Screen Capture Software Recommendations?

[Skyline_UK]

I was thinking of doing one or two 'hints/tips' videos and was wondering if anyone could recommend a good screen capture application?  I've tried Debut and OBS and was not impressed, you have to go through all manner of hoops, other app installs, etc.   There must be a product out there that simply talks to DAWs without having to have a degree in computer sciences to use!

Edited May 27, 2021 by Skyline_UK
Adds

[mgustavo]

Hi, Skyline_UK, I used LICEcap a few times, as well as Format Factory. They are both simple, maybe it could help!
* Format Factory is used to convert file format but also has this new feature to do screen capture.

Best regards

EDIT: Sorry, my bad! These softwares won't record audio (FF does but won't recognize audio interface other than PC onboard audio).

Edited May 30, 2021 by mgustavo

[Heinz Hupfer]

Hi;)

Quote

without having to have a degree in computer sciences to use!

OBS was like a overloaded program for me until I saw this video course. It's a very great program!

It's in German, but perhaps you can see some things and how it works.....I have just looked at the first 6 videos....

Greetz;)

Bassman.

 

 

[michheld]

The trick is to deactivate the OBS preview after fittting all together in OBS so your CPU has more power left to encode the video file. And if you use the same resolution for the screen and the recorded file the CPU won't need to render this up or down... Have fun ?
PS:

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by michheld
PS

[John Vere]

I have used OBS for a few years now . I always have it on my second monitor and the pre view is always on. The audio part has been the only difficult aspect and I had to use WASAPI shared. But now with my Motu M4 and the loopback I can keep Cakewalk in ASIO mode and I have a volume slide for my mike and for Cakewalks playback. The above video is redundant if your interface has loopback which is for anyone doing screen capture of a DAW almost a must have feature. 

Sure it's a complicated program. It's actually, when you think of it,  just like Cakewalk,, free and fully featured. But there's lots of videos on how to use it. 

But that's only half the battle. You will also want to purchase a movie editing software and for that most of us are using Vegas Movie Studio. There's lots of great tutorials on that as well. What I like is I can use my VST plug ins on the audio track. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by John Vere

[Skyline_UK]

Thanks all.  I settled on OBS.  I did have to watch a lot of YouTube videos to find out how to record audio as OBS doesn't talk to ASIO, or something.  The best of those videos was this one which describes how to obtain a REA VST that acts as a 'pipeline' from the main out of CbB to OBS. 

How to get audio from your DAW to OBS.

[John Vere]

If your going to do a lot of this I highly recommend getting a simple interface with Loopback.  I found this one  around $100. 

https://www.steinberg.net/en/products/audio_interfaces/ur_series/models/ur12.html 

[David Rubenstein]

Do you use Windows 10?  I ask because it has a built-in video record function.  It is intended for recording video games, but it works for me, for all sorts of purposes. The shortcut is Windows-Alt-R to record.  Also, the shortcut Windows-Alt-G brings up a set of menus for screen captures and other things.

[Starship Krupa]

On 5/31/2021 at 9:35 AM, John Vere said:

most of us are using Vegas Movie Studio

And I'd like to emphasize that Vegas Movie Studio is not Vegas Pro. I got both of them in a Humble Bundle a while back, and I did a few videos using Vegas Pro. I finally gave up on it after too many crashes and freezes, and gave Vegas Movie Studio a try. It's kind of an "Elements" version, but the extra features of Vegas Pro are things that I never and probably will never use. Movie Studio is much more stable, and shares the same workflow with Vegas Pro.

You can get Movie Studio at a deep discount every so often through Humble Bundle.

[John Vere]

Ya I got it for $30. Version 14. I just upgraded to 17 for another $35

The cool thing about that is I can install on 4 machines now. Nothing wrong with 14. I barely noticed the difference 

Edited June 13, 2021 by John Vere

[jesse g]

OBS is fast to set up and easy to use.  Just look for a tutorial on setting up OBS and there are about 5 settings to hit and you are done.  I am at work so I can't copy and paste the video.   The good thing about OBS, is that each time I go to do a new recording, I just go to Settings > Output> Recordings and browse for the folder that will be holding the new recordings and then click Apply and Close.   I am now ready to record a new screen capture. 

[John Vere]

It's pretty powerful. I even figured out setting up different scenes. The only problem is if your are say, demonstrating Cakewalk,  and you leave the focus on OBS and hit the space bar to start playback of Cakewalk OBS stops! So focus is often an issue for me. 

The Audio set up was very tricky and a few years ago what I did was set up a small mixer with my Audio interface outputs and my narration mike. I had to run this back into my interfaces 3/4 inputs and set OBS audio for those. But I had to use WASAPI shared mode which sucks when your trying to make tutorials about CAkewalk and need ASIO. But as I said the solution is any Audio interface with a Loopback. All you do is set that as one of the OBS inputs as well as the 1/2 output of you ASIO audio. 

[chakko]

On 6/13/2021 at 1:50 AM, Starship Krupa said:

And I'd like to emphasize that Vegas Movie Studio is not Vegas Pro. I got both of them in a Humble Bundle a while back, and I did a few videos using Vegas Pro. I finally gave up on it after too many crashes and freezes, and gave Vegas Movie Studio a try. It's kind of an "Elements" version, but the extra features of Vegas Pro are things that I never and probably will never use. Movie Studio is much more stable, and shares the same workflow with Vegas Pro.

You probably mean Vegas Pro Edit. That was the version you could get for, like, 21 € in the Humble Bundles.

Actually, I quite like it. Using Vegas Pro Edit 15 here, and, it seems to be stable, at least for the stuff I do. Many great FX included.

For capturing the screen, I use the Nvidia screen recorder, which comes with the driver of my graphics card. It's very system ressource efficient.

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, chakko said:

You probably mean Vegas Pro Edit. That was the version you could get for, like, 21 € in the Humble Bundles.

Actually, I quite like it. Using Vegas Pro Edit 15 here, and, it seems to be stable, at least for the stuff I do. Many great FX included.

For capturing the screen, I use the Nvidia screen recorder, which comes with the driver of my graphics card. It's very system ressource efficient.

Yes, Vegas Pro Edit. I started years ago with Sony Vegas Pro, then upgraded via Humble Bundles. Feature-wise, I can't tell the difference between Edit and the full deal. I did a bit of hacking and copied the Vegas Pro FX to the same folder under the Movie Studio Platinum program directory and they all showed up and work perfectly.

I realize that there could be an issue with my older nVidia card and using video editing programs: it's the older Fermi architecture, and supposedly Kepler was a huge improvement for video and photo editing. I used to have a point of frustration when video card specs and reviews were all about gaming performance, when I want something that will be good at running a preview window on a second monitor while applying effects. Also rendering, which can take hours on my current system. If I had known, I would have spent a little more and found a Kepler card.

I just checked, and there are now sites that talk about which cards are good for video and photo editing and encoding, which is great. Even nVidia's site has banners for "Studio" solutions. I'm about to hit eBay up for a used card that has Kepler and DDR5 RAM. Should be an improvement.

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

If you have any modern graphics card, it does have their own screen recording thing which does very well for simple recording stuff. nVidia has Shadowplay, AMD has ReLive. They both use the card's dedicated encoder/decoder and have almost negligible performace hit on your machine.

[mettelus]

There are a lot of screen capture apps available, and most video software has one built in. If you get into recoding multiple inputs (desktop and camera(s)), that is where the field gets narrower.

[msmcleod]

In the past, I've always used Camtasia... but it's expensive, and I only used it because it was for work and I didn't need to pay for it!  I still think this is the best software for when you've only got voice + screen capture (i.e. no other cameras).  For software "how-to" videos, the editing features are so slick and easy, it's hard to beat.

Nowadays, if I don't need audio I'll use ScreenToGif, otherwise I'll use OBS.  OBS is not only free, it has the flexibility of as many video & audio sources your system can handle. 

I've got a few NLM's to choose from for editor, pretty much all from Magix!  I tend to favour Movie Studio Platinum 2023 as I've used various versions of Movie Creator over the years.

What I don't do though, is even try to route audio from Cakewalk or in the box.  Instead I use a small 5 channel mixer - it's a T-Bone (Thomann) mixer, almost identical to the Behringer XENYX 502.  You should be able to pick one up new for less than $50:

 

I plug a mic into the one XLR input it has, then take an analog output from my audio interface and plug that into channels 2+3.  The main L/R output then goes to my onboard soundcard's line input.

That way OBS is using my onboard soundcard, and Cakewalk is using my audio interface.

If I needed separation between the voice and the audio from cakewalk,  I could use an additional audio interface for OBS, but it's very rarely needed.

I did have some success using my Focusrite 18i20 with OBS while using my RME DigiFace USB in Cakewalk.  In this setup, audio from Cakewalk was routed via ADAT out from the DigiFace to the Focusrite's ADAT input,  and the mic plug directly into channel 1 of the Focusrite.

This worked fine, but it meant doing everything in my studio, rather than being able to do it in the house... so the 5 channel mixer wins out for now.