recording

I recently purchased an AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus to help record screens on devices I test at my desk.

It's claim to fame is being able to record to a microSD card standalone (at resolutions up to 1080p60), without having a separate computer attached.

For my 4K cameras, I typically use an Atomos Ninja V, since it can record in full 4K resolution, but that thing is $700—the Live Gamer Portable is $120, and runs a lot cooler (and quieter).

I don't enjoy dealing with microSD cards, but it's more convenient than having to use OBS or some other recording software on my main computer just to capture the HDMI output of another device. Especially since I can't pass through the HD or 4K signal through my little Elgato USB capture card (they do make a few models that do this, but I digress).

Anyway, what brings me to this post is the fact I spent way too long trying to figure out the magical microSD card format required to be able to record on the device.

Recently I recorded an entire video for my YouTube channel using only a Rode Wireless GO II lavaliere mic.

I typically spend the time to set up a second mic source—usually my shotgun mic into a separate recorder—but this time I was feeling lazy. I had never had an issue with the wireless lavs in my basement, and the Rode system includes a built-in recorder in the bodypack transmitter so I have backup audio that has saved my bacon a few times when interference did cause cutouts to the camera input.

But because of that overconfidence, I had to reshoot the entire video (I tried removing the RFI using iZotope RX 10, but there were parts where the interference was still too prominent). Lesson learned: always have the backup audio.

During the reshoot, I still relied on the lav for my primary mic, but it still had the interference, even though I set my phone and iPad into airplane mode, and made sure all WiFi devices within about 20' were powered off!

I made the mistake of putting my Wireless Go II mic transmitter in the same pocket as my iPhone for a recent video recording, and as a result, I had a lot of RF interference in the recorded track.

Thinking I could just use the nice feature of the Wireless Go II's built-in recording, I grabbed the track off the body pack itself—but found that it, too, had the RFI sound, meaning the iPhone's interference made it into the mic circuit itself, not just the wireless mic signal to my camera!

I tried Final Cut Pro's built-in voice isolation, and that helped mute the noise between speech, but during speech it was omnipresent.

I also tried accusonus' denoise plugin (RIP after accusonus was bought out by Meta), and it did better, but left the sound feeling 'watery'.

I recently received an email from someone asking me how I got the voice recording in my videos to sound so clear and strong. The answer to that question is much more complex than I'll deal with here, but that person asked me mostly about the microphone I used, and if that could make a big difference in getting better recordings. Here's what I replied:

I currently use an EV RE320 in a shock mount.

I've been doing a lot of video production work for the past few months, both for my YouTube channel, and in helping people with their live streams, and one thing that I miss by not having dedicated (and expensive!) video production system like a NewTek TriCaster is being able to record multiple camera angles at their full resolution simultaneously on my Mac.

There are a lot of little conveniences you get used to if you do professional live video production with high-end equipment that you often can't replicate in a budget studio... like my desk here at my house.

Recently I've been spending a bit of time producing video content of both browser windows and Terminal windows for screen recordings and livestreams on my YouTube channel.

One common issue I have to deal with is trying to optimize the aspect ratio of the window for the video dimensions. In 99% of all cases, I need the window to be 16:9. And ideally, I want the window to be recorded at 1280x720 at 2x 'retina' resolution, so when I capture the window, it will be nice and sharp at 1080p, which is my typical output resolution.

In the past, I'd open up a 1280x720 image at 2x resolution, then drag the Terminal window over it. However, getting that to be pixel perfect is sometimes frustrating, and it's always annoying since it takes me an extra 10-20 seconds per recording.

In my searching, I found this handy article from way back in 2013: How to Resize Windows on your Mac to Specific Sizes.

At this year's php[tek] conference, I decided to record my own sessions (one on a cluster of Raspberry Pis, and another on tips for successfully working from home). Over the years, I've tried a bunch of different methods of recording my own presentations, and I've settled on a pretty good method to get very clear audio and visuals, so I figured I'd document my method here in case you want to do the same.

I've gotten this question enough times via email that I thought I'd create a quick blog post mentioning what I think is a good deal for a video camera setup for recording short videos, ideally with one person speaking.

In such a situation, since you probably won't see a major difference in picture quality in anything under $500, I'd skimp a little on the camera itself and just make sure the video camera you buy has an external microphone input, then buy a microphone like the Audio-Technica ATR-3350 to clip onto the person being recorded.

A microphone goes a long way towards making quality video—many people think the camera's the most important part of a video recording setup, but it really isn't (unless you're doing a top-notch production!). That's how I can use the tiny iPhone camera as my primary video camera and record good videos, since the iPhone accepts external microphones so easily.