I'm a noob...

[mixmasterc]

My 8 year old son wants to create gaming videos for YouTube, and being a 43 year old man who's never done this himself, I've no idea how, so I'm doing some research. Apologies if my post isn't in the correct place.

I've downloaded OBS on to my Windows-operated laptop, and I've had a little mess around with it. Here's where I'm going to sound like a noob with the following questions..

1-If I can record direct from my laptop screen onto OBS, why would I need a capture card? Assume it's because of quality...

2-When I've tried recording two audio tracks on OBS, the free editing software I downloaded (PowerDirector) only shows one track (I've checked the recording on VLC and there are two tracks), so can anyone recommend an editing software that does work with two audio tracks, that is free (at least for now, dont mind paying once we get going), and has good editing effects etc.?

3-Last one... I've worked out how to record my laptop screen and have my webcam in the corner at the same time; however, I see many YouTube videos where they show this format, but then transition to just the game play with their audio (but no webcam image), before returning back to the laptop/webcam screen. Is this done in the editing, or is there a way of doing this on OBS whilst you're playing/recording?

Once again, apologies if this is in the wrong place, and for asking what are probably simple questions.

Thanks for your time.

 

[koala]

1: you need a capture card, if you intend to capture an external device such as a gaming console. If you want to capture stuff appearing on your laptop, you don't need a capture card. Window capture, game capture and display capture are the sources you need for that.

2: there are many postprocessing tools, some it seems support multiple audio tracks and some not. Think about if you really need to postprocess audio this way, or if you're able to just use OBS as mixer and record everything as one single audio track in the first place. Postprocessing multiple audio tracks is some advanced task you think about later after a bit of experience, in my opinion. There are two tools provided by Windows 10 and 11, may be you give it a try before you seek some 3rd party tool. They're simply called "video editor", and the new app from Microsoft that comes preinstalled on newer Windows installations is called "Clipchamp". However, I don't know if they support multiple audio tracks.

3: OBS is a life streaming/life production application. That means it contains functions to switch between different appearances while recording or streaming. You can use different scenes for different source setups and source compositions and switch between scenes while recording or streaming. For this, people usually use hotkeys to change scenes with hotkey, or better they have two monitors to see OBS on one monitor and have the thing they record on the other monitor.
If you intend to record, then postprocess, then upload to youtube, you can do all this dynamic scene changing stuff with your postprocessing software if you like. In this case, you scene setup can be rather static, and you can add any effects in postprocessing. But streamers need to do this life, without postprocessing, in the first and only take. So how it was made what you saw depends on if it was recorded life and postprocessed, or if it was streamed.

 

[mixmasterc]

1: you need a capture card, if you intend to capture an external device such as a gaming console. If you want to capture stuff appearing on your laptop, you don't need a capture card. Window capture, game capture and display capture are the sources you need for that.

2: there are many postprocessing tools, some it seems support multiple audio tracks and some not. Think about if you really need to postprocess audio this way, or if you're able to just use OBS as mixer and record everything as one single audio track in the first place. Postprocessing multiple audio tracks is some advanced task you think about later after a bit of experience, in my opinion. There are two tools provided by Windows 10 and 11, may be you give it a try before you seek some 3rd party tool. They're simply called "video editor", and the new app from Microsoft that comes preinstalled on newer Windows installations is called "Clipchamp". However, I don't know if they support multiple audio tracks.

3: OBS is a life streaming/life production application. That means it contains functions to switch between different appearances while recording or streaming. You can use different scenes for different source setups and source compositions and switch between scenes while recording or streaming. For this, people usually use hotkeys to change scenes with hotkey, or better they have two monitors to see OBS on one monitor and have the thing they record on the other monitor.
If you intend to record, then postprocess, then upload to youtube, you can do all this dynamic scene changing stuff with your postprocessing software if you like. In this case, you scene setup can be rather static, and you can add any effects in postprocessing. But streamers need to do this life, without postprocessing, in the first and only take. So how it was made what you saw depends on if it was recorded life and postprocessed, or if it was streamed.

thanks for you help

 

[AaronD]

1-If I can record direct from my laptop screen onto OBS, why would I need a capture card? Assume it's because of quality...

What koala said.

2-When I've tried recording two audio tracks on OBS, the free editing software I downloaded (PowerDirector) only shows one track (I've checked the recording on VLC and there are two tracks), so can anyone recommend an editing software that does work with two audio tracks, that is free (at least for now, dont mind paying once we get going), and has good editing effects etc.?

At the risk of starting a "favorites war", I like Shotcut:

Shotcut - Home

Shotcut is a free, open source, cross-platform video editor for Windows, Mac and Linux

shotcut.org

It's free forever, no trial and no paid version, it's easy enough to get started with (for me at least), and it has a TON to grow into! Pretty much everything I've wanted to do, it'll do, so chances are you can look up how to do stuff with it too...as long as you use the generic term for it, instead of someone's proprietary name for the same thing. But even some proprietary names might get you on the right path, if someone somewhere has pointed out equivalent functions and included the one that you're looking for.

3-Last one... I've worked out how to record my laptop screen and have my webcam in the corner at the same time; however, I see many YouTube videos where they show this format, but then transition to just the game play with their audio (but no webcam image), before returning back to the laptop/webcam screen. Is this done in the editing, or is there a way of doing this on OBS whilst you're playing/recording?

Staying inside of OBS, there are two ways to do audio:

1. Specific to each scene, so when you change scenes, the audio comes and goes with it. Add it like any other source in that scene.
2. Global, so when you change scenes, the audio stays unchanged. Settings -> Audio.

You can have a mixture of both, and they mix together nicely. I use Global whenever possible, but sometimes a scene will have a video in it, that has its own soundtrack. That's a scene-specific audio source, without explicitly saying so.

---

When you choose a device in OBS, do *not* use Default! Default is good to prove that a fresh installation works, as it's the most likely to be connected to something that you're actively using at the immediate moment, but for anything else, it's a ticking time bomb. When it goes off, the exact same settings that used to work, suddenly don't, because "Default" is now looking at the wrong device.

OBS didn't change, "Default" just defers the choice of device to the operating system, which has its own logic to answer that question. When you plug in or unplug something, or something with audio functions goes to sleep or wakes up, that logic changes, and OBS dutifully follows suit because that's what the "Default" setting actually does.

If you choose a specific device *in OBS* for every source, it bypasses Windows' logic and goes directly to that device, always. Then it won't change on you when you least expect it, and when you *know* you didn't do anything.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

My $0.02 on getting close/good enough on first pass (and I'm someone who tends towards the perfectionistic)
The issue with post-processing, is that until you get good at it, post-processing can take a huge amount of time (not unheard to spend 10X time post-processing as capturing first take). If one gets perfectionistic, it can get a lot worse.

My recommendation, would be to start with Recording only (not Streaming). This avoid the whole complications of upstream/upload bandwidth, etc. And, you son can get some experience with Scene transitions and the like in a 'test' mode, before going 'live' and streaming. Oh, any maybe semantics, but (live-)streaming is by nature not as Produced as a Recorded (Composited) then edited, video. My son games/streams with friends.. there is no YouTube/Twitch channel, and no intent to monetize his multi-player gaming. I mention this as there are different goals for young gamers, each with its own technical implications.

 

[mixmasterc]

My $0.02 on getting close/good enough on first pass (and I'm someone who tends towards the perfectionistic)
The issue with post-processing, is that until you get good at it, post-processing can take a huge amount of time (not unheard to spend 10X time post-processing as capturing first take). If one gets perfectionistic, it can get a lot worse.

My recommendation, would be to start with Recording only (not Streaming). This avoid the whole complications of upstream/upload bandwidth, etc. And, you son can get some experience with Scene transitions and the like in a 'test' mode, before going 'live' and streaming. Oh, any maybe semantics, but (live-)streaming is by nature not as Produced as a Recorded (Composited) then edited, video. My son games/streams with friends.. there is no YouTube/Twitch channel, and no intent to monetize his multi-player gaming. I mention this as there are different goals for young gamers, each with its own technical implications.

Thanks for this. I guess at the moment it's purely getting him started, meaning I need to learn what to do so I can show him. And yes, only recording, not streaming.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Even though your use case is gaming, in case a non-gamer-oriented Getting Started guide would be helpful for you, maybe one or more of these will help - https://streamgeeks.us/ Online Resources

1. The Unofficial Guide to Open Broadcaster Software
2. The OBS Superuser Guidebook
3. The Basics of Live Streaming
4. https://streamgeeks.us/fix-audio-sync-issue-in-obs/

I suspect a the above may be described in a manner more accessible to you. Then, once you have the basics, then you can advance into the more sohpisticated transitions (eye candy)