I'm Extremely Confused!

[Ms. Kira]

Hello All!

I hope everyone is safe and cool today.

I'm using OBS on my laptop, win 8 or 8.1. I just got it from a site recommendation (7 Best Free Webcam Recording Software for 2020.)
Also, please note that NCH Software has landed the top spot for "OBS Studio," in which their horrible software gets installed because the user goes to their site by mistake. If you want to spend the next 5 years cleaning out your registry, install anything from NCH and watch it hijack every possible file extension to be opened only by its own software, even if that software is "download on command," which it will do immediately without asking when you try to open your photos, itunes file, dictation, video or whatever. Not kidding.

Anyway, today I just downloaded the real OBS Studio, set it up easily to record from webcam and started recording - and it worked perfectly!
I found File > My Recordings and went to the folder and had to open it with another player. It's an .mkv file or something. (?)

QUESTIONS: (and yes I went through the wiki for quick start and overview, but must have missed what I'm looking for.)
1. How do I open my scenes into OBS and view them there to ensure they recorded or to add transition or to just play back. HOW DO I REPLAY?
2. Does OBS save in its own "project" type of file format? Can I save into something else? Are scenes saved individually and projects or entire movies saved as another file format? What is best?
3. I tried studio preview and both are just continuously recording audio and video from the webcam. The left one does not preview anything and "Scene 1" apparently is every new scene I record from here on out. How do I turn off constant recording, and be able to play back videos or preview what I've recorded, etc.? It is saving these on its own, I guess when I say "Stop Recording." HOW DO I CONTROL WHEN IT SAVES AND WHAT THE FILE NAME AND LOCATION ARE?

THANKS for this amazing software and THANK YOU ALL for any assistance. Apologies for any inconvenience and/or for making myself look foolish. I honestly looked for PLAY and found game play, display, etc. Don't see where to play the actual video I have created. I'm just using this for home use for now, but love the idea of recording gaming. I'm pretty heavy into Moon Rock Rampage. : )

~K

 

[koala]

OBS Studio is designed as a live streaming client. It is made to composite a live video stream from one or more sources like a webcam, or a game capture. This video stream is sent to a streaming provider like Twitch or Youtube, where it can be watched real time by your viewers.
As alternative to sending the video stream to a streaming provider, you can just save the data to disk as movie file.

There is no project. You define scenes, which include one or more sources. If you have a webcam, you can include one webcam source into one scene.

Once you press start streaming or start recording, the video stream from the webcam is sent to the streaming provider or to a local movie file. You can have multiple scenes, in case you need to stream or record different scenes - for example different webcams. You always record or stream the currently active scene. The other scenes are never recorded or streamed. You switch scenes by just clicking on their entry in the scene list.
For advanced use of live switching scenes, "studio mode" can be used. As beginner you most likely don't need it.

If you use the recording function, the recorded movie file can be found in the output directory defined in the settings and can be viewed by your favorite media player software. If you need to postprocess ("edit") such a video file, you use a video editor. OBS does not include any video editor, it just does recording (or streaming).

I didn't answer your questions directly, because they somehow assume OBS has some specific functionality or workflow, but OBS doesn't actually have such a functionality. It's as if you're assuming you can peel an egg by digging a hole in the ground, and now you're asking about which shovel you should use for this. Since the assumption is wrong, I don't talk about which shovel to use but how to peel the egg in the first place.

 

[Ms. Kira]

ok - the review I read was a bit misleading. I understand now why there was no reference to playing back in the overview wiki, because the software does not do that. It does say to practice your transitions and make sure everything is correct before you start to stream, so that part is misleading in itself. But if I really want to edit, I would need a video editor and OBS is not that. Got it. Thanks! This makes things so much easier for me! I still like the program and will use it.

 

[koala]

If you use OBS for recording, and it is a very good app for this, you're just recording, nothing else. OBS captures video data and writes it to disk. That's all. You're able to manipulate the recording real time by changing scenes or modifying source properties on the fly, but it's always live for the moment. The resulting video file is the recording of what you have done, and if you need to change it afterwards, you need some video editor.

The usual workflow for creating a video for offline consumption (no live streaming) is to record as much raw material with OBS as you need. In one session or in multiple sessions. Now you have a bunch of raw video material. And perhaps more material from somewhere else. Then you start your video editor software (whatever that may be, there is a large selection of video editors) and extract the important parts from your raw material and compose the real video from these parts with the video editor. This refined video can now be uploaded to Youtube or just sit around on your local machine until someone feels the urge to watch it.

 

[GigamusPax]

I have been trying to do this but i have been a bit confused by the layout. It is a bit intimidating, but I am tryinbg to record content for my channel with overlays to make it look good but I've been having trouble doing it. An suggestions i feel like i need a step by step walk through