We have a gig coming up next month, it'll be a fast paced workshop with 1 projector and screen, with about 30 different presenters. How can we record what's being shown on the screen? We would prefer not to have a camera pointed at the screen, a video capture device between the laptop and projector would be ideal. The plan is the shoot a closeup of the presenter with 1 camera, and capture his slides with the device, then edit them split screen in post. Since there will be 30 presenters with 30 laptops/devices, we can't go around collecting decks from everyone. So the big question is...what device is best to capture their slides in real time?

Off the top of my head, I would imagine that most would use laptops with VGA out, others may have HDMI out. I could get a VGA to HDMI adapter, then record to this
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If their laptop has HDMI out, then the adapter would be bypassed. Another concern was that some HDMI devices may not show up on screen if they're not HDCP compliant. So...what hardware do I need to successfully capture anything/everything that comes down the line?

You might want to consider the El Gato game capture hd system.
It's fairly inexpensive and the results are good.
I use it record satellite broadcasts where the satellite hdmi output goes into
the device and it sends an hdmi signal to the TV. The usb connection sends
the image to the computer for recording. You would need a double hdmi
output from your computer. First hdmi goes to the device which sends it
on to the projector, so you would actually use the screen as your main
monitor. Second hdmi goes to a monitor that has the recording software
running. If you wanted more control over what goes on the projector screen,
you might have to introduce a switcher in the line going to the device.

I'm thinking you'll want to put an Atmos Ninja in-line with the projector, and have everyone connect their HDMI output to your Ninja. I'm not sure how it handles loss of signal, so it would likely need someone to wrangle the box and keep an eye on the remaining capacity. You should check how well it works with non-standard (1920x1080) screen resolutions. Sounds like a scary proposition when you're dealing with 30 different systems. For safety sake, I would still roll a camera on the screen (which helps with timing as well). Don't even get me started on people who use their hands as pointers, which are useless when you're doing a screen capture or slide deck insert.

Atomos 4.3" Ninja 2 Video Recorder (Full Version) (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=759460&gclid=CjwKEAiAxfu1BRDF2cfnoPyB9jESJADF-MdJx-BzakSMdf5crjHyA_x73yzRvMUSTn960P1NzTMS7xoCm1Dw_wcB&is=REG&ap=y&m=Y&A=details&Q=)

...Since there will be 30 presenters with 30 laptops/devices, we can't go around collecting decks from everyone...
I'd suggest you collect what slides you can to backup recordings.

If possible, it may be best to staff a position for Powerpoint management across 30 presenters... or even a handful. It's a lot of coordination.

Not to mention those presenters who say: "Can you just drop this photo in my deck? My admin usually does this, but it's a late revision, and she's not here, and the AV people always do it. You're AV, right?" (video staffer grumbles something about having other fish to fry) Presenter: "Wow, watch the attitude!"

I was involved in running a symposium in 2015 and one of the best things we did was to have everyone send their PowerPoint presentations in ahead of time. These were then assembled in to one master presentation file with everything in run-of-conference order, including slides for breaks such as lunch.

It. Worked. Flawlessly.

It also made sure that people were organised beforehand.

Andrew

As a backup, I would use another camera to record the screen and the audio onto a single medium.

If you were to get the PPT slides, you need an iron-clad method to sync the Presenter and the PPT slides
If you were to in-line record the Projector, what if you lost one feed for 30 seconds, and when it picked up again, all you hear is, "And in this slide..." You need a record of what slide was showing.

You're ignoring the elephant in the room:

Open Broadcasting Software (OBS)

It encodes directly to a H.264 MP4 file (it doesn't just livestream to gaming and art streaming websites) and is one of the top alternatives for screen capturing. Consider it one of your backup recordings. You can have a onboard mic audio record for sync. For PowerPoint, it will only raise bitrate as needed. If you have audio in the presentation, you may want to use those as your sync points in the presentation and mute the onboard mic, and worst case scenario, sync on the slide changes.

It's portable if you grab the ZIP version (no browser) from the changelog page on the Multiplatform "Studio" version.

Ignore? I didn't even know it existed!

This looks insanely great. Chances are that it might not give the variable-frame-rate wobbles in the recorded file that cause the playback to go out of sync in an NLE.

Very interesting! Must play with this adorable new baby elephant thing ....

Andrew

There's even options for hardware accelerated encoding that might have a better chance of encoding a constant frame rate vs x264. If the processor has Intel QuickSync or the GPU has Nvidia NVENC, it supports hardware accelerated encoding.

Nice software suggestion Jack.

What about a presentation that isn't PowerPoint based, and is native to that presenter's computer, and it's a Mac and they didn't send anything ahead of time and won't let you put any recording software on their computer? It seems like there would be someone out of 30 who might be a problem.

Hopefully Warren has some major pull with the client who can get as much compliance as possible, especially ahead of time.

So have multiple backups to the software recording in place, including a good camera shot of the screen with strong, clean audio with either no delay or at least a known amount of delay if it's a really big venue.

I'd have the inline recorder ready as well, along with adapters such as Thunderbolt to HDMI and others like Display Port and DVI.

A stereo isolation transformer with unbalanced to balanced conversion is good to have also if any presentations have embedded sound.

Who is handling the House PA duties? Is it separate from audio-for-video or all integrated?

It is important to have very clean, high-sensitivity mics that do NOT go to the PA system as a backup going only to your recorder if there is a problem with the house sound.

Grab the portable version, however I'm not sure that can be done on Mac OS...

It's easy with the Windows version with the ZIP file, but the Mac version still has to be installed.

BTW, the standalone version zip file is giving me errors when I try to unzip it via Windows. Any suggestions?

Andrew

Try using 7zip. It may be using compression algorithms Windows is not familiar with. Check the filesizes too, if it seems small, the file didn't download fully.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I'm still trying to untangle the requirements for this gig. 30 presenters, some will have Windows with powerpoint, some will have Macs with Keynote, others may have proprietary devices that are locked with HDCP. Getting a presentation ahead of time is not ideal because of how quickly their industry standards change. (It changes daily, so presenters may be changing their slides up to the last minute!) At first I thought it was a one man job, but now it looks like a highly skilled dedicated team is required. Holy cow

At least you know beforehand, and can demonstrate that you have done your homework on this one.

Yeah, we help you look good! :-P

Andrew

In the same vein of recording computer screen output (also to capture slides from a presenter) I purchased a gaming capture device (a few different kinds to test actually) to capture the content. There were several walls to run into before getting it setup (i can list those if anybody is interested otherwise I might make a short video) but now I ran into a big one I prob can't crack.

HDCP. It's there to stop us from copying movies and iTunes content apparently but it means nothing else can be "copied" either. Like a Keynote presentation. So my Avermedia HD II Game Capture device is all setup (and that took a bit including speciality formatting drives), but when I plugged in my Macbook Pro AVerMedia box tells me the content is not copyable. Nothing. Can I seriously not capture mine or somebody else's presentation to a gaming box?

Ouch!

First, the capture device *must* support HDCP. If it doesn't, there's just no way, you'd have to get a capture recorder that does support HDCP.

Once the HDCP handshake has taken place, the Mac should be able to distinguish protected from non-protected content. If it isn't, I can't think of much besides making sure that it's fully updated, and, so is Keynote or Powerpoint or whatever.

Do make sure that your HDMI cable is recent, HDCP certified(?)

Ouch indeed, ha ha.

Everything I've been able to find says it's an Apple issue. Everything else is brand new and updated. Xbox and PS4 and things like that are HDCP protected as well but have put in modes to allow passthrough for gaming (because gamers were cracking it anyway). However there is a hackaround, but it's seems bizarre to need one to capture something like Keynote. You get certain HDMI splitters like this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004F9LVXC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and when it hits the device HDCP has been disabled. Ugh.

Yeah, it's all a bit hard doing it with hardware. :-)

Bypass this grief with a software solution instead. Download and install a copy of Open Broadcaster and use this to record the screen of the source content computer.

https://obsproject.com/download#mp

I've used it before and it works absolutely beautifully. The resulting file also works in with your editing software (Premiere CS6 in my case) perfectly. It's just like having an extra camera to multi-cam edit with.

See https://youtu.be/ZT1JI3hTQdI?t=494 for an example.

Andrew

...Everything I've been able to find says it's an Apple issue. Everything else is brand new and updated. Xbox and PS4...
You get certain HDMI splitters like this...and when it hits the device HDCP has been disabled. Ugh.
That makes way too much sense. However, look at the bright side; in many cases you need an HDMI splitter in the signal path anyways.

...Bypass this grief with a software solution instead. Download and install a copy of Open Broadcaster...
Software is great when you have control of the presentation computer. I did lots of this with Wirecast, which has a little screencap extension that runs to the WC computer over the network. Very slick - Wirecast, a live software switcher, just sees it as another live source.

But, sometimes you don't know who will use what computer until the last minute, or, they'll walk in with a computer that their IT dept. has locked down - no installs! When you don't control the PC, it's straightforward to require that any computer walked in by a presenter have HDMI out for a hardware solution.

Yup. That sort of thing happens.

The worst thing is the Mac people who don't understand why you don't have one of the special adaptors their computer needs to talk to the data projector.

One thing that does work for a conference (if you organise one) is to mandate that all speakers supply their PPT presentations ahead of time so that they can all be merged in to the one master PPT file which the conference runs from during the day (including slides announcing lunch etc). This might assist in having a 'known' laptop that you can have some sort of reliable access to.

Andrew

One thing that does work for a conference (if you organise one) is to mandate that all speakers supply their PPT presentations ahead of time so that they can all be merged in to the one master PPT file...
Absolutely - that's the best scenario where the client relationships support it!

Sadly, some just aren't organized that way. Don't get me started... suffice to say that it's a real pleasure to work with professional conference organizers, and sometimes a difficult experience when sponsors don't understand how to treat an audience well.

yeah the majority of the conferences I film are big and all one laptop is a total rarity so the software option goes out the window. If Mark Benioff or Jack Dorsey are giving a presentation getting them or their aides to download software and use it is out of the question. In a few days I'll be recording 21 different talks with all different presentation devices, and a week after that in the early 40's. All different. Especially if there's any live coding or other custom stuff going on. So the hardware solution is the only possibility. Then it's a question of whether the house AV will allow me to grab an output from their mixers. But that's a different battle.