Recently, I and a colleague had a poster accepted to a conference we wanted to attend. Yay! However, we also had to send a video with the poster pitch along with the poster itself. And there, my friend, was an unanticipated challenge!

First of all, we found out about the video close to the deadline. Our fault. Then, it was difficult and confusing to figure out the etiquette of the whole thing. Should we go over the poster and zoom in and out to better present the content? Or should we make an accompanying slide deck for the pitch? We chose the slide deck approach, only to find out most presenters chose the poster one. We did not regret our decision, though. This is just a simple example of something we had for given that just wasn’t.

And then, how to record? Without experience in the métier, I ended up with the following recording setup:

• OBS - Open Broadcaster Software: Recording the screen, capturing video and audio.
• Shotcut: Video edition.

I recorded smaller sections without mistakes with OBS and stitched them on Shotcut. I also removed long pauses as I pleased to reduce the presentation length.

The result was pleasing. The video came out with good quality and a small file size. The learning curve of the software was none since both were pretty intuitive for the tasks at hand. I would 10/10 recommend the combo to anyone in a similar situation.

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