How to Use Dual Screen Streaming for Multiple Feeds

Dual screen streaming is a way to watch a main video on one monitor while keeping other streams, chats, or information visible on a second screen. The simplest method is to arrange two browser windows, one on each monitor. You can put your primary stream in one window and use a tool like ViewGrid in the second to combine multiple other feeds from platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and Kick.

This setup lets you focus on a main event without losing track of other action. Instead of constantly switching tabs on a single screen, everything you want to see has its own dedicated space.

The Core Idea: A Primary and a Secondary Screen

The most common approach to dual screen streaming is to assign a role to each monitor.

Your primary monitor is for your main point of focus. This is where you put the most important stream, maximized to fill the screen. It could be the official broadcast of an esports tournament, a rocket launch, or the main camera feed for a political debate.

Your secondary monitor becomes your dashboard for everything else. This is where you can arrange co-streams, alternative camera angles, live stats, or social media feeds. By grouping these secondary sources, you get more context without cluttering your main view. This is where a multi-stream viewer is most useful, as it can combine several video feeds into a single, organized browser window.

How to Set Up Your Streams Across Two Monitors

Once your computer is physically connected to two monitors and your desktop is extended across them, arranging your streams is straightforward. Here’s a simple, step-by-step process using ViewGrid to manage your secondary feeds.

1. Open Your Main Stream: In a browser on your primary monitor, navigate to the YouTube, Twitch, or Kick stream you want to focus on. Make this window full-screen or maximize it. This is your main event.

1. Open ViewGrid in a New Window: Open a completely new browser window (not just a new tab). Go to viewgrid.tv.

1. Build Your Secondary Grid: In the ViewGrid window, start adding the other streams you want to watch. You can paste a direct link to a stream or channel, or search for live YouTube streams from within the grid. Add a co-streamer’s feed, another event, or a different camera angle. You can add up to 20 streams on a desktop browser.

1. Move the Grid to Your Second Screen: Click and drag the title bar of the ViewGrid browser window over to your secondary monitor.

1. Arrange and Watch: Position the ViewGrid window on your second screen. You can now watch your main event on one screen and keep an eye on all your secondary feeds on the other.

This entire process requires no downloads or accounts to get started. Because ViewGrid is a browser-based tool, you are just organizing official, embedded video players from each platform.

Managing Audio and Chat

Watching multiple streams brings up two immediate questions: how do you handle the sound, and how do you follow the chat?

Switching Audio

Having audio from five streams play at once is confusing. ViewGrid is designed to prevent this. Every stream you add to a grid starts muted. You will see a speaker icon on each video player. To hear a stream, just click its speaker icon to unmute it. All other streams will remain muted. If you want to switch to a different audio source, click the speaker icon on the new stream you want to hear.

Following Chat

If you want to participate in the conversation, you can open the live chat for any single YouTube, Twitch, or Kick stream in your grid. Look for the chat icon on the ViewGrid toolbar. Clicking it will open a side panel next to your grid displaying that stream’s chat. This is a good way to dedicate a portion of your second screen to community interaction without it covering any of your video feeds.

Common Dual Screen Setups

How you organize your screens depends on what you’re watching. Here are a few common and effective layouts you can try.

The Esports Command Center

For big gaming tournaments, information is everything.
Screen 1 (Primary): The official tournament broadcast from Twitch or YouTube.
Screen 2 (Secondary): A ViewGrid layout with a popular co-streamer (like Tarik for Valorant), an alternate language broadcast, or even the B-stream feed if one is available. You can create a grid that combines feeds from multiple Twitch streams to see different perspectives at once.

The Live News Hub

During breaking news or election nights, seeing multiple viewpoints is valuable.
Screen 1 (Primary): Your preferred main news network.
Screen 2 (Secondary): Use ViewGrid to open feeds from two or three other news organizations. This lets you compare reporting and see how different outlets are covering the same event in real time. You can find pre-made layouts for this on the Events page.

The Multi-POV Watch Party

When watching a group of creators playing together in a game like Minecraft or Among Us.
Screen 1 (Primary): Your favorite creator’s stream.
Screen 2 (Secondary): A multi-stream grid showing the perspectives of the other people in their group. This way, when something happens, you can quickly glance over and see the event from another player’s point of view.

Practical Tips and Limitations

To get the most out of a dual screen setup, keep a few things in mind.

Internet Speed: Each video stream consumes bandwidth. While watching two or three streams is usually fine for most modern internet connections, building a grid with 12 or 20 high-quality streams will require a stable and fast connection to avoid buffering.

Sharing Your Layout: If you create a layout you want to share with friends, you don't need to send them a list of links. The entire ViewGrid layout is contained in the page's URL. Just copy the URL from your browser's address bar and send it. When they open the link, they will see the exact same grid you created.

Saving Layouts: If you have a go-to setup you use often, you can create a free ViewGrid account to save your layouts. This lets you open your favorite grids with a single click instead of rebuilding them each time.

Watching on a TV: To get your dual screen setup onto a big screen, you have a few options. You can connect a laptop to your TV with an HDMI cable and use the TV as a second monitor. Some smart TVs also have built-in web browsers where you can open ViewGrid directly. These methods depend on your specific hardware's capabilities, not on a feature within ViewGrid itself.

Physical Monitor Setup: This guide assumes your computer is already connected to two monitors. If you need help with the physical connections, cables, and operating system settings, the article "Multi Stream Viewer: Set Up a Dual Monitor System" provides a more detailed walkthrough of that process.