How to Fix Audio Coming from Only One Speaker During Microphone Recording
When recording microphone audio with oCam through a professional audio interface, the sound may not be recorded properly because of issues that differ from those of a standard microphone. In particular, when using an audio interface, problems can occur because the microphone input is handled as mono (a single channel). Below is a detailed explanation of how to resolve this issue and important points to keep in mind.
When recording microphone audio through an audio interface, you may encounter a problem where the sound comes from only one speaker channel, such as the left or right side. This happens because of the way the audio interface handles mono input. To fix this, you need to adjust the microphone input source setting in oCam. Please follow the steps below:
1. In the oCam main window, click 'Tools' in the top menu, then select 'Options'.
2. When the Settings window opens, click the 'Sound' tab in the left menu.
3. In the 'Sound' tab, find the 'Microphone Settings' section and check the 'Input Source' setting.
4. If the microphone audio is heard only from the left speaker, change the input source to 'Input 1 (Left Channel)'.
5. Conversely, if the microphone audio is heard only from the right speaker, change the input source to 'Input 2 (Right Channel)'.
6. After saving the settings, try recording again and check whether the sound is recorded properly.
Notes
- In general, microphone input is mono, but in the case of inexpensive standard microphones, even if the physical input is mono, the software may process it as stereo, with identical data on the left and right channels. However, microphones used with professional audio interfaces are handled as mono both in the actual input and in software processing, so you must explicitly set the input source as described above for proper recording.
- If the microphone audio is heard only from the left speaker and you set it to 'Input 1 (Left Channel)' but no sound is recorded, while it records normally when set to 'Input 2 (Right Channel)', the left and right speaker channels may be physically reversed. In that case, you should check whether the physical speaker positions have been swapped or whether the left and right inputs of the cables connected to the audio interface have been reversed. For example, the speaker cables may be connected incorrectly, or the output settings of the audio interface may be reversed.
With these settings, you can record microphone audio properly in oCam even when using an audio interface. If the problem continues after changing the settings, it is recommended to also check the audio interface driver settings and connection status.
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How to Reduce the Size of Recorded Video Files When Recording Games (NVIDIA Codec)
If you are using the NVIDIA NVENC H.264 codec by default, the recorded file size may be very large.
Click the Codec menu in oCam to check whether you are using the NVENC H.264 codec, as shown below.
In the oCam Codec menu, click Hardware Encoder Settings.
The Hardware Encoder Settings window will appear as shown below. You can reduce the size of the recorded video file by changing the options highlighted in the yellow box.
First, let's look at how to reduce the size of the recorded file using variable bitrate.
( Rate Control must be set to 1-PASS VBR. )
The Quantizer value can be set from 1 to 51.
The lower the Quantizer value, the better the video quality, and the higher the Quantizer value, the lower the video quality.
In other words, the recording quality is defined by the range from the minimum Quantizer value to the maximum Quantizer value.
For example,
If the minimum Quantizer value is 1 and the maximum Quantizer value is 13, the recording quality range is 1 to 13.
If the minimum Quantizer value is 1 and the maximum Quantizer value is 51, the recording quality range is 1 to 51.
If the minimum Quantizer value is 13 and the maximum Quantizer value is 51, the recording quality range is 13 to 51.
In conclusion, to reduce the size of a recorded video file, increasing the minimum and maximum Quantizer values will lower the recording quality and reduce the file size.
You can adjust the Quantizer values depending on your needs, as follows.
If you want to maintain the highest recording quality while lowering the quality at certain points to reduce the size of the recorded video, set the minimum Quantizer value to 1 and set the maximum Quantizer value to a higher number depending on how much you want to reduce the quality.
( Example: Minimum Quantizer: 1, Maximum Quantizer: 30 )
If you want to maintain medium quality while lowering the quality as much as possible at certain points to reduce the size of the recorded video, set the minimum Quantizer to 26 and the maximum Quantizer value to 51.
For reference, the minimum Quantizer value cannot be greater than the maximum Quantizer value.
That is, the minimum Quantizer value <= the maximum Quantizer value.
Caution: If you set both the minimum Quantizer value and the maximum Quantizer value to 1, the recorded video file size will become extremely large, so do not use this setting.
The default values in oCam are a minimum Quantizer value of 1 and a maximum Quantizer value of 13, and we recommend setting them within the following range.
Minimum Quantizer >= 1 and Maximum Quantizer value >= 13
Next is how to reduce the size of the recorded video file using constant bitrate.
Change Rate Control to 1-PASS CBR and then set the average bitrate.
The higher the average bitrate, the better the video quality. The lower the bitrate, the lower the video quality and the smaller the recorded file size.
Finally, there is a method that uses a fixed Quantizer parameter.
Set Rate Control to 1-PASS Fixed Quantizer Parameter.
Unlike VBR, there is no concept of minimum and maximum Quantizer values, and the quality is set using a fixed Quantizer value.