Software/Equipment you could not live without?

[Bella]

It’s a brand new week! Let’s kick it off with a new Hot Topic!

What is the one piece of equipment or software that is integral to your success as an online instructor?

Leave a comment below!

[KylePew]

OBS - Open Broadcaster Software. I use OBS to record all my talking head/screen sharing lectures. The program makes it easy to record all my video and audio with loads of features to boost quality in both. I used Camtasia in the early days, but switched to OBS and haven't looked back.

[Andy186]

OBS has been very helpful. I also found FreeCam to be nice and simple for screen recording and quick edits. I observed that it is very helpful for making fast production involving quick screen captures when advanced editing is not required. 

[FrankKane]

I really love my Shure SM7B microphone. As I do more screencast / voiceover lectures than "talking heads," it's the most important piece of gear I have.

It's not cheap, and to make matters worse you also need a "CloudLifter" device to boost its signal on top of a A/D adapter (I use a Blue Icicle) in order to connect it to your PC. But I don't regret re-investing some of my course earnings on it. As an extra bonus, I sound better than everyone on Zoom calls 😛

[StephaneMaarek]

okay I just bought it haha 🙂

Btw I think you don't need all that extra gear if you have a mixpre 3 ii !

[VirajShetty265]

Right now it's iMovie on a Mac - which I use for Noise Filtering and Editing. I am thinking of investing in Camtasia. 

[Sir September]

That will be OBS for screen capture & Davinci Resolve for Video & Audio Editing. 

[Salil Dhawan]

Adobe Premiere Pro

[Umar]

NVIDIA Broadcast. Filters out all the background noise during recording. 

[DaveH]

vokoscreen for screen recording

Shotcut for video editing

Audacity for audio editing

Atom for displaying code on screen (it's clearer and simpler than VSCode)

Recently slides.com for animated presentations

Google Slides for scripts, on-screen diagrams

Firefox for showing the browser on screen.

I'm a Linux user, but most of the above are cross-platform. All are free unless you want private presentations on slides.com, but it's very cheap if you do want that. All are open source apart from Google Slides.