The Two Higest Value Online Video Recording Tools for Entrepreneurs

You want to start a podcast and need to figure out how to record the conversation. Or, maybe you’re beginning to conduct client calls over the internet and want to record the entire call to use for reference later. Maybe you’re launching a training course and you want to record the initial training calls to provide to students or sell them to future students.

If you are an entrepreneur trying to build an online business you will run into the question of, “how do I record my calls online?” Video, audio, screen, doesn’t matter – you’re going to want a way to record your calls and thus you’ll hit Google and begin searching.

• Tools for recording online video calls
• How do I record a conversation for a podcast
• Recording audio over the computer
• Call recording software for your computer

Whatever your search terms, you’ll spend hours trying to find a tool that seems to meet your criteria and chances are you’ll demo several dozen options, or at least read up on them.

The Two Best Tools for Recording Online Video

Skype and Zoom.

That’s it.

These are the only two tools you are going to need and each of them offers something different than the other which means you will most likely use a combination of the two.

Recording Calls for Production

Podcasts, trainings, conferences – all three of these are produced content. They are meant to be front facing and professional. It’s not a casual conversation but a conversation that is meant for distribution and you want to get it right. You want to press record and press stop once.

What happens if someone coughs? What happens in one person’s microphone has slight static that you can hear when they’re not talking? What if there is background noise that can be heard from one person’s end? You need to be able to edit that content out and with Skype it is possible.

Though Microsoft has introduced conference calling for Skype, it is still primarily a one-on-one video or audio call solution and typically offers high definition audio and video with average bandwidth on each participants end. While call recording isn’t baked into Skype, there are many external plugins that add this functionality. One option that many online entrepreneurs have gone with is is Ecamm Call Recorder, a Mac only application.

Ecamm offers great flexibility in call recording settings. See the screenshots below to see each individual configuration with a short description.

Bottom line, if you’re looking for professional experience that you can use in promotion, for sales or official audio content, Ecamm’s Call Recorder for Skype is what you want to be using.

It makes great sense for one-on-one calls, but what about conference calls? There is a solution for that as well.

Recording Conference Calls

Google Hangouts, for the longest time, seemed to be the default for entrepreneurs who needed to hold online trainings or conference calls. It’s free, everyone has Google and it’s pretty decent quality.

The struggle was always figuring out how to get everyone on the call and how to record. There are ways to manipulate Google Hangouts On Air to keep the call private but benefit from the actual recording of the call, but it just seems like there should be an easier way.

There is.

Zoom is a service that I had heard of years ago and didn’t give a chance. Quite honestly because their website seemed dated and their icon looked like a hack job. In other words, it didn’t look legit.

After a coaching call and setting up my computer with Google Hangouts and a separate computer to record the call I was ready for a change. I looked at many alternatives and Zoom was the one that seemed like the best value.

You can record the call by simply pressing the “record” button and when you’re finished with your call Zoom will automatically produce a video file and an audio file to immediately share with attendees. The quality is solid and there is no separate encoding or editing needed unless you choose.

Another struggle of Hangouts is getting everybody into the room on time. Whether it be installing plugins, being signed into the wrong account or having a wrong link, getting everyone in the room on time seemed to be a struggle every single meeting. Zoom allows you to preschedule events and send specific instructions and dedicated room links that shared long before the meeting date. Everyone has the link, everyone has instructions and no one is left sitting in a room all by themselves because of a mixup.

Zoom also allows for screen sharing, drawing, private or public chat and other features that you may not know you need until you see what is available.

The reason why Zoom is NOT a good replacement for Skype with Ecamm Call Recorder is because the entire contents of the meeting is bounced onto one track, meaning, you cannot edit out any portion of audio or video for one person without impacting the overall recording. It is, however, perfect for group meetings and recordings.

The Perfect Combination for Zoom and Skype

The heading above is misleading because there currently is not an economical perfect combination. You can spend hours, maybe even days, trying to find your IDEAL recording software and put off actually doing something. Or, you can give each of these tools a try and see what you think. At best, you find a tool that lets you accomplish exactly what you need – at worst you’re out an hour and maybe $30.