Is Zoom's Local Recording truly "local"?

[bmcloughlin]

We are using Zoom to record a podcast. In this arena, competitors like Zencastr and Streamyard tout "local recording," which they use to mean: "Each user records a separate audio and video file on their device and uploads them to StreamYard in the background. Even if someone has a weak connection, the recordings won't be blurry or choppy." and "if you or your guests experience issues with your internet connections (drops, disconnections) the quality of the recorded audio and video will not be impacted by those issues." As in, all the recording is taking place on the participant's computer, then being uploaded over the internet, resulting in higher quality.

I know that you can collect separate audio tracks and I know that Zoom has "local recording", but Zoom's page on this describes Local Recording as the ability to download the file to your desktop at the end. Based on what I know about Zoom and the fact that I've never heard of Zoom waiting for an audio file to upload, I am guessing it does not work the same way as Zencastr/Streamyard/etc. even though they are using the same terminology. Can anyone confirm how Zoom's "local recording" works?

[Ray_Harwood · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @bmcloughlin.

The short overview answer is this: the Zoom desktop app collects all audio (yours and any received audio) plus all video (is camera, other cameras, and any shared screen); it stuffs all of this into one or more “temporary” files on your computer; after the meeting is over, a process is kicked off that breaks apart the data stuffed into the temporary files and formats them into the resulting video and audio recordings you normally see in the Local Recording folder. 

There’s no magic, and it’s not like Zencastr or Streamyard which have capabilities that most people don’t need. 

I’ve heard informal, unofficial discussion that Zoom might some day provide a “dual ended” recording option, one that would record on the Zoom Cloud, and initiate recording of just the user’s audio and video “locally” which would get collected into the Cloud for “professional recording and editing” purposes. I haven’t heard much since – no time frames or status. But Zoom generally seems to want to help those of us that want to do post-event edits for evergreen content, so I’m hopeful this will be seriously considered and implemented.  Getting clean, crisp audio and video from all presenters would be a great feature!!

[JCdoesVoiceover]

What I can't find a definitive answer to is, if I'm recording the meeting to my computer, whether or not my audio and video is recorded locally before going out to the servers and back? Have you seen this clarified anywhere?

[Ray_Harwood]

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @JCdoesVoiceover.

I’m not a Zoom developer, but I’m reasonably sure Zoom does not return your audio and video to you, which likely also means that your local recording uses the locally-produced audio and video. 

[JCdoesVoiceover]

Right, could be. Thanks for the info Ray.