Tag: Labs / Experiments

I am looking for a simple audio / video recording solution that can help me to record computer screens with audio.

I am planning to use OBD software. It’s free and open source. Here is a good tutorial on this tool.

download from here; It’s free.

https://obsproject.com

Set base resolution = 30fps, video will be crisp. I am leaving it to default.

OBS file extension is mkv. We need to remux to get MP4. The reason mkv is default, a lecture of 2 hours terminates after 1 hour then we would have the video up-to the point of failure. If we set default to MP4 then risk of loosing 2 hour lecture is very high. Leaving it to default. You will be Happy doing remux as a second step.

OBS start and stop buttons are visible. We can edit it in editing software or we can use shortcuts to start and stop the video. We can add Hot keys if we want. The path is Settings -> Hot Keys. Add your favorite keys here; Press

ALT + F2 = Start/Stop

ALT + F3 = Pause/Resume

#-1. To resize video of me, click on Video Capture device, press ALT key and resize. This will crop the image.

#-2. To record a specific area of screen, Click on Display Capture, Press ALT and zoom in to screen area. This will record that screen area.

#-3.   I can add a logo by dragging and dropping inside recording screen. I can make it smaller or larger.

#-4. To add a border around my face, add color source that match up with my logo. Add a color source.

#-5. To hide source from video, simply click (toggle) on the eye and my video or color source will go away.

#-6. To lock items, simply click on lock and now all of my sources are locked.

#-7. To have a cleaner interface, click on video, logo and color and make a group. Press shift, select sources and select “Group selected items”. Name them “Logo and Video”. This helps organizing my resources a little bit better.

#-8. This is trick. I am explaining and doesn’t want my face to show up. Click on Scene on the top. This will just show the desktop. When I am done with full desktop and wanted to bring back my face on the desktop, I can click on my focused scene “Proxmox performance – IPERF3”.

#-9. When I switch screen from scene to scene, it makes a hard cut. What if I want to add a transition? Click on Scene transitions and pick “Swipe”.

#-10. I don’t want OBS to shift my scene. Create following hot keys. Alt + F5.

#-11. I can add audio filters for example “Noise suppression”. This can help to suppress the noise of dog or lawn mower outside.

#-12. I can transform my resource. Click on the group and you can see transformation there.

#-13. We can re-arrange UI. To reset UI, click on View and Reset UI.

#-14. We can create profiles. Profile will store video specific scenes, for example “YouTube profile” etc.

#-15. Studio mode help us to preview without recording. The left side is live recording and right side is preview. We can make changes to the right side and when done click to swipe it to live view.

Now comes Video editing part;

There is another open source audio / video editing software, DaVinci Resolve. Here is the URL

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

This can be installed using admin account but wouldn’t be visible to user’s other than Admin. To make it visible to say Shahzad user account, copy admin profile to a user-defined folder e.g c:\video\blackmagic folder. Open folder and run it from there. took me some time to figure out this work around.

This one talks about cut page

pexals.com has free videos and audios that I can use in my videos.

Dafonts.com can be used to download fonts.

Here is  a 2 start. This one talks about adding text.

This one has more views;

Here is how to add audio on existing recording

https://www.makeuseof.com/davinci-resolve-how-to-record-voiceover-audio

The best thing is to use your iPhone for voice recording. Laptop voice sucks. In my simple case, I don’t need to buy any voice recorder.

Are you looking to build a smart home. Should you go with KASA Blubs or Hue? Read below;

I’d still go Hue if I had to choose one or the other.

Not only is router congestion a possible issue but coverage is usually a much bigger issue. Most people have terrible Wi-Fi coverage. The Wi-Fi chip in the bulbs usually is fairly low power so while it may be able to hear the command signal, it may not be able to send the return signal acknowledging. This can lead to some frustrating troubleshooting when the Wi-Fi checked using a phone with a much stronger Wi-Fi chip. Zigbee on the other hand, is a mesh network that can make strong coverage easier to manage because each bulb is a repeater.

Hue also has an advantage on integrations. There are more Hue integrations in other ecosystems than Kasa by a wide margin. This is great if you’re not using something like r/homeassistant or Alexa as a hub.

Hue has brighter bulbs. Hue’s new ones go up to 1600 lumens where Kasa is still at 800 lumens last time I looked. Yes, the difference is noticeable even with multiple 800 ln lamps vs 1 1600 ln lamp.

Controlling the bulbs from the wall is easier with Hue. It can be done with Kasa but Hue’s dimmer switches are so much easier to setup. It took about a month for me to fed up with only being able to turn on/off my lights with my phone to get some Hue dimmers for my wall. There are light switch replacements that can work with Wi-Fi bulbs but they tend to be expensive and usually require a hub anyway. The majority of them are designed with Hue and Zigbee in mind.

If none of those bother you, then it doesn’t really matter which system you choose. If you do choose Hue, to make the prices more palatable, it’s better to buy them over time as the go on sale or used bulbs. It took ~6 years for me to switch out ~50 bulbs for Hues on my limited budge.

That all being said, I still like my Kasa smart plugs over the Hue ones, mostly because of energy monitoring options from Kasa. I run Home Assistant so crossing ecosystems isn’t a big deal for me.

What I like best about hue is the open API, I hate that Kasa’s API is available but not open/supported/published by TP Link and they keep threatening to take it away. What I hate most about hue is the expense.

Hue has motion detector gadget, which would turn on the bulbs when movement is detected and shut them off because motion is no more sensed.

Hue bridge uses Zigbee. Zigbee creates a mesh network, and so each lightbulb may function as a repeater, discreetly passing messages through to the other in sequence.

This allows the user to take Hue much farther than your router might normally allow, creating it much more practical to get initiated with Philips’ wide range, including its huge diversity of inside lighting systems.

Philips Hue Home & Away function is extremely effective if you enjoy living alone.

References

https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us

https://www.kasasmart.com/us