Guide for Producers: Guiding Your Guests in Capture Local Recordings

Modified on: Tue, 30 Jan, 2024 at 8:19 AM

While Socialive automatically records all guests' ISO feeds in the cloud, guests can also record their video feed on the browser. Local recordings produce high-quality videos regardless of the guest's network conditions since they are not subject to bandwidth limitations that can affect resolution, bit rate, and overall video quality. Guests can capture multiple recordings per session in the Green Room which will be automatically uploaded when they leave the Green Room.

This article provides information for producers to guide their guests to capture local recordings in the Green Room.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

During the Tech Check or Rehearsal
During the Recording Session

Process

During the Tech Check or Rehearsal

Set up a Socialive Session and invite the guests ahead of time.
When scheduling the session, set up a conference dial-in on a meeting software of your choice (outside of Socialive) for everyone to initially join.
On the meeting:
1. Provide a short introduction to Socialive. For example, "Socialive powers self-service video content creation for the enterprise. It is the fastest, easiest way to record, edit, and publish studio-quality videos, live or on-demand."
2. The following best practices should be implemented to ensure a smooth and successful local recording. Instruct your guests to:
  - Close other browser tabs, browser windows, and other applications that will not be used which may be taking up extra processing resources and may affect the device's performance.
  - Make sure their camera is at eye level and, if possible, have a front-facing lighting source.
3. Guide your guests to log in to Socialive (portal.socialive.us) and guide them to click to join your session. For instructions, refer to this article.
  - If a guest does not see their invitation in the dashboard, instruct them to go to the Settings menu by clicking on their initials at the top-right corner, and selecting your channel from the drop-down.
4. As a producer, in Socialive Studio, join your guests in the Green Room when prompted.
Once everyone is in the Green Room:
1. Check that the guest(s) you want to record has a video feed that is stable (watch and listen to each guest for potential freezing, poor quality, etc.).
2. Check each guest's health indicator to ensure it is in the green range.
3. Provide guests with an overview of the elements of the Socialive desktop Green Room interface. For more information, refer to this article.
4. Once you've checked that all guests can be seen and heard correctly in the Green Room, have them leave the meeting (outside of Socialive) and continue communicating in the Green Room.
In the Green Room:
1. Instruct your guests to click the Record Me button at the bottom of the screen. Guests will see a notification at the top-right corner confirming the recording is being captured. This will start a new local recording and a notification will appear in the chat letting you know a guest has started a recording.
2. Instruct your guests to click the Stop button to stop recording. Guests will see a notification at the top right corner confirming the recording was captured and will be uploaded when they leave the Green Room. As a producer, you will see a notification in the chat when a guest has stopped recording.

Keep in Mind

Guests can start and stop recording at any time
Guests will need to stop your recording before changing your audio or video source.
Local recording is not available when using incognito mode.
When the guest's browser has run out of space, the recording will automatically stop. Guests will receive a notification when your browser is running out of space.

During the Recording Session

On the day of the actual recording, have your guest(s) follow the same steps to log in to Socialive and join. Before the recording starts, check the guest's health indicator from Studio and make sure they have closed other browser tabs and windows, and applications that will not be used during the session.

Conducting the Recording

Instruct your guests to click the Record Me button at the bottom of the screen. Guests will see a notification at the top-right corner confirming the recording is being captured. This will start a new local recording and a notification will appear in the chat letting you know a guest has started a recording.
Instruct your guests to click the Stop button to stop recording. Guests will see a notification at the top right corner confirming the recording was captured and will be uploaded when they leave the Green Room. As a producer, you will see a notification in the chat when a guest has stopped recording.

After the Recording

Remind guests to:

Leave the Green Room by clicking the red "hang up" button at the bottom of the screen and then click "Yes" to confirm the action.
Keep the window open until the local recordings are successfully uploaded to Socialive. Remind them that long recordings may take a while to upload depending on their network conditions.
Once the recordings are uploaded, they can close the window.
Producers - DO NOT close the Studio session until you see all local recordings in your Recordings library.

If guests do not follow those steps to leave the Green Room and upload the recordings, the recordings will remain in the Green Room session unless:

Guests upload the recordings the next time they enter the Green Room session.
Guests clear their browser cache and data. This will delete the recordings from their browser storage and will not be retrievable.
As a producer, you close the Studio session. Guests will no longer be able to access the session's Green Room. Therefore, they no longer have access to the local recordings they captured.

Best Practices for a Successful Session

Set up the session and invite guests ahead of time
Audio: If guests are not using headphones, instruct them to lower their speaker volume to 50% max to prevent echo issues. If they are using headphones, have them join the Green Room with the headphones on to prevent de-syncronization issues.
Where to look: Instruct guests to focus on their device's camera. Having them hide the monitor can help in avoiding distractions.
Chat: Use the internal chat to send text messages back and forth with guests during the session. This is a great way to manage communications and queuing during the session as well.

Still looking for an answer?

Contact Socialive Support via live chat, email at support@socialive.us, or submit a support ticket.