OBS not recording in stereo from my USB capture card

[PacificaBren]

Hi,

I'm new here, and new to using OBS. I Installed it because I like to digitize Laserdiscs, so their content can be preserved and enjoyed on the Web.

I'm using a late 2013 iMac, running MacOS Mojave. My USB capture card is a Diamond VC500SE.

I'm using OBS Studio version 27.2.4. I had been trying to install the latest version, but the disk images from OBS's site kept appearing to be corrupted and unable to be mounted. Not sure what that's about, but somebody was kind enough to send me an old installer package, so that's why I'm on this version in particular.

I found it puzzling that I couldn't hear my Laserdisc audio while using OBS to capture a disc, so somebody recommended I follow the instructions in this thread:

Mac Desktop Audio Using Blackhole

I installed Blackhole and did everything described in that thread, but, unfortunately, the Laserdisc transfers I tried recording are not in stereo. The resulting video file does have a left and right audio track, but they are identical.

There are some slight difference between my settings vs. the settings prescribed in the above thread. First of all, OBS can't detect audio from my USB capture card unless I have USB 2.0 DEVICE selected for the Mic/Auxiliary Audio menu in the OBS preferences screen:

The thread I linked to says to have Blackhole 16CH selected in the Desktop Audio menu on the preferences screen, but OBS can't hear the Laserdisc playing through the USB capture card if I select Blackhole 16CH in that menu or in teh Mic/Auxiliary Audio menu.

For my Mac's Sound preferences, I do have the Multi Output Device selected. Interestingly, unlike the screen shot in the Blackhole thread, on my screen, Blackhole 16CH also shows up as an option that can be selected:

For this to work, it seems I also need to have my USB capture card selected in the "Input" screen for my Sound preferences:

With this setup, I still can't hear a Laserdisc while it's being recorded, but that's of much less concern to me than the fact that the resulting video file has mono sound, despite the fact that I'm digitizing stereo Laserdiscs.

When I look at the OBS screen while I'm recording, I see just one track in the Audio/Mixer box, and that is the Mic/Auxiliary Audio I had selected on the Audio Preferences screen:

Do I need to go into the Preferences screen and also select USB 2.0 DEVICE for Mic/Auxiliary Audio 2, so that I see two audio channels in that Audio Mixer box? I'm not sure if that would make sense, because how would I know whether one of those channels is receiving left stereo from my capture device and the other is receiving right stereo? Or does that happen automatically?

Thank you in advance for whatever guidance you can provide!

 

[AaronD]

I like to digitize Laserdiscs, so their content can be preserved and enjoyed on the Web.

That's a legal sticky trap. The format might be obsolete and very few people have a player at all, let alone a working one, but if the content itself is still in copyright, then it's illegal to publish without the owner's written and express permission.

Note: The copyright owner is very likely *not* the person that you got the disc from. Their permission means nothing here. You're probably looking at a studio or a distribution label that owns hundreds if not thousands of titles and has their own full-time legal department.

 

[XLCOLDJ]

Hi,

I'm new here, and new to using OBS. I Installed it because I like to digitize Laserdiscs, so their content can be preserved and enjoyed on the Web.

I'm using a late 2013 iMac, running MacOS Mojave. My USB capture card is a Diamond VC500SE.

I'm using OBS Studio version 27.2.4. I had been trying to install the latest version, but the disk images from OBS's site kept appearing to be corrupted and unable to be mounted. Not sure what that's about, but somebody was kind enough to send me an old installer package, so that's why I'm on this version in particular.

I found it puzzling that I couldn't hear my Laserdisc audio while using OBS to capture a disc, so somebody recommended I follow the instructions in this thread:

Mac Desktop Audio Using Blackhole

I installed Blackhole and did everything described in that thread, but, unfortunately, the Laserdisc transfers I tried recording are not in stereo. The resulting video file does have a left and right audio track, but they are identical.

There are some slight difference between my settings vs. the settings prescribed in the above thread. First of all, OBS can't detect audio from my USB capture card unless I have USB 2.0 DEVICE selected for the Mic/Auxiliary Audio menu in the OBS preferences screen:

View attachment 96138

The thread I linked to says to have Blackhole 16CH selected in the Desktop Audio menu on the preferences screen, but OBS can't hear the Laserdisc playing through the USB capture card if I select Blackhole 16CH in that menu or in teh Mic/Auxiliary Audio menu.

For my Mac's Sound preferences, I do have the Multi Output Device selected. Interestingly, unlike the screen shot in the Blackhole thread, on my screen, Blackhole 16CH also shows up as an option that can be selected:

View attachment 96140

For this to work, it seems I also need to have my USB capture card selected in the "Input" screen for my Sound preferences:

View attachment 96143

With this setup, I still can't hear a Laserdisc while it's being recorded, but that's of much less concern to me than the fact that the resulting video file has mono sound, despite the fact that I'm digitizing stereo Laserdiscs.

When I look at the OBS screen while I'm recording, I see just one track in the Audio/Mixer box, and that is the Mic/Auxiliary Audio I had selected on the Audio Preferences screen:

View attachment 96144

Do I need to go into the Preferences screen and also select USB 2.0 DEVICE for Mic/Auxiliary Audio 2, so that I see two audio channels in that Audio Mixer box? I'm not sure if that would make sense, because how would I know whether one of those channels is receiving left stereo from my capture device and the other is receiving right stereo? Or does that happen automatically?

Thank you in advance for whatever guidance you can provide!

In the Mac audio settings screenshots for the USB capture device, it looks like it has just one mono channel. It also shows up as a mono device in the OBS Audio Mixer. You should probably try to confirm that it actually captures stereo. It looks like you might need a physical audio device to handle the input in stereo.

The reason you can't hear the sound while recording could be that you don't have 'Monitor' selected in the Advanced audio properties (right click on the audio-mixer pane).

 

[PacificaBren]

In the Mac audio settings screenshots for the USB capture device, it looks like it has just one mono channel. It also shows up as a mono device in the OBS Audio Mixer. You should probably try to confirm that it actually captures stereo. It looks like you might need a physical audio device to handle the input in stereo.

The reason you can't hear the sound while recording could be that you don't have 'Monitor' selected in the Advanced audio properties (right click on the audio-mixer pane).

Thank you for your input! I think it would be really weird if this USB capture card didn't have stereo, though. It does have separate left and right audio jacks for connecting to VHS, DVD, and Laserdisc players, and it would be weird if the thing wasn't sending a stereo signal to the computer.

 

[PacificaBren]

That's a legal sticky trap. The format might be obsolete and very few people have a player at all, let alone a working one, but if the content itself is still in copyright, then it's illegal to publish without the owner's written and express permission.

Note: The copyright owner is very likely *not* the person that you got the disc from. Their permission means nothing here. You're probably looking at a studio or a distribution label that owns hundreds if not thousands of titles and has their own full-time legal department.

I appreciate your concern, but this is not an issue for me. The place where I'm sharing these recordings is a private, closed community of hobbyists, so it would be very hard for copyright trolls to become aware of my uploads and/or generate a warning letter from my ISP or a demand for recompense from me.

I do hope some of my recordings make it out of that community and are disseminated in the world, because in many cases, the things I'm digitizing are out of print, and can almost be considered lost media.

(I'm not implying out of print is the same as out of copyright, of course. I'm just saying society and our culture derive some benefit from the preservation of rare and obscure media materials.)

 

[PacificaBren]

I'm losing my mind. What am I doing wrong in OBS that is causing it to create mono recordings from a stereo source?

HELP!

 

[Harold]

The way the audio device is showing in the mixer above shows it as a mono device, not a stereo.

 

[PacificaBren]

The way the audio device is showing in the mixer above shows it as a mono device, not a stereo.

I think my USB capture device might be defective! I just realized it physically has a blue light for each audio channel, but only the left one lights up when I plug it in!

I just initiated a return and replacement with Amazon. The replacement will arrive July 28. I hope this works!

 

[PacificaBren]

I was just looking at my OBS settings and I noticed under "Output," there's a selection for "Output Mode: Advanced."

Is this my problem? Under Output Mode/Advanced/Recording, should I have more than one audio track selected? Is that why I'm not generating stereo recordings?

 

[Harold]

No, that is unrelated.
Stereo vs mono is audio CHANNELS, not tracks.

 

[AaronD]

I was just looking at my OBS settings and I noticed under "Output," there's a selection for "Output Mode: Advanced."

Is this my problem? Under Output Mode/Advanced/Recording, should I have more than one audio track selected? Is that why I'm not generating stereo recordings?

View attachment 96327

No, that is unrelated.
Stereo vs mono is audio CHANNELS, not tracks.

Further expanding on that, the tracks are used for alternative audio, like different languages, descriptions for the visually-impaired, things like that. Some of us use them to keep our sources separate to post-produce later.

In normal playback, you only ever hear one track at a time - they don't mix - and each track contains N channels, where N is what OBS is set for in the global audio settings: mono, stereo, 5.1, etc.

The default to play is Track 1, so to make it "just work", you put *everything* there, and then use the others for whatever other purpose you might have.

 

[PacificaBren]

Friends, I wanted to pop back in here and share my findings.

Diamond Multimedia, the manufacturer of the Diamond VC500SE USB capture card, has an amazing tech support office, and they went above and beyond trying to help me solve my problem.

What we ultimately realized, however, is that the VC500SE does not provide a stereo signal to the computer. It has left and right audio jacks, so if you're digitizing a VHS or Laserdisc, both the left and right audio channels are going into the device, but the rip you make OBS or any other capture software is going to have identical left and right audio channels.

 

[PacificaBren]

My ultimate solution was to use my old Elgato USB video capture card while booted up from my Mac's Windows partition, using the Windows version of OBS.

Why? Because, first of all, the Elgato Video Capture device does send stereo sound to whatever computer it's hooked up to.

Why Windows? Because the MacOS version of OBS can't "see" the Elgato device, since Elgato doesn't make a MacOS driver that's distinct from the Elgato Video Capture app for MacOS.

BUT for Windows, the Elgato driver is separate from the Elgato Video Capture app. So therefore installing the Windows driver enables OBS to "see" the Elgato device and capture a stereo signal from it.

Thank you all for your help and input. I hope my findings help somebody else who might be wrestling with this!

 

[AaronD]

Wow! That sounds like a mess! But it does all make sense...unfortunately.

I've standardized on Linux now, and I suspect that it would have just plugged in there and worked...except for the stereo/mono problem; that's a hardware thing with each capture device. No explicit drivers, because Linux already has a driver for each chip (not brand) built-in.

 

[Harold]

Glad I got you pointed in the right direction for what was going on.

The way the OBS mixer behaves, each channel of audio shows up as a separate little bar under the main bar, so a stereo audio source will have 2, a 7.1 audio source will have 8 and a mono source will have 1.

 

[ronniemehlis]

I had several attempts to save my Virgin/Skybox-recordings via HDMI-splitter and USB capture device first to one of my pcs now to my laptop (win11) but even thow the sound says it is stereo the sound is mono but on both channells according to the sound level. When I go into advance audisettings all 4 sources are active, but Desktop-Audio and 2 plus the videorecording device have the balance in the middle, but I am not sure what it means, the only the left side is blue, the right side is grey. Should they both be blue? The Mono field is unticked. Accoring to a forum I have been reading some years ago, the splitter actually gets rid of any copyprotection. And I remember that some years ago at some point I had stereo sound on a different pc but that got lost at some point and any attempts to bring it back, failed. The sound on my tv is stereo though. So I wonder if it is the capture-card. Any idea anybody? The brand is "Guermok"

Video Capture Card, USB3.0 HDMI to USB C Audio Capture Card, 4K 1080P 60FPS Capture with Type-C Adapter Devices for Gaming Live Streaming Video Recorder, Compatible with Windows Mac OS System OBS Zoom​

 

[PacificaBren]

I had several attempts to save my Virgin/Skybox-recordings via HDMI-splitter and USB capture device first to one of my pcs now to my laptop (win11) but even thow the sound says it is stereo the sound is mono but on both channells according to the sound level. When I go into advance audisettings all 4 sources are active, but Desktop-Audio and 2 plus the videorecording device have the balance in the middle, but I am not sure what it means, the only the left side is blue, the right side is grey. Should they both be blue? The Mono field is unticked. Accoring to a forum I have been reading some years ago, the splitter actually gets rid of any copyprotection. And I remember that some years ago at some point I had stereo sound on a different pc but that got lost at some point and any attempts to bring it back, failed. The sound on my tv is stereo though. So I wonder if it is the capture-card. Any idea anybody? The brand is "Guermok"

Video Capture Card, USB3.0 HDMI to USB C Audio Capture Card, 4K 1080P 60FPS Capture with Type-C Adapter Devices for Gaming Live Streaming Video Recorder, Compatible with Windows Mac OS System OBS Zoom​

Ronnie, I think your question is being ignored because it's buried here in this thread, and this thread is kinda old, and folks who've already looked at it might not be revisiting it just because it was bumped by a new reply.

I suggest starting a new thread and re-asking your question.

For best results, be sure to include an OBS log file from your most recent attempt to capture.

If you don't know how to do that, go into your OBS menu, select "Help", then select "log files", then select "upload current log file" and/or "upload previous log file". This will generate a link, which you can include in your post.

If you get an error message saying the server won't respond, select "show log files" and you'll be able to copy and paste the entire log into your post.

Regarding whether you're capturing in stereo, if you look at the attached pic, the part I've circled in red is what tells you whether you're receiving a stereo signal. If you are, those two horizontal sound meters under the words "Video Capture Device" will not be bouncing in perfect unison. You will be able to visually see some difference between the two audio channels as your recording plays.

One other thing: Can you plug some other source device into your USB capture card to see if it's capturing stereo from that device? Like maybe a Sony PS4, X-Box, or other game console?

 

[pjbauer52]

I'm just chiming in here to let anyone (like me) who landed in this thread by doing a search for "Guermok" that the reason PacificaBren was having trouble capturing stereo sound from the Guermok USB 3.0 HDMI to USB C Video/Audio Capture Card (from Amazon?) is that this device is only capable of capturing ONE (mono) channel audio. It's a pitty that this isn't mentioned in the product description at Amazon - or even in the pdf doc. (Though you do see in the OBS screen shots that the Mixer shows just 1 channel for Audio Input Capture.)

I'd recommend that anyone purchasing a usb dongle for capturing video/audio do a little research before purchasing to make sure it is capable of at least getting stereo sound. I too got burned and am returning the device to Amazon. That is one of the biggest reasons I use Amazon when shoppping for products like this; you will have a much easier time returning the item for a refund than if you have to deal with most any other distributor. Try doing a search for 'audio' in the 1 or 2 star reviews and you will probably see many complaining about the fact that the device does not capture stereo audio.

Once you phsyically have the usb capture device, the easiest way to verify its sound capabilities is to look at the sound properties in Windows. Click the 'Recording' tab and select the 'Digital Audio Interface - USB Digital Audio' item and click 'Properties'. In the Advanced tab of the Properties you will see a selector for 'Default Format'. As you can see from the attached screen snip, the only available options for the Guermok dongle are '1 Channel'.

This invokes the old saying, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

 

[PacificaBren]

I'm just chiming in here to let anyone (like me) who landed in this thread by doing a search for "Guermok" that the reason PacificaBren was having trouble capturing stereo sound from the Guermok USB 3.0 HDMI to USB C Video/Audio Capture Card (from Amazon?) is that this device is only capable of capturing ONE (mono) channel audio. It's a pitty that this isn't mentioned in the product description at Amazon - or even in the pdf doc. (Though you do see in the OBS screen shots that the Mixer shows just 1 channel for Audio Input Capture.)

I'd recommend that anyone purchasing a usb dongle for capturing video/audio do a little research before purchasing to make sure it is capable of at least getting stereo sound. I too got burned and am returning the device to Amazon. That is one of the biggest reasons I use Amazon when shoppping for products like this; you will have a much easier time returning the item for a refund than if you have to deal with most any other distributor. Try doing a search for 'audio' in the 1 or 2 star reviews and you will probably see many complaining about the fact that the device does not capture stereo audio.

Once you phsyically have the usb capture device, the easiest way to verify its sound capabilities is to look at the sound properties in Windows. Click the 'Recording' tab and select the 'Digital Audio Interface - USB Digital Audio' item and click 'Properties'. In the Advanced tab of the Properties you will see a selector for 'Default Format'. As you can see from the attached screen snip, the only available options for the Guermok dongle are '1 Channel'.

This invokes the old saying, "It's not a bug, it's a feature."

View attachment 98179

Thank you, I agree!

Just to be clear, it was Ronnie above who was having problems with that Guermok device; I was having the same trouble with a Diamond Multimedia VC500SE.

My fix, ultimately, was to revert to using my old Elgato USB Video Capture card:

Amazon.com

This device is apparently not universally popular with hardcore archivists who want the absolute best picture quality, but I've done several Laserdisc and VHS captures with it, and it's always yielded results I found pleasing. And it's a true stereo device.

One caveat about the Elgato device:

I could not get OBS Studio for MacOS to recognize the presence of the Elgato hardware. So if you're using this thing with a Mac, you'll need to use Elgato's included video capture software, which is very consumer-grade. It does a perfectly fine job of capturing analog video sources, but offers almost no ability to fine-tune any settings.

On the Windows side of things, however, OBS Studio has no problem receiving audio and video signals from the above device. So that was my fix for using Elgato's hardware to perform high-quality, near-lossless captures.