Ensuring Legal Compliance in Skype Recordings via OBS
Video interviews for remote jobs are quite common these days because of this quickening pace of the world around us. And these interviews are recorded to further evaluate the information exchanged, so for the recording of these videos certain tools have also been introduced in the market. I myself have used a few of them; and the most popular these days are easily zoom and skype. Both these programs offer clear communication among all concerned parties. The reason why I want to discuss skype here is that zoom’s video quality is an issue, it has got very low video quality and the audio, it records in one track so if you have made a mistake in the speaking or something audible, it will remain there.
So in this article I will discuss that how can you record your skype videos using OBS. Skype has been extensively used for quite a long time now and it hasn’t lost its edge over the years but has actually upgraded and improved its services with time. Coming to OBS which is an open-source software used widely for streaming purposes. It provides an incredible experience courtesy of its variety of editing and recording options. The audio can be recorded from the system and the microphone. And video can be fetched from the webcam. Along with the recording of specific section of the screen.
Part 1: Recording Skype Calls with OBS
To begin with shedding some light on the OBS program:
A little piece of software that can be used for both business and non-commercial purposes. Streaming on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook is supported. It has the ability to record the screen with cursor effects. It allows you to record your screen indefinitely. Watermarks aren’t added: the video doesn’t have any watermarks. There are options for multichannel, Multilanguage, and single channel.
Now to setup the environment for screen recording we have to follow the following steps.
Initially, you’ll be required to have skype installed on your desktop along with the up-to-date version of OBS software. After installing skype you first have to make a secondary/backup account on skype. After that you require a secondary camera as well to record yourself because your webcam can be in demand elsewhere, so you would not be able to record yourself or even the guests wouldn’t be able to see you. And then turn on the given command in skype i-e: skype>settings>calling>advanced>’allow NDI usage’ as shown in the picture. This command allows OBS to access skype videos.
After this you have to open the OBS program and set it up for skype calls, firs thing is to create a new scene, then you’re going to hit the plus button and select the capture device. Now you can see yourself on camera and screen can easily be cropped, while holding ‘Alt’, on OBS so fix it according to your liking. Then press ‘lock’ using the NDI plug-in.
To setup NDI plugin you have to visit https://github.com/Palakis/obs-ndi/releases/tag/4.9.1 and check for the compatible version with your operating system. On this website the plugin is available for windows, mac and Linux.
And after addition of plug in you would want to click on ‘+’ again and select NDI plugin and you can select the source video which is going to be the received video.
And clicking on it will open a new window where you have to select the guest feed, which will be possible once the call has begun. The call connected will appear on the NDI plugin window.
As you receive the call from the reciever you will see the incoming feed of him as shown in the figure.
So you can just resize it similarly as you did yours earlier and pressing the lock icon will stop you from mistakenly modify or change the video screen settings. Now to record the video you have to click on record button and your desktop starts recording.
Part 2: OBS Alternative to Record Skype
Title: [New] Ensuring Legal Compliance in Skype Recordings via OBS for 2024