Newbie Getting Video/Audio Working

[derek@understandeachother]

Newbie here. I have a video source, and a separate usb microphone. I want to know best practices, unsure of some settings. I got it working, but probably not in the best way. All I am testing is clicking Start Recording just to see if using my video camera source and my microphone input.

On the Audio Mixer I turned the input volume down to nothing, as I could not find a way to DISABLE audio from anywhere else.

In Settings, under Audio, I put Disabled under Desktop Audio, and I put the microphone I wanted (LINE USB AUDIO CODEC) as the Mic/Auxillary Audio. That does seem to add Mic/Aux to the Audio Mixer properly on the main screen.

This makes an MP4 file that I bring into a video editor. I am used to adding an MP4 file to a timeline and seeing the audio appear, but I literally add the mp4 to the video on the timeline, and add the same file again to the audio timeline below it. It does work but I am concerned I am not just understanding some basic settings here.

Should I expect the MP4 file to work as most of them do? I would even accept a separate audio output file, perhaps an MP3 because it's easy to place on the timeline. It is more convenient to have the MP4 file just properly organize on the timeline.

So appreciate any help with my newbie setup. Hope I explained it well... Derek

 

[koala]

On the Audio Mixer I turned the input volume down to nothing, as I could not find a way to DISABLE audio from anywhere else.

Windows audio mixer or OBS audio mixer? If Windows: you don't need to handle Windows audio devices you're not capturing in OBS. The Windows audio device Windows uses for the "Input" device is connected to the 3.5 mm Mic jack of your PC/Laptop. If you're using an USB mic, you can just remove this Mic/Aux device from OBS Settings > Audio > Global audio sources (set it to disabled, and also set any "default" devices to disabled and instead configure audio devices explicitly).

In Settings, under Audio, I put Disabled under Desktop Audio, and I put the microphone I wanted (LINE USB AUDIO CODEC) as the Mic/Auxillary Audio. That does seem to add Mic/Aux to the Audio Mixer properly on the main screen.

That's the intended way to control exactly what Windows audio devices you capture and which not.

This makes an MP4 file that I bring into a video editor. I am used to adding an MP4 file to a timeline and seeing the audio appear, but I literally add the mp4 to the video on the timeline, and add the same file again to the audio timeline below it.

How audio tracks of a video file appear in your video editor depends on your video editor. Some editors automatically add any audio tracks (and you're free to remove them, if you don't want them), some editors require you to explicitly open the video file again for each audio track you'd like to import.

If possible and supported by your postprocessing software, switch to *.mkv instead of *.mp4. Mp4 files are somewhat fragile and not robust against truncation that happens if the recording process isn't able to finalize the file by gracefully stopping the recording. In this case, the whole file is void and unusable. OBS offers fragmented mp4 as mp4 format to avoid this problem, but it may be your postprocessing software isn't properly supporting this mp4 variant. *.mkv is robust against truncation.

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

what kaola said.... and as a newbie, record to MKV, then let OBS Studio auto change the video file wrapper (without re-encoding) to a MPO4 file when Recording is over. My 4 yr old PC, with OS and Recordings on a SATA SSD, takes maybe 15 seconds to create a 11GB MP4 from MKV (which for safety reason, I have to manually delete, so be aware for a disk space perspective. I expect this re-mux would be a lot faster on a NVMe drive, but good enough for my workflow)

As for Audio - beware Windows Operating System level Audio Control Panel and settings, as well as an Audio drivers (like Realtek). Most users aren't aware of what all the Operating System thinks are Audio Inputs and Output options... I personally Disable (at OS layer) items that I know I won't be using. And I disabled (in OBS Studio > Settings > Audio) ALL global audio devices. I then added specific Audio sources in my OBS Studio Source list as needed (being aware/attentive to then using that same referenced (vs creating new source pointing to same device) in other Scenes

for getting started, StreamGeeks (PTZOptics) team has a free eBook - Getting Started/ Super Guide to OBS Studio that might help for those looking for more than the Getting Started guide on this site, and not looking for a particularly gamer-focused content