If you are a speaker for the upcoming oVirt Conference, you may be wondering how to record your talk. This guide will walk you through setting up OBS Studio, an excellent open source recording and streaming software.
First of all, please obtain OBS from the link above or from your Linux distribution repository. Don’t worry, you don’t need the latest and greatest, any version from recent years will do.
Once you start up OBS, you will be greeted by the Auto-Configuration Wizard. Please cancel this wizard as we will set up things manually.
Then, please click the Settings button at the bottom right of the screen.
Configuring output
In the settings menu, please select Output and change the Output mode to Advanced.
Then, please make sure that the settings are as follows:
Encoder: x264
Rate Control: CBR
Bitrate: 10000 Kbps
Keyframe Interval: 1s
Next, please click on the Recording tab, set the Recording Path where your video should be saved and change the Recording Format to MP4. Make sure the Encoder is set to (Use stream encoder).
Configuring audio
Next, please head to the Audio section on the left. In this section, please set all Global Audio Devices to Disabled. We will add these later.
Configuring video
Next, please head to the Video section on the left. Please set both the Base (Canvas) Resolution and the Output (Scaled) Resolution field to 1920 x 1080. Make sure the FPS value is set to 30.
Congratulations, now you are done with the basic configuration of OBS. Only a few more steps!
Adding an audio device
To begin, please click the plus sign in the Sources panel and select Audio Input Capture, then click OK.
On the next window, please select your microphone device.
Once you hit OK you should now see the audio device in the Audio Mixer panel. Please test if the green bar moves when you talk. Adjust the slider so that it does not go into the red area when you talk loud, but adjust it as high as possible.
If your volume is too low please adjust your operating system settings. Make sure that meeting software, such as Skype, Zoom, etc, are closed while recording. These programs tend to adjust your volume settings and may interfere with the recording.
Adding the screen recording
Next, let’s add the screen recording. There are a new device in the Sources panel like before. Here, you can select either Display Capture or Window Capture. Depending on your operating system, one or the other may work. Please configure the outputs to capture the display or window you wish to record.
Once that is done, please right click the Display or Window Capture source, select Transform and Fit to Screen. This will make sure your captured screen or window fits the output size.
Adding a webcam
If you wish to record your face on camera, you can add a new source in the Sources panel and select Video Capture Device. You can then go through the process and select your web camera. You can select a custom webcam resolution. We recommend setting your resolution to 640 x 480. Higher resolutions may lower the frame rate depending on your webcam model and you will most likely need the camera in the lower right corner only.
Once you have configured your camera, you can use your mouse to move the webcam window to the desired position in the video.
Sometimes, your webcam will also add a second audio device. Please make sure to disable this audio input unless you are using it to record your voice.
Optional: adding desktop audio
If you are demonstrating something that requires recording your desktop audio, make sure to add the Audio Output Capture source with the proper output device selected. In this case, please make sure to use headphones during recording to avoid recording the audio twice.
Starting your recording
That’s it! Now you are ready to record! Start the recording using the Start Recording button on the bottom. We recommend recording a short test video and watching it to make sure everything works.
Optional: Use the oVirt background
If you want to use it, we have a background for you. It looks like this:
As a first step, download the background image. In the Sources panel, add a new Image and link it with the downloaded background image. Pull this source to the bottom to make it appear below your presentation and webcam. Next, right click on the Window Capture or Display Capture and select Transform → Edit Transform. Enter the following parameters:
Position: 20 x 20
Size: 1600 x 875
Positional Alignment: Top Left
Bounding Box Type: Scale to inner bounds
Alignment in Bounding Box: Top Left
Bounding Box Size: 1600 x 900
Crop: 0 x 0 x 0 x 0
Do the same to your Video Capture Device with the following options:
Position: 1640 x 865
Size: 260 x 195
Positional Alignment: Top Left
Bounding Box Type: Scale to inner bounds
Alignment in Bounding Box: Bottom Right
Bounding Box Size: 260 x 192
Recording tips
Talking to a camera is different than presenting on stage. It is very easy to fall into a monotone voice if you are not used to talking to the camera. When presenting, imagine there is someone who you are talking to.
If you need to take a break during recording, drink a sip of water, do it. Write down the time after start and send it to us, we can remove 2-3 short sections from your video if needed.
Finally, let’s talk about equipment. You don’t need a professional studio for recording a video, but you will need a microphone. The best microphone to record your talk on, apart from a professional one, is a good old headset. Built-in laptop microphones record a lot of noise and room echo, and so do wireless headsets like Apple AirPods. Cable earphones, such as the ones often supplied with phones, brush up against your shirt and generate noise.
When setting up your headset, make sure that the microphone is adjusted so that when you breathe out or speak, the air stream doesn’t hit the microphone directly. This gets rid of the puff noises (plosives) and breathing sounds. Moving your microphone a little higher may fix that problem. Do a few test recordings and check whether it sounds good.
Submitting your recording
Your recording will be fairly large. Please upload it to a cloud storage we can access without creating an account and send us the link.