In this video we will learn
how to record a Live talk
I will focus on recording meetups
and workshops,
but obviously this is the same
for recording any talk lecture or course
that implies
having a speaker
talking in front of a slide.
In this video
we will learn how to record a live talk.
I will focus on
recording meetups and workshops,
but of course it can also be used
to record any talk, course or lecture
where there is a speaker
talking with the slides.
This is the content we will cover.
We are going to start
with the requirements
that a video must follow
to be published on WordPress tab.
And from there we're going to move on on
how to make a basic recording with very
little budget,
even if it's not required.
We are also going to cover
the basics of OBS,
a free and open source tool
that it's
that it's very versatile
for both video recording and streaming.
These will be more than enough
to record a talk,
but we are also going
to look at other options
to improve the quality
of the final result.
WordPress TV. WordPress.
TV is a totally free
platform where videos related to
WordPress are uploaded.
Most of the videos are recordings
from workouts and meetups,
but anyone can upload content.
Please note that videos
go through a review process
by moderators,
and in order for a video to be approved,
it has to meet a number of requirements.
The GPL license
and the use of the WordPress trademark
must be observed at all times.
Content related to companies
or products
that violate the GPL are not allowed.
Content must be primarily educational,
as the goal of WordPress TV
is to spread knowledge about WordPress
users cases and personal experience
might be displayed,
but self-promotion is not allowed.
Related to this, you are not
allowed to include
your own commercial logos
or sponsor logos
or social network handles.
They are only allowed in an introduction
slide.
However, logos
on the speaker T-shirt
or on the room segment are allowed
But here you have to be reasonable
and the moderators
will always have the last word.
For example, in this video
I can include this slide
in which I say that my name is Nilo Velez.
that my username?
On most social networks is Nilo Velez,
and that I'm a team
rep of the WordPress photo directory.
Moderator of WordPress
to be WordPress translation.
Moderator of a Spanish from
spain
And event
supportive of the community team.
Here I can also say
that I can do all of this
thanks to the wonderful people
at Hostinger who sponsor the hours.
I contribute to the community.
Let's start recording.
Now that we know what kind of content
we can upload to WordPress
TB, let's start recording.
And for that,
we're going to use whatever
you already have at home.
And chances are you already have a phone
capable of recording videos
with pretty decent quality.
What you might not be sad for people
with is necessary to hold your phone,
so you don't have to
keep your phone in your hand
during the whole talk,
and also to help you get the steady shot.
Now that we know
the content
that we can publish on WordPress TV
we can start recording.
We are going to start
by using the equipment
we already have at home, and chances are,
you already own
a smartphone
that can record video in
pretty decent quality.
What you might be missing
is a tripod
to hold your phone,
so you don't have to keep it
on your hands the entire time.
A tripod will also help
keep your shot steady.
Here's an example of a lightweight tripod
you can use.
Most of these already come with a click
to hold your phone,
but this is just a suggestion,
not a requirement.
Throughout this video.
You'll notice that I include
several lives
like this one where I recommend
certain products.
These are the specific brands
for affiliate links.
Yes, general suggestions
for the kind of items
that could be helpful to you.
If you look closely at
each of these slides,
you'll see a small box
with a search term.
For example,
I've written here a phone tripod,
thus there to help you quickly
find similar items on any online store.
Once you get a tripod,
ideally one with a phone clip,
we'll set it up in the room
where the talk will take place.
Make sure it's positioned
close to the speaker,
and that the projector screen
takes up a good portion of the frame.
Avoid placing the tripod
all the way on the back of the room.
You'll end up
needing to zoom in
to match with reduces video quality.
It's always
better to be closer to the speaker.
If you can't,
you can record the video intensity
like in this example.
Here the screen looks a little small
in the frame, but that's okay.
We can use the high resolution
to crop the video later
and focus on the parts that we need.
Here's
a quick example of what
I was just talking about.
I've got my laptop hooked toa TV
with an HDMI cable.
My phone is set up on a tripod
on the shortest frame,
so the TV takes up more of the image.
I also left some space
on the right side of the frame
for the speaker to stand.
When we
start recording, you might notice
the quality of the sound isn't great.
That is because
we're using the phone's internal mic.
The mic on the phone
is made to record audio from very close.
So when I step back a bit,
the quality drops a lot.
There's one simple rule
to always keep in mind
when recording audio.
Any source of noise
should be
at least
three times further
from the microphone than the speaker.
So if your camera is
one meter away from the speaker,
you don't want any noise
like people talking or moving around
within three meters of the microphone.
That includes the audience.
Since that's not really practical.
Most of the time
the fix is to just bring the microphone
closer to the speaker,
and that's where a leveler
microphone comes in.
Leveler microphones come in both wired
and wireless versions.
Here's an example of a super affordable
wireless one
that plugs right in to your phone.
It also comes with a friend
USB adapter,
so you can use it with your computer too.
All you need to do
is plug the receiver into your phone.
Wait for it to pair with the mic,
and make sure that your camera app
is set up to use
the external mic for audio.
This is the audio
that I had with the phone,
and this is the audio that I have
with the wireless mic.
Not only is this sound better,
but it can move around the room
without the volume going up and up.
The speaker
should have
the mic close to their mouth,
normally in their neck
or in their jacket,
but not in their hand.
This diagram gives you a quick
summary of the setup.
This is more than enough
to record a short talk
without any big complications.
Just remember, all we are working
with is a laptop.
So in this light connected to a screen
or a projector
on a phone with an external mic,
local recording with o b s
recording necessary for your phone
has some downsides,
especially when you start
recording a lot of videos
or really long ones,
because storage on the phone is limited
and taking the videos out takes time.
So we are going to see another option
which is recording videos using OBS.
OBS is a free and open
source program used for recording
and for livestreaming.
It's mostly used for streaming, but
for us it's a really good option
for recording videos
on your own computer.
What we are going to need
is some kind of camera
connected to our computer via USB.
If you have an Android phone,
they're an absolute joy cam
that let you link
the phone to your computer.
And if you go to an iPhone on a mac,
you can use continue to camera.
It's a built in feature
that lets you connect them.
For example, I'm going to use a webcam.
The quality won't be as good,
but it's easier to set up.
Instead of recording the screen
with a camera,
we're going to capture it
using this little device
a USB capture card.
It takes any HDMI source
and makes your computer
see it as a webcam when you plug it in.
We will also need an HDMI splitter.
It's a device that takes one HDMI input
and split it into two HDMI outputs.
This way,
we can send this light from the laptop
to both the screen
and the capture card at the same time.
Be careful when buying it.
There are two different devices
that look almost the same,
but two different things.
The one on the left is an HDMI switch,
which lets
you change
between two sources,
like two laptops on a single monitor.
But what we need
is the one on the right,
an HDMI splitter.
If you're not sure,
you can tell them apart
because the switch has a button
or a remote to switch inputs,
and the splitter doesn't.
Here's a simple diagram
showing how we are
going to connect everything.
We'll plug
this little laptop into the splitter,
and that gives us two signals.
One goes to the screen projector
at usual,
and the other one
goes to the capture card.
And the card goes into a second laptop.
To this second laptop,
we will also connect the camera
and the mic.
And that's where we are going to run OBS.
It is going to handle everything.
It might sound a little tricky,
but you'll see that actually
makes recording a lot easier.
Let's start by downloading OBS.
Like I'd say, it's a free open source app
and it works on windows, Mac and Linux.
Once we download and install OBS,
the first thing we are going to see
is this configuration wizard,
in which in the first screen
we have to select optimize
just for recording.
On the second
screen we are going to select
for combat resolution 1080.
This one
for FPS for the frame rate.
We are going to choose 30.
And in the next screen
we just get a confirmation
of everything we have selected.
We apply settings
and we
that the interface from OBS will load.
It may look a little scary
at the beginning,
but you will see that
it's not so terrible.
We'll start by going to settings.
And here we're going to check everything
we have already selected.
Let's go to video
and we'll check that both the base
and the output resolution
are set to 1080.
And the FPS is set to 30.
Then we are going to go to output.
And here we are going to check that
the video bitrate is set to 5000,
which is a good enough
size for a recording video
because it's not so heavy.
We will probably
have a video with enough data
to be able to upload
that to WordPress TV,
without having to re compress that
for the audio bitrate.
We are going to check 192
and a video encoder.
It's very important to check
that it's set on hardware.
You usually have the option of software
hardware and maybe another
hardware options.
It depends from the computer
you have on your
if you have a graphic,
dedicated graphics card.
Right now
I'm, on a laptop
which uses Intel processor.
So the option I get for hardware is Axb,
which is the hardware
media encoder from Intel.
If you are using a mac,
you see a different option,
but you one of them will
always will be labeled as labeled
as hardware.
For encoder preset,
we are going to keep it
that on balanced out.
The encoder is okay easy.
And for recording
we are going to go to recording quality
and change that to same as a stream.
We are going to check that
the in recording format is set to MP4.
And also we are going to check the
you are the sorry
the path where the videos will be saved.
With everything checked
we are going to apply your changes.
Click on okay and we are set here
on the interface where we have that
we see that we have different panels.
The big one is
our canvas
is where we are going
to compose everything.
Then we have the themes panel
which yes, blank is right now
the sources
which are the different devices
that we are going to be including into
the audio mixer, where we can select
the volume of the different devices
that output audio.
The transition
where we configure the how,
once things is
then change from one to the other
and then or controls,
which probably will only be using
a stop
recording or stop recording
which is the same mute
button and settings.
Also, it's a good idea
to keep an eye on this, counter
right here
because, the one which says CPU,
says how
much of your system resources
OBS is using.
So it's a good idea
to keep an eye on that
to see if it goes to, number too high.
Maybe your computer is not powerful
or not to recording this quality.
And the other is the
if that we are intending to record under
the one what we are actually getting.
So also if we get under 30, maybe you can
you will have to put lower resolution
or get a better computer.
Okay.
Let's start with our testing.
Each of the, this is themes is,
as I say,
these each of the, composition
we will use during our talk.
So we are
preparing a different thing
for different moments of our talk.
For the first one,
I am going to take this, blank one,
I am going to rename that
and I am going to put the name into
this one will be a static image
without audio.
Yes. For the opening of the doc.
So we are going to go to sources.
Click on this plus symbol at source.
And here we are going to add an image.
We are going for the name
I am choosing poster.
Okay.
And I select in Brazil
I select where my image is.
I have one
prepare on my computer on images.
This one.
Okay.
So now you see that we have, this
with the only thing we have
is this image.
We are going to add another scene.
Right click.
Or the plus symbol.
And here we are going to set
our speaker total.
Let's be careful.
Okay.
And here I am going to select my webcam
the webcam
I will use it to record the speaker.
So on I go to sources.
I select the video capture device
here.
I'm going to call this webcam.
By default to my laptop webcam.
But I'm going to check another one.
From this dropdown I can select
Logitech Ria which is my webcam.
Okay here my this is my speaker.
And I'm going
to check the resolution of this.
I'm going to select custom.
UN I'm
selecting the same
as all of our project which is 1080.
And much output space
okay.
And we have Aurora speaker.
But the speaker as you see has no audio.
So I'm going to add another source.
Which is the audio input input
audio input capture.
Sorry.
Here
I will have
usually plug on external microphone
like the wireless microphone with
with we saw a moment ago.
But in this
case just for testing.
Microphone
I am going to select.
Yes.
And there is
the microphone of my laptop,
which is this one.
So now as you see I have a meter
with the level of the audio
I am getting
for the microphone of my computer.
You will always try to get the app.
You will always try to get that volume
into the yellow zone
and even the top of the green zone,
or the yellow zone, but trying
not to get into the red zone.
So for this
I'm going to select
something like minus three okay.
Now I'm speaking
and I'm getting a little into the rhythm.
The idea is that if you get to zero
you are losing audio.
You will be clipping audio.
So you have to depending on the source
of your audio,
you have to select this volume.
Okay.
Now we have
one a scene with our intra static image
and another with or speaker
with his microphone.
For the next one
I'm going to duplicate this thing
so I get all the sources we already have.
So I'm going to duplicate.
Okay.
And this one is going to be called
slides.
Okay I'm removing from this scene
the webcam.
And I'm adding a new source
which is another video capture device
which is the USB device
I have connected to the computer,
which is so in this slides,
so I'm going to call that,
capture.
Okay.
Also default to the camera,
but I'm checking this USB video
okay.
And now I have the slides
I'm getting from the other computer.
I'm check
that the resolution is custom.
Check that it's 1080 and much output fps.
Okay.
Now I have
another scene with just this lights,
but,
it keeps the microphone from the speaker.
I'm going to make another copy
of the speaker.
I'm going to duplicate the speaker.
I'm going to say slides.
Last speaker.
Okay,
I'm getting this down.
Down there.
So now I have my, intro speaker slides.
And this one is going
to have both the slides and the speaker.
So I'm going to add another source.
But I don't have to create that
because yes,
if I select the video capture device
I can select one I have already created,
which is my capture
okay.
And the by default gets the top.
But I can drag the webcam
to the top.
Okay.
And now what I'm going to do is to scale
and crop this image.
For scaling,
you just have to pull the corner
of the image.
And for cropping
I'm going to select from here
pressing the alt key or command
sorry control on your Mac
and drag from that.
If it works, it will. So Green bar,
I'm going to go
a little tighter on this speaker.
Like this.
This, this maybe a square.
Okay, let's make,
from that, I'm going to release the key,
go to the corner
and make it, little smaller.
Okay.
And the last one will be to add
another thing
just for the outro,
which can also be, video.
Sorry, can also be, also the same photo
or a video or whatever.
I'm going to create a new scene,
which is outro.
Which for now I'm going to leave blank.
Okay. That's it.
So we have your intro, speaker
slides, speaker classes, slides
and or outro.
Okay, so the day of the talk,
once we have everything ready,
we just have to set up all of this again.
Oh sorry. Yes.
The OBS gives the configuration
but we have to set up the microphone,
the webcam and those things.
But the
configuration from OBS skip skip skip
from one time to another
we are going to go to intro.
And when the talk is going to start
we will signal the speaker to wait
for five seconds.
We will start recording.
We still have a UN recording, no audio,
so we can make a signal
to a speaker like 3 to 1 go
go to a speaker.
Speaker.
Start with his talk.
We can change to his course slides
plus a speaker
to keep the speaker in one corner.
And we can go.
If this,
is it's on the way of some of the slides,
we can go to full slides.
The slides can be moved.
We can get back the speaker.
We can get the speaker
back on full on a screen
when he's taking questions
on where he is saying goodbye.
From that we will go to our outro
and stop recording
and that's it.
You'll see that
it may look a little complicated
at the beginning,
but once everything is set up,
the process is really simple
and from one talk to the other,
probably, well,
you will only have to change
the intro changes
the image of the
at the beginning of the
of the talk, and that's it.
And the good thing about the system
is that everything is recorded,
in a format
that can directly be uploaded to,
WordPress TV next steps.
With what we have seen so far,
we can make pretty solid videos,
but there's always room for improvement.
And the first thing we can do to improve
the quality of videos
is replacing
that webcam or phone
with a proper camera.
The same capture card
that we used to record the presenter.
The screen also works to turn most photo
or video cameras into a webcam.
I say most
because the camera needs to meet
a few requirements.
It has to have an HDMI output
with a clean signal.
That means that it should
then show the camera,
settings, battery, or memory
info into the screen.
It also needs a way
to start a step forward,
either with a power adapter,
a dummy battery, or a power bank.
Be careful, some cameras
won't let you charge
and record at the same time,
and finally,
it should let you turn off auto power off
so you don't have to
keep touching the camera
every few minutes.
If you want to check
whether your camera or the one
you're planning to buy, work for this.
Elgato
has a big list
of supported models on their website.
Besides a second capture card,
the only thing that you will need
is an HDMI cable that fits your camera.
It should be either
it's the Mi Mini HDMI or micro HDMI.
You can tell by the shape of the port,
and if you are not sure,
it's easy to look up online
once everything is ready,
all we have to do is replace the webcam
with the second capture card,
hook up to the camera,
and update the shows on OBS.
And finally,
if you ever been to an event
where there were pros
recording or doing live stream,
you might have seen them
using several cameras
and a console with a lot of buttons.
That console is a video switcher.
It works just like a capture card,
but instead of plugging in a lot of gear
one by one,
it has four or more video inputs
and built in capture cards.
It also have a USB port,
so you can connect it to your computer
and use the other as a webcam.
This setup makes it easier
to do more advanced recording,
and often lets you record directly
without needing a computer,
but the idea is exactly the same.
And that's where we're
going to wrap up this video.
From here on, it's all about practicing.
You'll see.
You'll be greeting with
results in no time.
If you have any questions or need help
uploading your videos to WordPress DB,
you can ask on the BP TV
channel on the global make WordPress
slack.