Multi-Profile setup

[wdmartin]

Hi. I work at a moderately large university library. We have a small recording studio equipped with a good ceiling-mounted camera, a rode boom mic, some flood and backfill lights and a green screen. We use OBS for recording. It works nicely. Thanks for the quality software!

The problem is: every student who logs into the PC has to configure OBS to define which camera to use. That's not hard, of course. But it's an extra step that has to be done over and over and over for every new user.

Is there some way we can set up a default profile or something so that new users can just start OBS and have it ready to record from the camera?

 

[Banyarola]

I don't know if this is what you need but check it out...
On the top menu is the PROFILE option... You can use that to setup as many profiles as you like...

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Yes, though... not in OBS that I'm aware of (per discussions on OS User Profile and OBS in prior year or two)
The typical answer that I recall involves being aware of OBS stores its settings (in this case, OBS overall settings for Default A/V devices, etc, [Profile mentioned above] and then Scene Collection). IF you aren't familiar with Windows OS User Profiles, where Default User profile files are stored, etc, then you may need to work with your desktop support/engineering team

For ex. I don't use OBS's Global audio devices/settings. I add them via Scenes [saved in Scene Collection]

My question would be, for a student that comes in and defines Scenes, transition effects, etc. - do you have them save that for future use, and if so, how? and maybe expand that process to include OBS Profile settings as alluded to above. If this isn't being done, then the question is are you using Roaming Profiles, or is computer effectively wiped after each use, and User Profile not pulled via settings in Active Directory? If PC is 'clean' on each use [ex. no desktop wallpaper, icons, etc saved between sessions], then I'm assuming saving OBS config file(s) off to student's USB or NAS/Cloud storage would be the more practical approach?
see https://obsproject.com/wiki/Profiles-And-Scene-Collections for details, and how to Export (and later re-Import) those settings

 

[Banyarola]

It's too complicated for me...
I think you should just experiment and see what happens...
You can also run separate instances of OBS and setup each instance the way you want.

 

[khaver]

Use portable mode. Each user can have their own OBS portable mode folder. If they are logging into their own user accounts on the computer, they can have their own portable mode folder and shortcut right on their desktop.

In portable mode, OBS itself and all the plugins and configuration files are kept within a folder and it's subfolders. You could even put OBS in portable mode on a thumb drive for each user.

 

[Banyarola]

Makes sense..

 

[wdmartin]

Here are some more details.

A typical use-case is a student has been assigned to do a persuasive speech. They come in, record themselves giving the speech, and then play it back so they can check for "umms" and "ahs" and am I speaking too loudly/softly, and so on. Once they're done with the speech, they're done with the recording studio and never return. There are other types of recordings as well, but that one's the most common.

We're using Active Directory. When a student logs onto the computer for the first time, a new Windows profile is created in the usual place (e.g. C:\Users\user.name). I count 63 unique Windows user profiles on the machine at the moment, created over the course of this past spring term.

The first time a new user runs OBS, they get prompted to choose Streaming/Recording. Then they have to click + in the Sources and select "Video Capture Device" so that OBS will know to record from the camera. Oh, and if OBS is out of date it'll prompt to update, which they can't do because they lack administrative permissions.

Portable mode sounds promising. I'll experiment with that.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

relatively easy (I'd think) to create a default OBS profile with camera as a source, put that in Default Users profile [and maybe even OBS Scene Collection] to be copied into User profile when they log in [would require Admin priv's to setup, copy to right folder, etc]

Portable mode would have entire OBS executable application inside User Profile. YOur desktop support team and/or security may not be okay with that [I wouldn't be, in general]. Simple determining of settings, and having that put into Default User Profile is usually easy

 

[khaver]

One option might be to create a portable mode OBS installation in the C:\Users\Public\Destop folder with the scene and camera source already configured. Also, OBS would have the video recording, with a predetermined file name, created on the Public\Desktop folder. The user would just double click the video recording on the desktop to watch it. You could then create a logoff script that deletes the video file when the user logs off.

 

[FerretBomb]

You would want to speak to your AD administrator to alter the default user profile to include a pre-set %APPDATA%\obs-studio directory/subdirectories and the files within. This should be EXTREMELY simple, and avoid the massive duplication of having a portable-mode install for each user

 

[wdmartin]

Success!

In the end it was very simple. I have admin rights on the machine, so I copied the obs-studio folder from my own Windows profile over to C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming. Then I grabbed someone who had never signed in before, and when she got to the point of starting OBS it started right up with the correct configuration.

Even better, just as we were testing this we had some upper administration types come by on a tour and were able to demonstrate for them. The timing was perfect.

Thanks to everyone for the assistance!