JamKazam offers a rich set of video recording features that you can use in JamKazam sessions, either alone or when playing with other musicians. This help article is organized into five sections:




Audio Recording Foundation

When you make a video recording on JamKazam, you are also making an audio recording (or sometimes recording multiple audio files). If you don't yet understand clearly how audio recordings work on JamKazam, we recommend you read our help article Making Audio Recordings to have a good foundation on that topic before layering video recording features on top of it, then return to this help article.



Installing OBS Studio & the JamKazam Plugin for OBS

Before making a video recording, you must first install OBS Studio on your computer, and then install the JamKazam Plugin for OBS. OBS Studio is an industry-leading video/audio broadcasting and recording piece of open source software that is quite excellent, and we have integrated with OBS to give you best-in-class video features. Read our help article Installing OBS Software, and follow the directions in this article to get this critical step done properly. When finished, return to this help article, and read on!



Setting Your JamKazam Browser

Due to compatibility issues, for now we can only support the Chrome browser for making video recordings, so you'll need to use Chrome as your preferred JamKazam browser. (This won't affect your browser preference or use for anything other than JamKazam.) If you don't have Chrome, you will need to install it. And if you do have it installed, read our help article Setting Your Preferred JamKazam Browser and follow the directions to set Chrome as your preferred browser for JamKazam. When finished, return to this help article, and read on!



Making Adjustments to Your OBS Settings

If you want a polished, high-quality recording, you will need to crop your JamKazam session video in OBS so that you capture only the part of the screen you want in your video. You do this just one time, and then it will save your crop settings for all future recordings, as well as session broadcasts. While less likely, you may also want to adjust the overall audio volume in your video recording (if too high or low), or adjust the sync of video vs. audio (if not well synchronized), but you probably won't need to do these things. To learn how to crop your JamKazam video in OBS, please read our help article Making Adjustments to OBS Settings, and when finished making these adjustments, return to this help article to move forward.



Making a Video Recording

To make a video recording in JamKazam, you first need to turn on your session video. To do this, click the Video button in the session toolbar (pictured below with arrow). 


You will see a new browser window open, displaying a "Join Room" button (pictured below). Click this button.


You should now see video of yourself, as well as any other session musicians who have turned on their own video. 


At the lower right of the screen, you'll see some video control options (pictured below).




Use "My Cameras" to control what webcam (or multiple webcams if you like) you are using for video of yourself. Use "Layout" to choose how you want to arrange the video boxes of you and others in the session on the screen. Use "Labels" to control what information (if any) is displayed in each musician's video box on the screen. 


When you're happy with the layout of the video window, go ahead and start up the OBS Studio application on your computer. When you start up OBS, the JamKazam video window should automatically be displayed in OBS (pictured below).



Now you can go back to the JamKazam app, and click the Record button in the session toolbar (pictured below with arrow).






You now see the recording dialog box (pictured below). 



Following are explanations of the recording options pictured above:

  • Record - To make a video recording, select the "Audio and Video" option. 
  • Name - Enter a short but descriptive name for your recording. You don't need to enter a date, as this will be provided automatically by the system. Your recording files will be saved into a folder on your computer with the date and time you made the recording, plus this recording name.
  • Video Format - Select the file format you want to use to save your video recording. 
  • All other recording options work as described in our help article on making audio recordings.


When you and everyone in your session is ready to go, click the Start Recording button at the bottom of the dialog box. The dialog will disappear, and you'll see that the Record button in the session toolbar has changed to a Stop Recording button (pictured below with arrow). A notification will be displayed to all other musicians in your session as well, so that they know a recording has started.



When you are ready to stop your recording, click the Stop Recording button in the session toolbar. When you click the button to stop recording, a window will immediately be displayed on your computer screen, showing a folder with all the audio files you've chosen to record listed (pictured below). If you don't see this folder immediately, it's very likely hidden behind the JamKazam app window. 



In the example above, the Session-Video.mp4 is the video recording file. You can simply double click on this file to view your video recording. The other files are audio recording files captured based on the audio recording preferences you have selected, as explained in our help article on making audio recordings.