Immediate, clear broadcasting of Google+ Hangouts works, if you use a second system to attend and stream the Hangout with XSplit Broadcaster and Justin.tv

Today, I performed a continuation of my Google+ Hangout tests last weekend, and this week with Jim Collison and Greg Welch.  Most of those test are described at TinkerTry.com/google-hangout-testing.

It could be a while before Google+ Hangout on Air is available. When it does arrive, with convenient auto-publishing to YouTube, it may not record in high enough resolution to be useful for capturing demonstrations or screen sharing sessions that I'd like to host. So I'm trying out live recording techniques, which I managed to get working tonight, without any fancy audio mixing software or hardware.  Just my Logitech C920 webcam and Jabra PRO 9470 headset.

If there's enough demand, I'll record a video or screenshots of me setting all this up.

Here's the not-so-secret-anymore recipe for success:

1)  Primary computer is used to start the Google Hangout on its primary display, inviting myself to the Hangout, to get set up for broadcast

2)  Primary computer has a secondary display, where I leave a browser running to show the  justin.tv/tinkertry channel's live stream and chat
I make sure to mute the audio (since it's delayed by a few seconds)
Anybody can view the live stream stream and chat with each other, but the Google+ Hangout participants use Google+ Hangout's built-in chat to communicate with one another.

3)  Secondary computer is used for broadcasting. In my first test tonight, it was a virtual machine (so no physical sound card or no speakers), running under ESXi 5.0 on Core i7 vZilla, with:

• plenty of CPU power assigned to it (Core i7, 4 of 8 hyperthreaded cores total assigned)
• on the Hardware settings of the VM, I made sure to use “Enable 3d support” on the virtual video card, with resolution of 1280×720
• on the settings of the Remote Desktop Connection session, I made sure to use the Local Resources tab, Remote audio, Play on this computer (this ensures a “Remote Audio” sound device is present)

4)  Chrome is used in the VM to login to Google+ and join the hangout (with myself), I immediately then hit the Mic mute button, and check that when I talk, the sound below the webcam view of me indicates sound is being picked up

5)  XSplit Broadcaster 1.0 was used in the VM and used to live transmit 720p video and audio of its entire desktop of the VM, to Miami's justin.tv
Any desktop software demonstrations are done from this VM, since it has the clearest video, and isn't subject to the inevitable blurriness of the Google Hangout, for those who watch live or on replay on justin.tv/tinkertry

You can see the results of my first test here, looks and sounds pretty good, 25 frames per second, 1280x720 video, with 16KHz 16 bit 42200 bitrate mono recording:
www.justin.tv/tinkertry/b/316512422

Some of my other test videos have some echo, I'll figure out what is causing that after some more testing.

But the good news is that it works, and works well. No video editing required on my part, no large FLV files saved locally if I don't wish. And it's ready for anybody to replay, in full resolution, within just a few seconds of my stopping the XSplit Broadcaster. Nice!