Local studio-grade audio and video recording from any browser
Can you actually get studio quality podcast recordings over a shaky home broadband connection?
Yes, provided you do not record the internet stream itself. That simple distinction is why Riverside exists. Traditional conference platforms take whatever mashed, compressed signal survives your guest's dodgy Wi-Fi and saves it to the cloud. Riverside takes a different route. It turns each participant's web browser into a local recording deck. Video and audio record straight to the local hard drive in pristine quality, while a lower-resolution stream keeps everyone in sync on screen. As the session continues, the clean local files upload quietly in the background.
For independent broadcasters, remote interviewers, and media companies, this architecture has solved the single biggest headache of remote production. You no longer have to beg a guest in Edinburgh or Toronto to record their own audio on a phone voice memo app and send it via WeTransfer. Riverside does the heavy lifting, provided your guests follow a couple of basic rules.
When you invite someone into a Riverside studio, they click a link and land in a virtual green room. There is nothing to download or configure. Once you hit the record button, the platform captures separate WAV audio tracks and up to 4K video files for every caller.
Because the capture happens locally on each machine, a sudden connection dip does not ruin your master file. If your guest freezes for three seconds on your screen, that glitch exists only in the live monitor feed. The actual local file continues recording without dropped frames or robotic audio artifacts. When the call ends, Riverside piecemeals the uploads into your project dashboard.
This design brings one major operational requirement: your guests must keep their browser open until their files finish uploading. Riverside provides a clear status bar showing each participant's upload percentage. If an impatient guest snaps their laptop shut the moment you say goodbye, the final minutes of their local track remain trapped on their machine until they reopen the link. The platform does include a recovery system, but waiting three minutes before closing the session remains standard practice.
Setting up a studio takes less than two minutes. You name the project, pick whether you need audio only or audio plus video, and generate guest links. You can also generate dedicated audience links and producer links.
The producer role is especially handy for structured productions. A producer can sit in the studio, adjust microphone gain levels, monitor upload health, and chat with the host privately via text without appearing on the final video tracks. If you run client interviews, this allows brand managers or agency staff to watch the taping quietly without distracting the talent.
During live recording, the studio interface displays controls for screen sharing, media boards for live sound effects, and an integrated teleprompter. The teleprompter floats over your browser window right near your camera lens, allowing solo presenters to read show notes without breaking eye contact with the lens. Everything feels purpose-built for media production rather than corporate quarterly updates.
Most people weighing up Riverside compare it directly to SquadCast and Descript, or simply wonder why they cannot stick with Zoom. Zoom compresses audio into a narrow frequency range designed for speech intelligibility on phone lines, stripping out the warmth and dynamic range of a proper microphone. Riverside captures 48kHz uncompressed WAV audio, giving audio engineers plenty of headroom to EQ and compress properly.
SquadCast offers similar local recording quality and integrates directly with Descript, but Riverside has pulled ahead on video reliability and standalone post-production utilities. Riverside also supports higher video capture rates, offering clean 4K tracks on compatible webcams and external cameras where other platforms cap out at 1080p.
Another advantage is the mobile app. If your interviewee cannot sit at a desk, they can join using the Riverside iOS or Android app. The mobile client still records locally using the phone's high-grade rear camera, providing a surprisingly crisp backup when someone is travelling.
Over the past two years, Riverside has expanded from a pure capture tool into a browser-based editing suite. Once an interview wraps, the software automatically generates a complete transcription with speaker labels. From there, you can edit your recording by editing the text.
If your guest rambles for two minutes, highlight the offending paragraph in the transcript, hit delete, and the underlying video and audio clip updates instantly. The platform also offers automated silence removal, which snips out awkward pauses and breathy gaps across all tracks simultaneously while keeping the conversation in phase.
Then there is Magic Clips, an automated tool aimed squarely at social distribution. The system scans the conversation for self-contained points, humorous remarks, or heated discussions, then extracts thirty-to-sixty-second clips. It re-frames the video into vertical format, centres the active speaker automatically, and burns animated captions onto the screen.
Do these clips replace a professional video editor? Not entirely. The automated framing sometimes cuts off hand gestures, and the text selection can pick strange moments to cut. However, if you produce a weekly show and need five acceptable social teasers by Friday afternoon, Magic Clips completes eighty percent of the grunt work in ten minutes.
Riverside is far from flawless. Because it runs complex media encoders and background upload threads inside Chromium, it consumes significant system memory. If you run an older Intel-based laptop with eight gigabytes of RAM, your cooling fans will sound like an aircraft taking off within ten minutes. Guests using underpowered machines occasionally experience browser crashes if they leave dozens of other applications running simultaneously.
Another frustration lies in the automated text editor. While it handles standard accents well, regional British dialects and niche technical terms often produce transcription errors. Correcting these in the transcript editor is simple enough, but you cannot rely on it blindly for client-ready captions without proofreading.
Finally, the browser dependency remains a double-edged sword. Riverside works best on Google Chrome. While Edge and Brave generally behave, guests trying to join via Safari frequently encounter camera permission bugs or upload stalls. You will find yourself sending polite preparation notes reminding guests to install Chrome before your interview starts.
Riverside operates on a freemium model. The free tier gives you two hours of separate track recording with watermarked video exports, which is generous enough to test your hardware and understand the recording workflow before spending money.
Paid plans unlock uncompressed WAV audio, remove watermarks, and introduce higher video resolutions up to 4K. Higher tiers also add more monthly hours of separate track recording and expand access to automated transcription and AI clipping credits. Rather than budgeting around static numbers, check the site for current prices, as packaging and promotional tiers shift periodically. If you produce more than two shows a month, you will quickly outgrow the free tier due to export resolution limits.
Riverside makes complete sense for podcasters, corporate communication teams, content agencies, and independent creators who cannot afford degraded audio or pixelated guest video. If your final output ends up on Spotify, YouTube, or broadcast television, the local track capture pays for itself on the first avoided disaster.
Who should skip it? Solo creators who only record themselves at their own desk do not need this platform. A simple copy of OBS Studio, QuickTime, or a local digital audio workstation will do the same job for free without running through a browser. Similarly, teams that only need informal internal catchups should stick to Zoom or Google Meet. Riverside is a dedicated production studio, not a casual chat room. If you do not care about post-production track isolation or uncompressed sound quality, Riverside's operational overhead and strict upload routines will only get in your way.
freemium — from Free plan available