How would you set this up?

[momosake]

Hi there. Hope this is in the correct area.

I have a group of tabletop gamers that want to start using Google+ Hangouts at our in-person sessions at a local shop. We want this, that way they can be recorded for anyone whose missed sessions and also so that we can get to game live with people who might live too far away to make it in-person, but still want to be part of the fun.

I'm curious if there's a way I could hook up something relatively inexpensively.. Maybe give everybody their own mics, so they can be heard clearly over the background chatter in the shop.. Whether that means everybody bring their laptops & use the camera on that & then just hook up a mic to their person.. Or if I ring something up or whatever.

I've never set anything like this up before, so I don't know what to do exactly.. But the shop has free wifi & we can all bring laptops/tablets with cameras, the sound is the main issue I am not sure how to overcome.

Alrighty, any input or anything would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dangman]

in regard to the recording aspect, it looks your hangout can be recorded straight to Youtube:
http://kimgarst.com/step-by-step-how-to-record-google-hangouts

 

[momosake]

oh, i know that. that's why we're using hangouts. i was needing help with the other stuff... but i appreciate the reply! thank you!

 

[Dangman]

I'm still a tad confused at what exactly you want do. So you want each person to show up on Google+ Hangout even the ones who are physically located nearby?

 

[momosake]

Yes. I want each person who is at the table to show up & be heard individually. Not everybody has a laptop, so I need to know if I need to go buy some old cheap ones to loan those that don't have laptops & just log on to the google hangout that way.. Or if there is a way I can have it so that one or two computers can do this for like 5 people somehow.

We're doing Google+ Hangouts. Each person needs to be seen and heard by the people that will be joining the group online.

Some of our group moved out of state & they still want to game with us, so I'm trying to figure something out.

I'm really interested if anyone has any mic recommendations, or if I should just have everyone use headsets. Whatever the case, we need something that will block out all the background chatter from everyone around us.. Or at least muffle it... They have a lot of tournaments & stuff at the shop for Magic/YuGiOh/etc & it gets kinda loud. Sometimes you can barely hear the person sitting next to you, let alone trying to talk to someone on speaker through your laptop. lol

 

[Dangman]

I'm really interested if anyone has any mic recommendations, or if I should just have everyone use headsets. Whatever the case, we need something that will block out all the background chatter from everyone around us.. Or at least muffle it... They have a lot of tournaments & stuff at the shop for Magic/YuGiOh/etc & it gets kinda loud. Sometimes you can barely hear the person sitting next to you, let alone trying to talk to someone on speaker through your laptop. lol

Ask for mic recommendations over in the Computer Audio subforum. That would be your best bet for a solid answer on that.

As for the hardware side, if you know a bit about virtualization, what you could do is to have multiple virtual machines (VM) running on one PC. Since Google+ supposedly works on Linux, you can have Ubuntu Linux running in each VM. Then pass a webcam and a sound card with a mic attached (you may need multiple sound cards) to each Ubuntu Linux VM. From there, just login a different Google+ account per VM. So you could do this off one PC with a quad-core CPU.