Recording Single Audio Source Over Three Video Sources

[aroissier97]

I am trying to just record three different cameras and one audio source. I am using three Canon Vixia camcorders and a standard external microphone. I am using the Source Record Plugin to record all three video sources. I have set the audio source for each camera as the external microphone. I have one scene that has all three cameras video displayed at once. Then, I have three scenes for the individual cameras themselves. The issue is that the scene that has all three cameras records the same audio source and triples it, one for each video source. When the recording is encoded this scene is not audible, there are audio glitches and inconsistencies. Is there a way to simply overlay a single audio track on each video source. The idea is that I can create one recording that toggles between all of the scenes, and source record will output the "toggled" recording and the individual video sources outputs. All of these will ideally have the exact same audio overlaid. Thanks for any help.

 

[AaronD]

You're making 4 separate and simultaneous recordings?

• 3 individual cameras from Source Record, that should each have the camera's audio
• 1 composite of those same cameras from the main output, that should only have the additional mic

And I presume you're editing them together later?

Is there a reason you can't record the individual cameras, *in the cameras*? Give them each an SD card and hit their record buttons. Then OBS only needs to do one thing - the composite recording - and because it's only one thing, it's easy.

Also, is there a reason you can't do the composite in the editor, and have the "good mic" be audio-only in Audacity or something like that? No OBS at all then.

At any rate, make sure to set the qualities high enough to use later. Poke through the menus and find that setting. Don't worry about filling the cards quickly: you'll dump them to the PC and then erase the cards to use next time. Big cards are still useful though, because it allows the wear leveler to do its job well. Big cards barely used will last forever.

Also don't worry about weird formats and weird locations on the card. My Vixia's highest quality is supposed to be for its own use only, but I found where it hides them on the card, and my editor can read them just fine. So I use that.

If you're concerned about sync problems, my editor can solve that automatically, using the soundtracks. Pick one to be an unchanged reference, and it time-aligns and tweaks the speed of all the others to line up with it. Then mute the individual cameras.

Shotcut - Home

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

shotcut.org

 

[aroissier97]

You're making 4 separate and simultaneous recordings?

• 3 individual cameras from Source Record, that should each have the camera's audio
• 1 composite of those same cameras from the main output, that should only have the additional mic

And I presume you're editing them together later?

Is there a reason you can't record the individual cameras, *in the cameras*? Give them each an SD card and hit their record buttons. Then OBS only needs to do one thing - the composite recording - and because it's only one thing, it's easy.

Also, is there a reason you can't do the composite in the editor, and have the "good mic" be audio-only in Audacity or something like that? No OBS at all then.

At any rate, make sure to set the qualities high enough to use later. Poke through the menus and find that setting. Don't worry about filling the cards quickly: you'll dump them to the PC and then erase the cards to use next time. Big cards are still useful though, because it allows the wear leveler to do its job well. Big cards barely used will last forever.

Also don't worry about weird formats and weird locations on the card. My Vixia's highest quality is supposed to be for its own use only, but I found where it hides them on the card, and my editor can read them just fine. So I use that.

If you're concerned about sync problems, my editor can solve that automatically, using the soundtracks. Pick one to be an unchanged reference, and it time-aligns and tweaks the speed of all the others to line up with it. Then mute the individual cameras.

Shotcut - Home

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

shotcut.org

Thank you for such a detailed response. This is all really helpful advice. I got a little tunnel visioned on having OBS spit out a finished product without any editing but it looks like some editing is inevitable. Once again, thanks for your help.

 

[AaronD]

I got a little tunnel visioned on having OBS spit out a finished product without any editing...

I think that's more of an advanced thing, once you've figured out how you like to edit. Do that process until it's old hat and you understand all of what you're doing in detail, and *then* see if you can make OBS do that live. Still just one output though; you're throwing away the shots you don't use live in the moment, and you can't get them back.

Also, record everything dead raw, warts and all, and do all of your processing in post. That way, you're not stuck with some processing that turned out not to work so well. Once you've settled down and you're applying the exact same processing every time with no changes, you can start recording after it to same some work, but not until then.