Multi-cam capture with synced audio

[grymloche]

I'm trying to put together a system to more easily create content for youtube. Currently I film everything with my single phone and then just edit everything together. I want a system that will capture from multiple video sources simultaneously in 720 (I will upgrade to a beefier system eventually) which will be synced with audio from a usb condenser mic. I just want something lightweight that will simply capture, encode with a decent codec, and write to disk. My searches have all returned OBS, OBS, OBS, OBS! I don't need all of the streaming and on-the-fly switching functionality for what I have in mind. Besides, I don't have the hardware to run it. I basically want like a cctv system where I can just hit record and then later import all of the files into a more powerful editor at '0' on the timeline where they will all sync up. I use windows 7 and ubuntu 20 on this same laptop.

[smrpix]

You keep hearing OBS, OBS, OBS because it's the most basic good answer.

It's free and lightweight. You don't have to use all the bells and whistles The next step up is a hardware solution like Blackmagic ATEM.

Or just use several standalone cameras/phones and sync them in the edit.

[grymloche]

OBS sounds like a good program, but it literally won't run on my computer. I think version 18.0.1 is the latest version that is windows 7 compatible. I tried the Linux version but it doesn't like my GPU. Is version 18 good enough to do this? All of the plugins I've found to use smartphone cameras say they require newer versions. I guess I can try it out and see what it can do.

I used to capture in Virtualdub; I'd love it if they made a version of that which could capture in HD from multiple sources. Like I said in the original post, my hardware is fairly limited at the moment. I have two droids, a webcam, and a Canon T3 that I'm planning to use on a 10 year old base model laptop until I can afford some better equipment. I have a desktop that's considerably more powerful from the same generation, but I'd prefer to keep everything somewhat portable.

[smrpix]

Based on the information you've given, you're trying to go 70mph on a bicycle. Your system isn't up to it.

You need to find a different process to achieve your final product.

[grymloche]

I mean the specs on this pc are probably similar or better than what film studios were using in the late 90s. What software were they using for the Matrix and the Star Wars prequels? I'm sure they probably had external hardware encoders or something, but I think spec wise I should be able to capture multiple streams and encode them separately @ 720 with MJPEG as long as the HDD can keep up. I don't know. I'm no expert; that's why I came here lol. I played with OBS 18 for a bit last night and I couldn't find any way to capture multiple streams as separate files. It just merged them all into 1. Would it be possible to have Virtualdub running on separate pcs with a shared start/stop trigger? Maybe like a MIDI setup and synchronization system.

[smrpix]

OBS has a plugin called Source Record which will allow you to save multiple streams -- but you still need some sort of hardware interface to capture from all your devices. Not sure why you're so obsessed with capturing them all at once when you can easily ingest sequentially and sync on your timeline.

(Late 90s Avids required tens of thousands of dollars of additional I/O, compression/decompression hardware hooked up to your mac. The quality of the lo-rez material would be unacceptable for working with today. They did not do multicam, though you could have multiple layers of video. Ingest was done one tape at a time. Obviously, you could have multiple workstations going, each with their own Mac and I/O breakout boxes, each with decks that cost tens of thousands of dollars apiece, and them swap hard drives around to get all the material where it needed to be.

All this to produce a paper list explaining how the 35mm film should be conformed.)