{"id":7656,"date":"2018-06-06T23:18:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T23:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=7656"},"modified":"2018-06-23T14:42:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T14:42:54","slug":"how-to-record-skype-audio-on-linux-open-broadcaster-software-obs-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2018\/06\/06\/how-to-record-skype-audio-on-linux-open-broadcaster-software-obs-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"How to record Skype audio on a PC \u2014 Open Broadcaster Software (obs-studio)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I posted last year<\/a> asking how the heck to record Skype audio on an Android device, since my Samsung gadgets had the best microphones to hand.<\/p>\n

Since then, I’ve obtained a headset with a half-decent microphone \u2014 a Jabra Evolve 30 II UC Stereo (\u00a344 UK,<\/a> or $79 US<\/a>). You can hear its Skype quality on this podcast.<\/a> So I’m using my Linux laptop for Skype now.<\/p>\n

I tweeted a terrible way to record Skype … and @ertwro reminded me<\/a> that Open Broadcaster Software<\/a> was on Linux now!<\/p>\n

I used this years<\/i> ago to record gameplay videos on Windows with my daughter when she was tiny. She thought doing Let’s Play videos on YouTube was the coolest idea ever<\/i> when she was six. She’s over that now she’s eleven, of course. But her Animal Jam video<\/a> was enough to convince her friend, also six, that Animal Jam<\/a> was a great game she should play. So it did the job\u00a0\u2014<\/i> crappy sound, fan noise and all!<\/p>\n

Though my stuff has slightly higher quality requirements. Moderate gadget purchases to the rescue!<\/p>\n

I remember that OBS Classic was a pain in the backside to use \u2014 finding the window, getting the video and audio to both work … but OBS Studio version 21 is vastly simpler for Skype audio:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Get a decent headset. Plug it into your Linux PC.<\/li>\n
  2. sudo apt install obs-studio<\/tt> (if you’re on Ubuntu, Debian or a derivative)<\/li>\n
  3. Start Skype, start OBS.<\/li>\n
  4. Hit “Start Recording”. When you’re finished, hit “Stop Recording”.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That’s it. The resulting file is a FLV (Flash Video<\/a>) with a 128kbps AAC<\/a> audio track\u00a0\u2014 easily extractable with ffmpeg<\/tt> on the Linux command line.<\/p>\n

    The easiest pointy-clicky way to extract the audio is VLC<\/a> — go to Media \u2192 Convert\/Save, select your source file, click “Convert\/Save”, pick “Audio – FLAC” as your profile, pick your destination filename, click “Start”. If you want to get fancy and cleanly extract the raw audio stream without conversion, use this guide.<\/a><\/p>\n

    You’ll probably be fine with AAC\u00a0\u2014 but you can tell OBS to give you lossless audio by going to File \u2192 Settings \u2192 Output, and setting Recording Quality to “Lossless Quality, Tremendously Large File Size.” The resulting file is an AVI.<\/a> Note that this generates lossless video as well, and even a blank screen will be huge<\/em> and chew up megabytes per second. (I haven’t worked out how to tell it not to generate a video stream.)<\/p>\n

    OBS is also available for Windows,<\/a> of course \u2014 and recording your FLV is the same, as is extracting the audio with VLC.<\/p>\n

    \"Become<\/a>

    Your subscriptions keep this site going. Sign up today!<\/a><\/i><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A surprisingly common technical problem \u2014 elegantly solved!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[699,698,697,696,142],"class_list":["post-7656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-freda","tag-jabra","tag-obs-studio","tag-open-broadcaster-software","tag-skype"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7656"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8050,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656\/revisions\/8050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}