- This is the complete updated guide
to Windows screen recording.
We're gonna look at the simplest ways
to record your screen on Windows with or without audio,
plus the best screen capture apps available
and exactly how to use them.
Hi, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video,
where we help you grow an audience
and scale your revenue with online video.
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And all the links to everything I mention,
you can find linked in the description box below.
So let's jump into it.
Screen captures are a great way to step your audience
through a process on screen,
teaching them how to use an app or software,
record a presentation with slides,
or even capture B-roll of product pages
or websites for your videos.
In fact, screen captures are one of the easiest ways
to create a B-roll or overlay footage.
So if you're not using them, you definitely should be.
So in this video, we'll be covering
exactly how you can capture your screen on Windows
with a range of options, both free and paid.
So there is a lot of options out there.
You've got things like OBS, Snagit, Zoom, ShareX,
Flashback, Bandicam, Screencast-O-Matic, CloudApp,
Screencastify, Wondershare DemoCreator, Camtasia.
So after trying and testing all the top options,
here is our shortlist.
- So the first option is already built into your computer
and it's called X-Box Game Bar.
But don't worry you don't need to have an X-Box
or anything like that.
This is simple free built-in screen recording software.
So this one is designed for gaming,
but it will work for recording anything
on your computer screen.
So this one will let you record audio from your computer,
as well as your computer microphone.
Now there is no webcam support.
So this is a very basic option.
There's also no built in editing functionality.
So this is just basic software for screen recording
that's already included on your computer.
So to open it up, you just wanna come down
to the Start Bar and start typing in Game Bar.
As you can see we've got the X-Box Game Bar,
and you'll see at the top now
there's a little popup that's appeared.
And this will float above any program
or any app that you have running.
So you can do things like configure up your audio
by pressing on this button here.
And you can see we can adjust all of that,
volumes and things in here.
If we go over and to voice, we can choose our microphone.
And then the next one over here,
this is where we can control our capture.
So if we wanna take just a static image screenshot,
we can press this one,
or press Windows + Alt + Print Screen.
This next one here will let us record the last
or the previous 30 seconds.
So we can either click on this or press Windows + Alt + G.
Next one across here is our main video recording
or start recording, Windows + Alt + R.
And the last button here
is to mute or unmute your microphone
or again, keyboard shortcut, Windows + Alt + M.
So it's a really simple solution
for screen recording on Windows.
But if you do want access to a few more features
to control this, they are kind of hidden.
So you've got to come down here again to Start
and start typing in game,
and we can see here Game Mode settings.
So we select on that and come up here to Captures.
Then in here, we can choose where our screen recordings
are gonna be saved.
We can scroll down here and adjust things like
our audio quality, so we could increase that
if we wanted higher quality audio recording,
we can also adjust things like our frame rate
and change it from 30 frames per second up to 60.
And also adjust the video quality from standard up to high.
And you've also got the ability in here to turn on or off
whether your mouse is going to be captured
in your screen recording as well.
So this is the X-Box Game Bar
and it's software that's already included
on your Windows computer.
Then the next option you've got is OBS,
or Open Broadcaster Software.
Now this is a really popular live streaming
and screen recording software for both PC and Mac.
And probably the biggest reason it's so popular
is because of the huge amounts of settings and control
that you have over everything and the price tag.
It's open source software, so it's totally free.
So to share your screen,
you just wanna come down to this Sources panel
and click that little plus button,
and then choose either Display Capture
to record your entire computer screen
or down to Window Capture
to share a specific application or window.
So I'm gonna go with Window Capture.
We'll go, okay on this one and you can then choose in here
which application or which window you want to have.
So I've got a Google Chrome window with YouTube open.
Let's select this one go, okay.
And then we can come over here
and we can resize and reposition this to customize it up
as for what area we actually want to record.
And you also have webcam recording capabilities
in here as well.
So if we come back down to this Sources area
and choose the plus, let's add a Video Capture Device.
Go okay on this one.
And there we are.
Hey, I'm on webcam.
So in here we get a lot of settings to customize things up
from your resolution, your frame rate.
We're just gonna go ahead and go okay with this.
But then we've got our video feed in here
that we can again pick up, move around, and resize
all to set the scene for what you're gonna be recording.
So if you wanna create videos where you are on screen,
you definitely have that capability here in OBS.
And you can also set up multiple scenes.
So we currently have one scene here,
where it's recording my Chrome tab
and me down the bottom corner.
We can also create a second scene
by hitting the little plus button down here.
You can give it a name or let's run with scene two,
and then we can go ahead and add new video sources
into this scene.
So if we click on the plus, let's go Video Capture Device,
we can add in our same webcam again.
Video Capture Device, go okay.
There's me on camera.
Let's scale this up so that it fits full screen.
So we've now got a scene, which is me full screen,
and we've also got our other scene,
which is my computer screen and me down the bottom corner.
So all we need to do then is come over here
and hit start recording.
And while we're recording, you can just click
on the different scenes here to switch between them
so that your recording can include both.
So while this is live streaming software primarily,
it's awesome that you've got access to the same tools
for doing your screen recordings as well.
Now, in terms of some of those settings,
if we go over to settings and then down to output,
then under the recording section here,
this is where you can dial everything in,
from changing the recording quality, the recording format,
the encoder that you're using on your computer
to generate these files and actually do the recording.
And for those of you that are after
the really advanced stuff,
then you can come over here and switch your output mode
from simple to advanced to unlock those additional settings.
So there is a ton of settings in here,
and this is why I said that this is really aimed at someone
who is at that more advanced end of things.
Someone who is looking for the most amount of features,
most amount of control to really be able to dial in
and configure everything up.
Now, something to be aware of
when you are recording with OBS,
is that while we can add these scenes
and pick up and move elements around
before and during our recording,
once we actually hit record,
what we're saving out is one flattened video file.
So afterwards you actually don't have the ability
to pick up and move the webcam around,
or have it as a separate video file recording,
that we do with some of the other options
that I'm gonna introduce you to soon.
So it's not a deal breaker,
but it definitely doesn't have that level of control
or flexibility that you find in other options.
So overall, it's a great option for free.
There's a ton of advanced controls and everything in here,
but it's definitely on the more complicated side of things.
So the next option is Wondershare video creator,
and this is another one that's available on both Mac and PC.
This one will let you record your computer screen
and also your webcam and any audio sources,
all on separate tracks
so that you can actually edit these down afterwards,
which is really powerful.
So this is what you see when you open up the app.
You just wanna go over to new recording.
And once this loads, you just wanna come down
to this little settings button here
to configure everything up.
So if we press on this, straight out we get to customize
our actual screen recording here,
whether we want to record our computer screen or not,
whether it's full screen, whether it's a custom size,
or a specific application, or game, or anything.
So I'll leave this here as full screen.
We're also gonna to select our frame rate,
everything from 15 frames per second
right up to 120 frames per second.
Or if you are gonna be recording a game,
then you can specify that here.
Then over here under Audio,
we get to choose if we want to capture audio or not.
We have to specify our microphone.
Likewise, under webcam capture, yes or no.
And which webcam or which video source we wanna capture.
And then we get to customize that up further
with the resolution and the frame rate.
So if I go ahead and pick up my webcam here now,
you can see we have access to all the different settings
that that camera supports.
And then down here under advance,
we've got things like enabling GPU acceleration
for better performance if it's supported by your computer,
where your video files are gonna be saved out too.
Under Encode, we've got your video quality settings.
So if you want the highest quality screen recordings,
you can set this here too high,
and then you can control your shortcuts over here
if you wanna speed things up with your workflow.
Let's go ahead and hit capture.
We'll see that I'm on webcam down the bottom here now.
So then to start the recording,
we just need to hit the big record button.
So if I press on this, we're gonna get again,
a countdown timer from three.
It gives us some keyboard shortcuts to start
and stop and to pause the recording,
but we don't need to worry about picking up the webcam
and moving it around,
because this is recording a separate video track
just for the webcam itself,
and a separate one for the screen recording.
Now, we also have some screen drawing tools down here too,
which we can turn on just like we saw in CloudApp,
where we can do things like grab an arrow
and draw an arrow on screen, pick them up, move them around,
just to add some annotations to your screen recording.
So I'm gonna press the stop button here
to stop our screen recording.
It's gonna go ahead then and open up the video editor mode.
And this is where this app gets really powerful.
So we can see we've got a full editing timeline
like you would see in regular video editing software.
Here, we've got our recording at the top
and we've got a ton of tools and stuff
over here on the side.
But then down the bottom here for our recording,
you can see that we've got a separate track for the audio,
which we can pick up, move around, delete,
make adjustments to just the audio,
and likewise for the webcam and the screen recording.
So let's say, for example, that we wanted to start our video
with me on screen full screen
before we switch over to the computer screen.
So what I would do in this case
is select the webcam track here,
then come up the top here to scale.
And let's scale this up to 100%.
And from there we can pick it up
and we can move it around into position.
Looks like we might actually need to scale it up
a little bit more so that it fits
in our screen recording here.
There we go.
So our video now will start with me full screen.
And then let's say at this point,
we wanna add a split in our clip here to split it into two.
Then let's customize up this second piece here,
so at this point in our video we would want me smaller.
I can come over here to scale and drop that back down.
So maybe we want me off to the side here
for the rest of the video,
or you might even find that you don't want
the webcam piece at all,
in which case we can select it, press delete,
and it's actually gone.
So the webcam piece is only there for the start
and then you're just left with the rest of the recording.
Now, in terms of other functionality you've got in here,
if we come up here to Titles,
you've got the ability to bring in
a lot of different preset titles and graphics
and things for your videos.
Below that we've got annotations.
So if we wanna drop in a dialog box,
then we can just drop it in on screen here.
We can click, move it around.
We can, double-click on it to customize it up.
We can resize it if we wanna make it smaller.
Again, all of this really quick and really simple.
But one of the things I think is really powerful in here
is the ability to customized things up
like your mouse cursor after your recording has finished.
So if we select our actual screen recording here
and then come over to Cursor,
then in here we've got some different effects
that we can add on.
So we could use this effect here to highlight our cursor.
So if we dropped that on,
we can see we've now got this yellow circle that appears.
And as our mouse moves around,
that yellow circle is gonna follow that around
so that it's easy for our viewers to see.
Now, if I undo that now with this bottom track selected,
I can also come over here to scale for the cursor.
So you can see on the screen here now
we're making that mouse cursor much bigger.
So it's another option that we've got
to again, make it easier for our viewers
to, again, follow along with what we're showing them
in our videos.
And again, we're doing this all after the recording itself
has actually finished.
So this is a really powerful feature
that most of the other options
that we've covered don't have.
But probably the biggest feature
that this program is missing,
is the ability to apply any sort of color grade
or color adjustment to any of your clips.
So if we wanted to adjust the colors on,
say my webcam here a bit,
right now there's no option to do it.
So it's not a deal breaker,
but it's definitely something to be aware of.
Now, in terms of pricing, you've got two options.
You can buy this outright for $59.99,
and that's a one-time fee.
Or you can jump on a $39.99 annual plan,
which will give you access to any upgrades
that they release.
So overall, I was pretty surprised with DemoCreator.
It's something that's really simple, really easy to use.
And it's great value in comparison
to some of the other similar options that are out there.
But if you're looking for something
with more advanced controls
and things like color adjustment tools,
then the next option will be for you.
So the next option is Camtasia.
Now this one is a much more powerful solution
that actually lets you record simultaneously
your webcam and your computer screen,
and makes it really simple to record
and create professional looking videos
on both windows and Mac.
But the biggest difference with Camtasia
versus pretty much all the other options
is that this is actually really powerful
video editing solution as well.
And I know a lot of people are just using Camtasia
as their editing platform,
irrespective of whether they're doing screen recording
or not.
So even just as a video editor,
this is a really powerful option.
So when you open it up,
you get to choose if you're gonna create
a new video editing project or a new screen recording.
So we're gonna go with New Recording.
And then down the bottom here, we have our recording panel.
So again, we get to choose
whether we are going to record our computer screen,
our screen resolution.
Whether we wanna do the full screen,
some smaller or lower quality resolutions
in different formats,
so our widescreen formats are four by three,
or we can come down here and we can select
a specific area to record as well.
We get to turn on or off our webcam in here.
So if we turn the webcam on now,
we see we get a little preview window here.
And if I put my mouse over it,
then we get a bigger preview that shows up,
Next one across here, again, is the Microphone.
We get to choose if it's on or off.
And we also have some options in here
for the webcam as well.
If we hit this little drop down arrow and choose Options,
then we can configure up in here
things like the resolution and the frame rate
that our webcam is going to be recorded at.
So I cancel out of this now.
Likewise, with the microphone,
we can pick our microphone or we can disable it.
And it's also our options in there for that as well.
We've got our volume here for our microphone
if we wanna override the default setting.
and we get to choose if we wanna record
our system audio as well.
So again, that's if you're gonna be playing a video
or any computer sound,
if that's gonna come through in your recording,
Then to start your recording
we're gonna hit the big record button here.
It's gonna give us a countdown from three,
and our recording has started.
We'd go through and we would run our tutorial
or whatever it is that we are recording.
Then when we want to stop the recording,
we wanna come down the bottom here to the Camtasia panel,
and we can stop the recording, we can pause it,
or we could delete it.
We could scrap the recording wherever we're up to
at this point.
So I'm gonna go ahead and hit stop for this one.
And that's then gonna open up the Camtasia editor.
So again, this is just like what you saw
with Wondershare app, but really on steroids,
considering all the features and tools
and stuff that you get access to in here.
So again, down the bottom here, we've got separate tracks
for things like the webcam and for the computer screen
and for any audio sources that we have.
And we can again pick them up and move them around
either together, 'cause I've got both of them selected,
or we can maximize the webcam here to make it full screen
or shrink it back down and move it around
to where we wanna have it at different points
throughout our video.
But again, why this one really stands out
is the power that you have in the editing tools
and all the features that are really second to none
comparing to the rest of the options that are out there
for screen recording tools.
So if we go up here on the Annotations,
again, we've got a lot of the different call-outs
and things, other transitions.
There is a ton of transitions that you can use
in your edits.
Again, we've got cursor effects as well
to drag and drop that effect on.
So by highlighting our mouse cursor,
you can see that we've got that now.
And wherever we move the mouse around,
we have that cursor being tracked.
We also have audio effects and visual effects
in here as well,
as well as the ability to having closed captions
or subtitles on your videos.
Now, just going back to those cursor effects,
just to show you how much control you have in here,
we've seen this yellow effect before.
We actually can come across here and say,
whenever I left click in this screen recording,
what effects do we wanna show for that?
What sound do we wanna play for that?
And then with the right mouse click,
we can have a different effect or a different sound
that plays just so our viewers can really follow along
and understand fully what we're doing.
But really, as I keep saying,
the power here is really in the editing features
and the editing performance that you've got access to.
So overall it's a really powerful video creation tool,
not just for screen capturing,
but also for video editing as well.
So really it's a complete end to end solution.
Now in terms of pricing,
Camtasia sells for $249.99.
So it's definitely not on the cheaper end of things,
but given all the power, given all the functionality,
the tools and everything that's in there,
and that it really is a full-blown editing suite.
It's a solid option.
Now, if you are interested in checking out Camtasia,
I would strongly recommend
that you grab the free trial version
so that you can actually see and test out
if it's going to be a fit for you.
So rounding this out,
if you're looking for some simple,
free screen recording options,
you could try the X-Box Game Bar,
which is already installed on your computer,
or you could download OBS.
Wondershare DemoCreator is great for someone
looking for that perfect mix of simplicity,
price, and features
without being a full-blown editing program.
But if you're looking for the most control and features
both for your actual recording and for editing
all in the one solution,
then that's where Camtasia is the best option.
But from all of those,
my number one pick right now as best old all-rounder
goes to Wondershare DemoCreator.
It's a great option and the best bang for your buck.
So now that you've got your screen recording software
on windows sorted,
if you wanna capture the screen on your iPhone
or your Android device,
check out the videos that linked on screen now,
and I'll see you in the next.