What is a One Button Studio?

What is a One Button Studio?

A One Button Studio is an automated audio/video recording system designed to make recording presentations easy for anyone. The basic functionality is as follows:

1. The presenter, following onscreen directions, inputs a flash drive. (Also known as a thumb drive.) The system automatically turns on the studio lights.
2. A new message appears onscreen, indicating that the user may start and stop recording by pushing the button.
3. The presenter pushes the button, a recording countdown is shown, and recording begins.
4. The presenter delivers the presentation and hits the button again to stop recording.
5. The onscreen message indicates that the recorded file is being copied to the flash drive.
6. When the file copy is finished, the presenter is prompted to unplug the flash drive, which causes the studio lights to turn off.
7. The One Button Studio system returns to its beginning state, ready for the next presenter.

History of the One Button Studio

The One Button Studio concept was originally conceived at an EduCause conference, in the early 2010’s.  A working One Button Studio system was developed in 2014 by a team at Penn State. Combining off-the-shelf hardware, software and a custom Mac app, Penn State deployed around thirty installations at their own campuses, and the plans were released to the public. Dozens of other universities and colleges jumped on the idea of a self-service video production room and built One Button Studios, following Penn State’s online instructions and resources. As of 2022, these resources are no longer available, because Penn State unveiled their One Button Studio 2.0 system, officially retiring the long-outdated One Button Studio 1.0. The 2.0 systems are being kept ‘in-house’, meaning that plans and software will neither be offered to other educational institutions, nor to the general public.

In 2018, the first turn-key One Button Studio kits were made available for sale by DVEstore Inc. Branded under the name of StudioMatic™, their most popular One Button Studio product is called the One Button Studio Plus, which offers live presentation compositing. In other words, the presenter can load a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, select a background, select a watermark, and it all becomes part of the recorded presentation.

Extron, a long-time player in the AV industry, released a system in 2017 called the Studio Station, which offers some of the basic functionality of a One Button Studio system. Here is a comparison chart which gives an overview of the differences between the Extron Studio Station and StudioMatic’s pre-built One Button Studio kits.