dimensions recommended by the current overlay documentation for the layout you have selected, then resize or position the source in the OBS preview.
For fullscreen artwork, the browser source may need to cover the whole scene rather than sit as a small card. For a compact card, leave enough space for the title and artist text to wrap without covering the cover image. A source that is too short can crop information, while one that is too wide may overlap station branding.
A Browser Source is a live web-rendered element, not an image file. It may need the local player and its API to be available. If the overlay loads while the player is stopped but does not update during playback, inspect the metadata route rather than repeatedly resizing the source.
Use a local preview before going live. Confirm that the page loads, the artwork is visible, the text is legible, and the source does not show an error message. If the page is blank, check the URL, API setting, player state, and any local permissions required by the application. Also check whether the browser source has been hidden, placed behind another source, or assigned a size of zero.
Do not add both a fixed cover and a changing cover in the same position unless you deliberately want one to act as a fallback. Two overlapping sources can make it appear that the metadata overlay is not changing when the static image is simply sitting above it.
Test artwork changes with track metadata
Test the complete path in the order that the information travels. Start the player, confirm that it reports the current track, open the overlay, and then inspect the Browser Source in OBS. Finally, check the OBS preview and audio meters together.
Change to another track with a clearly different cover. Wait for the player to update, then see whether the title, artist, and artwork change in the overlay. If the title changes but the cover does not, the player may be sending incomplete artwork data or the overlay may be retaining its previous image. If nothing changes, the local API or the browser connection may not be active.
Test a track with no artwork as well. A reliable layout should show a fallback rather than an empty broken-image symbol. If the overlay offers no suitable fallback, keep a station logo or background available in the scene and decide how you will handle missing covers.
Run a private or unlisted YouTube test before using the workflow for a public broadcast. Watch the outgoing result, not only the OBS preview. Check whether the image remains visible after the stream has been running, whether the audio stays synchronised with the visual, and whether reconnecting the player causes the overlay to recover.
For a long-running channel, test the failure cases deliberately:
- Stop and restart the music player.
- Change tracks several times in succession.
- Disconnect and restore the network connection.
- Close and reopen OBS or the browser source.
- Leave a track playing long enough to see whether progress and artwork remain responsive.
If the stream keeps stopping or the picture freezes, separate the problem into local and YouTube-side causes. The troubleshooting ideas in Why does my 24/7 YouTube lofi stream keep stopping? cover the value of checking the encoder, connection, and source separately. You can also review buffering fixes for encoder-side and viewer-side problems when the preview looks healthy but viewers report interruptions.
OBS's official streaming guide recommends using its Auto-Configuration Wizard for initial settings. OBS also explains that rising dropped frames can indicate an unstable connection or a bitrate that the connection cannot sustain. These checks concern the broadcast path, not the album-art metadata itself, but a stable overlay is of little use if the stream cannot remain connected.
Remember that artwork does not grant music rights
Album art is a production choice, not permission to broadcast the music. The recording, composition, performance, and image may involve separate rights. A cover downloaded from the internet is not automatically cleared for use in a public live video.
YouTube says that live streams are scanned for matches to third-party content. Its official live-stream copyright guidance explains that a stream can be interrupted or terminated when identified material continues, and that a placeholder image may replace the stream image. It also notes that a licence may not prevent an interruption if the rights owner has not allowlisted the channel through Content ID.
YouTube's music copyright guidance describes copyright-safe music as music in the public domain or music used with permission from the copyright owner. A track described as free can still be identified by Content ID, so do not treat a label, upload description, or informal permission as proof that YouTube will not act on the stream.
Check the current terms for the particular music source, territory, and use. If you are considering Creator Music for a continuous radio-style format, read the restrictions for each track and region. Some licensed uses may not permit a full-song static-image Art Track or repetitive visualiser. Showing the cover more neatly does not change those restrictions.
The practical order is straightforward: clear the music, clear the artwork, build the OBS scene, then test the public broadcast. A visually polished stream can still be interrupted if the underlying content is not permitted.
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FAQ
Will a fixed Image source change when the song changes?
No. An OBS Image source displays the file you selected until you replace it or otherwise automate that source. It does not read the audio and cannot identify a new track by itself.
Can YouTube automatically show the album cover from my radio feed?
Do not assume it can. YouTube receives the video scene produced by your encoder, so automatic artwork needs to be added by the player, overlay, or another part of your production workflow before the video reaches YouTube.
Does the YTMDesktop2 overlay work with every internet-radio player?
No. The documented route is specific to YTMDesktop2 and its supported playback and metadata path. For another player, confirm that it exposes usable track and artwork information and find an overlay designed to read that source.
What should I show when a track has no artwork?
Use a station logo, branded background, or neutral fallback image. Test this case before going live so that missing metadata does not leave a broken or unreadable visual on the channel.