Tonight I used VDO Ninja for the first time.
It’s a great bit of kit and really easy to login and chat. However, being the director and trying to understand all of the powerful features was tough. At first use.
Thankfully I wasn’t recording an interview, it was a project catch up with my long-time friend and collaborator Laura from Peanut Designs. She’s helping me sort out the social media graphics for the dance school – I recommend Laura, if you’re looking for a graphic designer then check out her website, Peanut Designs
VDO Ninja was created by Steve Seguin and released towards the end of the first lockdown. I’ve wanted to use it for a number of years but never had an opportunity.
So tonight’s call seemed like a good chance to test it out.
My initial VDO Ninja thoughts
We both found it easy to get into the room and chat with each other. Sharing my screen was really easy too.
Laura had a good experience as she had entered as a guest. Which means everything was full screen and the controls were simple.
I had a harder experience just because the director view is so powerful, I didn’t figure out in the call how to make Laura’s camera big on my screen.
Also, even when I’d stopped sharing my screen the “screen share performer” still appears in the list of performers. So I thought I was still sharing screen and couldn’t get rid.
No problem, we soon realised I wasn’t sharing.
Next I tried dragging the feeds into OBS.
How to fix VDO Ninja audio problems when bringing guests into OBS
Adding the feeds into OBS was as easy as drag and dropping the links.
However, I had a massive echo anytime someone spoke. This was a big problem I couldn’t figure out.
Turns out I had made a super simple mistake. I left the “speaker mic” in VDO Ninja on, where as the Director should listen to the audio inside OBS.
A big thanks to Sam from “Live Production Tips & Tools” for the video on fixing this problem:
In that video Sam also goes through how the Director should feed their camera and audio back into VDO Ninja so the guests can see them.
How to setup and use VDO Ninja reusable links
I can’t remember which tutorial video it’s in, but Steve (VDO Ninja creator) talks about reusable rooms and links. This is so you can built your setup in OBS, share a link with a guest and they appear straight in OBS without you needing to edit anything.
Again Sam has a video that walks you through the process nice and simply.
Using VDO Ninja without a room for simple browser-to-browser video chat
After some playing and research I realise this is perhaps the best or at least simplest way to do a 1:1 chat.
No need to start a room. Simply push a video feed and view your friends.
It’s such a cool tool!
Leave a Reply