I come after a period of experimentation, slightly frustrated. I know that in theory Audio Hijack is the answer to this, but I can’t quite get it to work reliably under all of the combinations of variables.
The TL;DR of what I want to accomplish is this: one click (or otherwise very easy to start) recording of a video call, with support for Zoom or browser-based (Google Meet) calls. It should be able to handle he recording of my side no matter what input I use – built-in microphone, external microphone, or headphones. The output should be an audio file with both sides of the conversation.
“Record a call” seems like someone should have made an app that just … works … to do this with minimal configuration. Am I missing something in Audio Hijack that would allow one workflow to cover the multiple variables in call platform/input source here?
Make sure that the application is the one you want to record
Make sure that the output device is mapped to the audio device you want to use
Run
You can export the session as a file to reuse the preset exactly as is.
You can add a transcribe block which uses Whisper locally on your mac and is a great recent addition to the app.
While you can do this easily in Zoom, it does notify the other participants that you are recording. I suspect the intent is to record without the other participants knowing.
I use Zoom’s built-in recording for this. I do it several times a week. It records all sides and puts up a prominent notification onscreen letting all participants know they are being recorded.
I’m pretty sure it records the video, but I can’t guarantee it,as I only care about the audio.
Microsoft Teams offers similar capabilities, but I don’t trust its reliability and try to avoid Teams meetings for that reason.
I also record meetings using otter.ai, both for redundancy purposes and to get a fast transcript.
Totally agree, depends on which state you and the other people are in. I’m unsure if the same rules apply to videoconferencing as phone calls. In my case, whenever I’m on a conference call I assume I am being recorded and act accordingly.
Otter.ai gives you the option in Google Meet of recording just for yourself or for all participants. If you record only for yourself, other participants are not notified.
You may be right. My first reaction was, “Oh, no, that’s highly unethical!”
My second reaction was: Well, it depends.
We can all think of situations where recording someone without their knowledge is shady indeed.
On the other hand, if you’re trapped doing business with someone who’s unethical–a landlord or employer—then having a recording can be important self-protection.
However, as others have noted here, the legality of consent varies in different jurisdictions. In California, where I live and do business, the consent of both parties is required. In Canada, only one party needs to consent, which permits secret recording, as we learned in the Apollo/Reddit controversy last summer.
