I don't think this topic has been fully discussed here in the forum in the past. Thought it may be nice to see what others think of this. Any thoughts on the concept or the product?

Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming

Ever wanted to make a screen capture video to illustrate a workflow and place it in the BIAB forum? This is the secret the pro's use. Did I mention it was FREE.

OBS Studio
Latest Release27.0.1 - June 11th
WindowsSupports Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 macOS 10.13+ Linux

OBS Studio

Points to consider:

1) While a picture is worth 1 1000 words, a video is worth a 1000 pictures. So when you really want to make your point clear, nothing better than you presenting it in a video.
2) OBS Studio has a bit of a learning curve, there are lots of demo videos on YouTube to help with that.
2) You still have to "host" the video you make on the web, in order to upload it into the BAIB forum. This is where a free YouTube account comes in handy.
3) The free YouTube account does permit you to upload private videos which can be viewed only by those you provide a link to.
4) You do not need a video camera (webcam), but it can be used if you have one. You will need an input microphone. TIP: Get a Webcam.
5) Here is a recent example from the forum.
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=668885#Post668853

I tried OBD a while back, but found Flashback Express (which is also free) worked better for me. Easier workflow.

Good to know. I had not seen Flashback Express. I have tried several free products and always found limitations. Specifically in recording of both incoming and outgoing audio. Even OBS struggles with all my audio drivers, but is doable! I just downloaded Flashback and will do some "playing around" to see how it handles that for me.

Thanks.

Here is a Youtube guy who covers all these screen recording software. This provided very detailed reviews of all the packages.
Spreadsheet list all Screen Recording Reviews by Priest

Perhaps not as much interest in this topic as I thought. But, as Marty predicted, "... I am sure your kids will love it!"

Just to close loose ends. Flashback Express is nice. Fully agree with Misha, more simple in workflow than OBS. And Flashback Pro ($45) integrates post editing features not present in OBS. However, I have already climbed the OBS learning curve and OBS, as best I can figure, provides audio capabilities beyond Flashback. For example, with the OBS audio mixer, shown below, you can add up to 6 audio input tracks at any one time.

No worries Dan. I think a lot of people are set in their ways on which tools they like to use in this regard. It is interesting information however.... Thanks!

I don't know that it's lack of interest as much as the topic being played out. There are a LOT of videos here and on The Tube about HOW to use BIAB. It comes down to the metaphor that seeing more videos about how a car works isn't going to make you a better driver. If you have no talent, more videos watching BIAB make backing tracks is going to help you. So many of these videos get off into the deep water of "and then you load this as a VST and inside that you load your actual sound VSTs into that" when there are a lot of people here who don't play an instrument and have no concept of keys and time but make songs out of the example tracks in the software. The people at the level of Pipeline and several others do a great job with it. Also OBS is really simple and with just minimal computer skills you can record your screen. It's as simple as clicking the button that says "record". So sure there is interest but the point of the thread has been played out. And people like me are not advanced enough that I am going to teach anybody how to do anything in the software.

My only wish is that some newer guard people would post Real Band demos. BIAB is so old school that I won't even use it and in fact have never booted it up. I prefer a more DAW-like screen. Thus I rarely watch any of the videos. I am also hard headed so if any video requires me downloading 17 pieces of software I will pass. I don't want my email in 17 more places that result in junk mail.

I just use Zoom to make my screen recordings. There is also Loom where the videos can be recorded, hosted and shared directly from the site.
Here is an example

OBS is great - I use it for recording videos here at PG Music, as do some of my colleagues.

I did find that it does not work so well in Windows 11 while I was recording the demo video - quite a few times OBS stopped all audio from working, and there were a couple times where the screen recording froze but the audio kept recording, so I often had to repeat what I just did. Screen recording can be a tricky thing though, as it usually has to try and hook data from the graphics driver, which in Win 11 might operate differently than Win 10. Indeed I had a fair bit of difficulty with some things in this very early release of Windows 11, although Band-in-a-Box and RealBand both worked great.

Rambling aside, OBS is great software which I'm sure will work great with Windows 11 once the OS is out of beta.

I'm looking for the best streaming software and most people recommend OBS to me... I will try it later this year.

@Simon
You are brave... trying out W11 is not something I will do before I am absolutely sure that all my applications will run on it.

Will

OBS can be easy or difficult depending on what you man by streaming. When I stream on that computer running OBS I have a green screen, 3 dozen scenes, a voice changer, a USB mixer... getting all those pieces to work can be taxing. But just to do a vanilla stream, no problem.