Teams and PSTN; How to Record 1:1 calls with OBS Studio for free

Microsoft Teams offer a 1:1 Teams call recording solution when both endopoint use Teams, but it do not works with PSTN calls. Centralized Call Recording solutions works perfectly with SIPREC, but they are not cheep. A Customer ask me today how to record 1:1 Microsoft Teams and PSTN calls, so I started thinking about how to get this function at no cost: the answer is OBS Studio!

OBS Studio Setup

To use OBS Studio as a Microsoft Teams 1:1 call recording solution, you need to download and install it from the official site: https://obsproject.com/download

Add Sources

Launch OBS Studio, then click the plus (+) button in the bottom left corner of the Sources area to add the following objects

Add Audio Input Capture -> Default Device to record your voice

Add Audio Output Capture -> Default Device to record the remote voice (PSTN)

To avoid the “No Sources” warning every time you start the recording, add Image -> Empty file

At the end the Sources are should look like this one above

OBS Recording Settings

Go to Settings -> Output to setup Recording parameters like the image above.
Output Mode: Simple
Recording Path: select the folder where you want to store the recording files
Recording Quality: High Quality, Medium File Size
Recording Format: mp4
Encoder: Hardware (if available)

OBS Hotkeys

Go to Hotkeys and setup a Start and Stop Recording key combination (like the example above), choose something easy to remember and to press.

Test the solution

Make a simple PSTN call from Teams and hit the Start Recording Hotkey combination, both call speaker voices will be recorded by OBS Studio in files like these below.

I think this is a good solution for free, please let me know if you have any suggestions to improve it.

Best Regards
Luca

For more Teams news check out our resource centre

About the Author:

Microsoft Office Apps & Services MVP
MCSE | SfB and Teams Enterprise Voice Specialist
Ribbon SBC | KalliopePBX | DECT Specialist
Cloud Video Interop Solutions | EICC Solutions

Reference:

Vitali, L. (2020). How to record 1:1 Teams and PSTN calls with OBS Studio for free. Available at: https://lucavitali.wordpress.com/2020/11/09/how-to-record-11-teams-and-pstn-calls-with-obs-studio-for-free/ [Accessed: 25th November 2020].

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