You may want to screen record a video for a variety of reasons. A perfect example is recording a difficult episode in the game that you can’t get through in any way, and then seeing the mistakes you make. You can prepare a small guide for setting up the program for a friend or colleague, or you can create a full-fledged webinar with all the necessary slides and explanations.
In this article, we explain the best options to screen record a video.
Built-in Windows Tools
The easiest way to screen record a video is to use the built-in Windows tools. This does not require the installation of any third-party programs or their configuration.
- Press the Win⊞ + G keyboard shortcut, and the Xbox Game Bar interface will appear in front of you.
- Click on the “Start Recording” button in the upper left corner of the screen or press Win+ALT+R.
- After you have recorded the desired screencast, click the “Stop” button or use the same combination of Win + ALT + R.
- The screencast will be saved and a corresponding pop-up notification will appear on the screen. To play the received video, click on this notification.
You can access all recorded screencasts by clicking the “Open file folder” button or by navigating to C:\Users\[Username]\Videos\Captures.
Screen record a video with third-party applications
There are a huge number of third-party screen recording apps on the market. Below you will find a list of the best of them.
Mac Quicktime Player
With the help of the free Quicktime Player integrated into macOS, you can not only play videos but also record screencasts. However, the latest version of this program blocks most of your hard drive.
- Launch the application and right-click on the icon in the Dock. By selecting the menu item “New Screen Recording” you will start recording a screencast in high resolution.
- If you click on the arrow in the “Parameters” item, then you can also record the audio track directly.
- Attention: in the new version of Quicktime Player, you cannot send the recording directly to external media. Make sure you have enough free space on your hard drive. To save recorded clips, you will need twice as much disk space as the video actually takes up.
VLC Media Player
With the free VLC Media Player, you can record screencasts for Windows, Mac and Linux. At the same time, the program works very stable and, in addition, offers many additional functions.
- To start recording, click on the “Media” menu item, and then on “Open capture device …”.
- Select Capture Device. Here you can specify the “Screen” capture mode. In addition, you can adjust the resolution, the number of frames per second and enable audio recording.
Camstudio
With the free Camstudio program, you can record a selected area of the screen.
- To start recording, click on the red record button and select the screen area you want to record.
- In post-processing, you can draw attention to various objects with arrows or explain the details with text comments.
- Your screencast will end up as an AVI or SWF file. It is also possible to use the SWF format if you want to broadcast the video on your website online.
Bandicam
Bandicam is one of the most popular screencasting and game recording software for Windows. It can work with a high compression ratio while maintaining close to the original quality, and the program itself is very simple and requires very few system resources. With it, you can:
- overlay video recording from a webcam;
- add your own voice to the recorded video;
- add a mouse click effect or animation;
- record according to the schedule;
- create videos with real-time chroma key.
Use Video Conferencing Software
Many video conferencing programs have their own built-in functions for recording both the conference itself and the entire screen. These include the extremely popular Skype, Zoom, etc. Most of these programs have a screen sharing and recording function, with which you can, for example, conduct an online webinar, record it and then post the recording on a video hosting site or your website. This method of work is especially popular when organizing training webinars.
