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Recording with OBS

This page will run you through the steps to set up your OBS environment and capture high quality videos.

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. It’s very simple to use, presets can be saved for multiple capturing setups etc.

Download – https://obsproject.com/

Manual https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/wiki/OBS-Studio-Overview

Setting Everything Up

There is an Auto-Configuration setup wizard popping up after installation. You can close it right away as we are going to set up everything manually anyway.

Scenes, Sources and Audio

In the bottom left corner there are two boxes, Scenes and SourcesScenes are basically your presets. You can have completely different setup based on what you’re recording. Step by step tutorial with just a screen or review session with screen, webcam capture etc. Sources are as name suggest sources of you data, that could be screen, webcam, microphone, media, text etc.

To make basic tutorial recording setup do as follows:

  1. In the Scenes box, click + and name your new scene (e.g. Screen Capture)
  2. In the Sources box click + and choose Display Capture and name your screen if you have more than one
  3. In a window which pops up choose the display to capture and hit OK.

Your microphone should be automatically visible in an Audio Mixer as well as your Desktop Audio. (if not you can add your mic as an Audio Input Capture in Sources and choose it from drop down menu in a pop up window).

To simply setup your audio do this:

  1. Mute your Desktop Audio by clicking speaker icon. (if you want to do it)
  2. Try to speak to your microphone in similar way you’ll be recording and watch the Mic/Aux if it’s peaking to red zone too much adjust the Volume Slider.
  3. Click the gear icon in Mic/Aux area and select Filters
  4. In a popup window click + and add Noise Suppression filter. Keep the settings as they are and close the window.

 

That’s it for a basic setup. Now let’s dive into Settings.

Settings

Click the Settings button in the bottom right corner and follow. (Settings are global, they are not saved per Scene.)

Output

  1. Set Output Mode to Advanced.
  2. In Recording Tab change path to your desired location.
  3. Set Recording format to mp4 (Win) or mov (MacOS).
  4. Switch Encoder based on your GPU
    1. NVIDIA NVENC H.264 (guide)
      1. As a Rate Control choose CQP.
      2. Set CQ Level to 15, Preset to Max Quality and Look-ahead turned on.
    2. X264
      1. Change Bitrate to 10000 Kbps.

Video

  1. Base (Canvas) Resolution should correspond with your display resolution.
  2. Set Output (Scaled) Resolution to 1920×1080.
  3. Change Downscale Filter to Lanczos.
  4. Set Common FPS Value to 30.

Advanced

Here you can change your filename formatting (hover over to see all available variables).

If your colours are a bit off in a recorded video try to change Color Range to Full (experienced that on MacOS).

Finally Recording

Once everything is set up you can record.

  • Press Start Recording in bottom right corner of OBS UI.
  • Right-click OBS icon in your System Tray and choose Start Recording.
  • Set a hotkey for Start/Stop Recording in Settings – Hotkeys

Stop Recording will appear in all those places once you start recording.

Your recorded video will then appear in a folder set in Settings – Output – Recording – Recording Path.

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