Simple Meetup Recording Setup

Recording Oslo C++ Users Group Meetups

Patricia Aas, 20 March 2019

About a year ago I sent a DM to Olve Maudal asking if we could revive the Oslo C++ Users Group which had laid dormant for several years. He replied cheerfully: “I think that’s a great idea! You should definitely do that!” True to form I thought: “How hard can it be?” and said “Sure, why not?”

A year later and we have had some epic Meetups featuring international superstars in C++, including:

  • Bjarne Stroustrup
  • Andrei Alexandrescu (@incomputable)
  • Hubert Matthews
  • Björn Fahller (@bjorn_fahller)
  • Adi Shavit (@AdiShavit)
  • Victor Ciura (@ciura_victor)

And of course some local talent!

However, with such superstar lineups, people have been asking for recordings, which the Swedish Meetups have done so well. Unfortuantely, we had no real solution and no volunteers. I wanted recordings for another reason too: I want more people to speak. Speaking at a Meetup is a great way to get started and having a video online is an asset when submitting to CFPs at conferences. Unfortunately, I have little time or help, so I needed something fast and easy to set up. The number one requiremets were:

  1. Slides and audio
  2. Sets up in less than 5 minutes
  3. Requires little to no time in post processing
  4. Is not super expensive

Given these requirements and lots of asking on twitter and reading Amazon reviews, this is my current setup:

  1. Acemax HDMI Game Capture Card: This box goes between the speakers laptop and the presenting HDMI cable. It has a red button and when its pressed in encodes the HDMI input and writes it to a USB stick. It passes through the HDMI through an HDMI output. The box also has a mini-jack for audio.
  2. Jelly Comb Wireless Microphone Headset: This has a speakers headset and a small receiver that has a mini-jack plug.
  3. Vitotc HDMI 1.4 1 in 2 out 1080p HDMI Splitter: This is in case the speaker has a Mac, since this splitter will (hopefully, still not tested) strip HDCP and make it possible to record the slides.

All together it cost about 100$ plus shipping and taxes.

The setup has currently only been tested separately but I’m hoping to test it all together soon.