Kast is a great place to host watch parties with friends. You can create your own party, invite friends and share your screen or webcam all from the comfort of your web browser. From iOS or Android, you can explore and join parties, watch streams, share your camera and chat.
For an in-depth guide on how to host a watch party on mobile, check out this article.
1. Start or join a party
An easy way to start is to use the party that was created for you when you signed up. It is always on top of the front page, under "My Parties". Click the "Join Party" button
2. Find something that you want to watch with your friends
Kast TV is the easiest way to share content with your friends. To read more about Kast TV, check out this article. If you are using Kast TV, feel free to skip the next two steps and jump directly to inviting your friends. You can access Kast TV from the tool bar at the bottom by clicking the button on the left (the colorful TV).
Kast TV icon on the left
You can also share your screen, in order to share for instance a video in your web browser, a game you are playing, or a video player. More on this in the next step.
3. Share your screen
When you jump into a party where nobody is kasting right now, you will see a screen that prompts you to start sharing.
Click the share your screen button on the very left, select if you want to share the full screen, one application window or one individual browser tab, then press "stream" to share your screen.
If you want to share both your screen and webcam, check this article for more information.
4. Enable sound
Making sure audio works properly depends on what you want to share.
If you are sharing an individual browser tab, make sure the "share audio" box is checked. See image below.
Likewise, if you are sharing an individual application on a Windows machine, make sure the "share audio" box is checked. Sharing application audio on Mac is unfortunately not available at the moment.
If you want to share your microphone and talk with your friends, rather than having the sound on from whatever media it is you are sharing, click the microphone icon and the small arrow next to it that lets you select your sound source. Select your microphone to share your sound with your friends.
You can also do this by opening up the settings (gear icon in the top right corner of the video screen when you hover over it with your mouse), and then selecting your input & output (see image below).
Be also sure to have your microphone control unmuted.
5. Invite your friends
If your friends are not yet on Kast, you can share the invite link and drop it in social media or just send it directly to your friends. You can get the invite link by clicking the "copy party share link" button when you open up a party where nobody is streaming, or by selecting the "invite to party" button in the top right corner of the video screen (see image below).
That's it, have a great watch party!
Troubleshooting:
If you are streaming an application Window and are having issues with black screen, you may want to disable hardware graphics acceleration on Chrome.
If you don't hear audio, make sure that the input is set to Computer Audio (or for Mac, see this article), and the microphone button is NOT muted.
Note: if others are using voice communications in the party, you should click on "mute all" in the participants list on the right side (see image below).
The "Computer Audio" setting streams all the audio from your computer. If you'd like to choose a specific audio source, a 3rd party app such as Voicemeeter is great. More audio options are coming to Kast soon.