How to Record HD Skype Calls & Interviews

If you want to record the audio or video from your Skype calls, this video will show you how.

This is one of the 65+ tutorials and case studies from DIY Video Production Guide. Find out more at: http://www.DIYVideoGuide.com

In this video I show you how to record high quality, HD Skype calls and interviews. As well as walk you through how I set up eCamm Call Recorder for Skype on the Mac and talk about Pamela for Windows as well.

I also walk through the logistics of recording the video separately on each end using a DSLR or other types of cameras and then sync'ing them all together in post.

Read the full blog post here: http://www.calebwojcik.com/blog/how-t...

Cheers,
Caleb Wojcik

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Closed Caption:

hey welcome to another tutorial for DIY
video guide and in this one we're going
to talk about how to make high-quality
skype interview recording so skype is
really good for audio interviews you can
have both people talking to each other
and then you can have people record it
separately on each side so you don't
have any lower quality issues with the
audio or whatever but the biggest
problem with doing video / skype is
bandwidth so someone shooting on an HD
webcam that's built into their monitor
or laptop or they have a separate one
like a logitech c920 which is what i use
now if they have something like that
it's pushing 1080p 720p HD video over
the internet and then the person on the
other side is trying to not only view it
but then recorded on their computer and
it just doesn't work very well to be
honest so if you look at a lot of the
interviews inside DIY video guide a lot
of those recordings are just directly
using the exact same way i'm going to
show you now and you can tell that if
you're on like a laptop or something and
you're not on a beefy high-end computer
the recording is going to turn out that
well or if you're just over Wi-Fi or
you're in a spotty connection area like
a starbucks or something or sharing
internet with a bunch of people
it's not going to turn out very well so
i'm going to show you the way to get low
quality skype video interviews and then
I'm going to talk a little bit about how
to get the higher quality once at least
on your end if not on both people's
sides of the conversation
so the first thing I'm going to show you
is what i use and it's called ekm call
recorder
it's a mac app that connects with skype
and about thirty dollars here you can
see and what it does is it reports a
little audio or video file on your
computer
wall you're using skype so while you're
talking to the person wall year
you know doing your interview or
whatever you can set it to record audio
only
or video and audio and instead of having
to you know have people have separate
cameras on both sides and different
audio and stuff
this is the quickest way to do a face to
face one on one or even multiple people
sometimes interviews for audio and then
it's the quickest way to do a one-on-one
video interview over skype so this is
the app that I use
she can call recorder another great one
is called Pamela for for for windows so
check those out
not very expensive Pamela comes with a
30 day free trial i thinkI cam comes
with a trial - I don't know how long I
think what they do is they limit the
recording time that you can do using
ECAM call recorder so let's see what
this actually looks like in action
so over here drew is my friend record
nerd podcast with occasionally we had a
call today and so this is e can call
recorder here it's just this little
thing that pops up when using skype so
let me jump into the settings for this
and so here the settings that you get
for he can call recorder
you can always check for updates and
then you have audio encoding so I always
do uncompressed because i want the best
quality audio that i can get during this
skype recording the two types of
compression will have smaller file sizes
but you won't have the best audio that
you can possibly have
so I always go with uncompressed if you
do go with some of these other
compressions you can change the audio
quality and stuff
if hard writers space is an issue that
maybe you'd want to change these but I
just leave them how they are an
uncompressed then down here they have
recording options and since nerd cred
the podcast city which was only
audio-based I didn't need to record
video for it but for all the interviews
that I did for this guide and everything
I wanted the video
both sides for some of them and when I
shot the DSLR I wanted both sides just
in case the DSLR wasn't working or
something
so
you can do audio only you're in court
just your side
this would be a great example for
someone else that has II can call
recorder and you're doing a video
interview and they just want your side
before it gets uploaded internet the
speeds all influence and stuff like that
so this would be just an example of ok i
just want to record my side because this
person that is interviewing me is asking
for it
remote only would be if you were
shooting or looking into like a DSLR
like I am now or like i did in a couple
of the interviews for this guide you
wouldn't really need your side because
you're not looking into that webcam
sometimes it's like low and often side
and you know you're not even going to
need it
so you can just record the the other
side of the conversation and
theoretically you should drop less
frames and it should be a little higher
video quality because your computer's
not having to record your end to split
screen and this is what you've probably
seen before if you watch something on
YouTube where you just have to talking
heads there in like a square window and
they're just there the whole time is
just back and forth back and forth but
there's no like transition between the
two people talking
so this actually is the fastest way to
get a video interview done because if
you record this way you get one video
file that has both the talking heads in
there
the audio is already built in it's ready
to ship you could basically upload it to
youtube and a lot of people just do it
that way if you want a little bit better
quality you can go to multitrack
advanced and what this does is it
creates separate video tracks for each
participant within the quicktime movie
so you get this video file that is twice
as wide because it has both full
resolution which we'll talk about in a
second
full resolution video for those people
and I could I could pull it up basically
what it is is you just get these instead
of having like a regular widescreen it's
like to like taped together and then
with this program
you get a few other apps they have movie
tools basically that you can convert
things into mp3
you can split those two video files that
are currently stuck together in two
separate files you can also separate the
audio from them which ends up giving you
four different files so the video from
one side the video from the other side
the audio from one side audio from the
other side
so like this gets more complicated but
you can get better quality video from
these two do your skype video interviews
so up here now
you got some more video options once you
turn on video video encoding I always do
h.264 because that's what you're going
to be uploading to the web anyway
typically so I just record in that
format already and then
video image size this is another thing
that is really important because
depending on how fast your computer is
it's going to impact how high of
resolution you can use when you're
recording these things
so what I did for i want to say it's the
chris ducker interview
I try to do 7 20 wide which is basically
720p and my computer was chugging and I
got a little pop up while i was doing
the interview that said you know there's
frames being dropped in this recording
and so if you watch that interview
especially because chris is over in the
Philippines or internet connection isn't
the greatest it might look a little
better because that 720p but youre
dropping frames and the audio is
typically when whenever youre dropping
frames stays stays consistent but the
higher resolution you do video recording
the faster computer you need to actually
render that in real time and record both
sides so for the next few that I did
like Tara pack is one example I still
wanted widescreen
I still wanted to eventually you know
have it at 720p when I rendered it and
edit it in the end the program to match
up with the intros and outros and stuff
like that so I did this
which is you know 480 pixels tall and
854 wide and if you do this one 640 by
480
it's the same height but its its square
instead of wide screen so it's 4 by 3
like an old-school TV versus sixteen by
nine ratio like a widescreen TV aspect
ratio can go all the way down i don't
know why you never want to record a
video that's about this small but you
can do that if you really want it
so the next few settings a show
recording indicator on video
I never had this checked I don't want a
little red dot saying this was being
recorded when I then later
export it and have it online or I don't
want a little red dot record my screen
so that when I just always leave
unchecked the next one show recording
controls at launch
I always leave on because if i know that
i'm going to record a call it will pop
up and i'll remind me
oh yeah I should check the settings make
sure that i have it set to just audio
audio and video and stuff like that
if you don't have that checked you might
forget to change to the correct settings
you might have it set to audio only and
think you're on video recording and so I
was just leave it open at launch and
just always have it there
the next thing I do is keep recording
controls in front during calls so I'm
gonna call it all
instead of like it hidden behind a
window if i'm doing stuff and then maybe
i'll stop recording you don't know or
maybe your input levels are way too high
or what have you
it's better to leave these controls over
top so you can always see them
you can stop it if you if you guys
finish and you can just be asking about
whatever topic you can stop it and save
some file space for you and having to
look at it later
next thing I do is I do record all calls
automatically because I would rather
have more files on my computer then to
have forgotten to
just record on a important interview or
something like that that I was trying to
do so i always do record calls
automatically and since you have the
controls in the front during the call
you can then stop it if it's like I
don't know just like a family call or
you don't want to record it or what have
you
so I just hit stopped right at the
beginning and then I usually have this
on not sure why it's uncheck to be
honest
you can discard calls shorter than 30
seconds so by this checked my record
calls automatically and I get on the
call with my mom on skype or something
we start talking for a little bit and
like 15-20 seconds and i'm like 'oh is
recording this is my mom I don't need to
post this conversation on the Internet
I'll stop the recording and it'll just
discard the call there'll be no file on
my computer that i have to go and delete
later
so that's a handy thing to use I think
that i actually have it off because I
mean even if i get disconnected and
reconnected a few times in like a group
call that were recording
I want to have as much of that as i
possibly can just in case I need it and
then recorded voicemail playback
automatically that would be if you use
skype and get a lot of voicemails and
you'd want to
I don't know then just turn those
voicemails into mp3's maybe you run a
podcast and your people call you on
skype leave a voicemail and that's how
you get questions for your podcast or
something
you could then just turn these into
audio or files or whatever that you
could then use in your podcast so that
pretty much wraps up this whole page and
the last thing there is just a where you
want to save your recording so i have a
movie folder on my mac that then has a
folder called save calls all of these go
in there and I just manage on and do the
exporting and configuring a little bit
different for each of those so that is
the fastest way but the lower quality
way to get skype interviews recorded the
next best thing is to have your skype
call may be recorded the audio or record
the video just in case
but then to have a separate camera set
up on each side of the conversation
so if you look at the Shan ogle
interview the Corbett Barr interview or
the Nathan very interviews in this guide
and in this in this course you'll see
that on my side
i'm recording into a DSLR so it looks
way better way better way better than
anything you're going to get out of a
webcam so the problem is then you have
to sync up that footage later it's more
work
my brother is helping me added these
videos
it took more time to get those files set
up but then doing the actual editing and
going back and forth between the two
sides
isn't that much more work so that's the
best way to get high quality skype
interviews
you can record the audio on both sides
and do the video if you want to get it
or have each side separately recorded
and then sync them later with the
recording that you got from you can call
recorder or from Pamela
so I hope that answered any of your
questions you had about recording over
skype let me know if they didn't and
i'll see you in the next tutorial