I'm a SysAdmin in a small town and the town leadership is looking for an effective way to livestream and record our city council meetings and town halls. They've asked for a solution that would allow one person to manage the entire setup. Currently, we're using Zoom (but considering a switch to Teams) to include remote participants. Unfortunately, our budget is almost non-existent, but we do have a couple of webcams in our conference room and an analog mixer. I'm thinking of using OBS since it's free, but I'm not sure how to handle the audio from Zoom or Teams. Does anyone have suggestions for a good setup?
5 Answers
OBS can handle multiple audio sources, which is great for your situation. If you're having trouble with the audio routing, you might want to try using OBS along with something like Virtual Audio Cable to manage the audio connections. It can help get Zoom or Teams audio into OBS without too much hassle.
Using Zoom to stream directly to YouTube with OBS for overlays is a solid plan. I would actually recommend against using Teams for livestreaming since it can be a bit clunky. If you have a large audience, you may need to consider upgrading your Zoom license for extra features like webinar links.
What kind of setup do you guys have that needs OBS? I haven't touched Teams Live events in ages, so I'm not sure how it compares nowadays.
Since your town uses M365, you might want to explore using Teams. You can enable NDI in Teams, and OBS can pull in those streams for live broadcasting. You could set up multiple audio sources and create custom scenes in OBS. Just make sure to have a line-level audio feed from your council chamber system.
They already use Zoom for remote meetings, so I’m not sure they will switch, even if Teams has those advantages.
I recently revamped our boardroom with new tech. We use a Zoom PC connected to a mixer and a separate PC running OBS for streaming to YouTube. It costs a little more than zero, especially if you need an AV pro for setup, but it's quite effective! I wouldn't recommend Teams when streaming to remote participants.
You could join the meeting with your recording PC, mute the mic, and then set OBS to capture the Teams or Zoom window plus its audio. You could add a 30-second delay for the stream if needed.
Can those audio sources really be linked to Zoom or Teams? Ideally, we want all audio levels controlled from one software like OBS.