Recommendation needed for Screen Capture Software

[Jeremy Garchow]

Depends on what you need to do, but Quicktime will record your screen if that’s all you need. If you need to record and highlight action (pointers, key presses, etc), Screenflow is great.

[David Mayer]

awesome, Jeremy – thanks

[John Rofrano]

I do a lot of screen recording for my tutorials. I’ve been using TechSmith Camtasia for years both on the PC and Mac and it has been outstanding. It will simultaneously record a camera and the screen at the same time so you can use your FaceTime camera or an external camera via a capture card to record yourself as you are presenting or explaining in a hands-on tutorial like I do. The streams are kept separate so you can edit them independently afterwards. This is the most important thing for me.

TechSmith also has SnagIt which costs less and will perform screen capture or camera capture but not both at the same time. So if you need just screen capture SnagIt might be a good less expensive alternative.

What I like about the TechSmith products is that they support independent inputs for all of my video and audio devices. I like using a Sennheiser ME66 shotgun though my iRig Pro or Komplete Audio 6 and it sees these devices and uses them so I get good audio. So it will capture the screen, take video from any web cam or connected video device, take audio from any connected audio device (independent of the video device selected) and optional record system audio. It’s very flexible and I believe their is a free trial so that you can test it for yourself.

I’ve also used OBS (Open Broadcast Software) which is free but it only produces a single stream. So while it can capture my web cam and screen at the same time, it only creates one output video so you cannot change the PIP later for example. It is also extremely flexible in the devices it supports. If you just need to record your screen, OBS might not be a bad solution (and did I mention it’s free) 😉

[Mark Suszko]

Those are all good methods. They do however leverage system resources on the computer. This is why some of us older folks still like to grab the screen externally thru a physical scan converter, to a stand-alone device like a hard disk recorder.

[David Mayer]

Thanks, John. My situation is different from yours, and much simpler. Sort of. The client records the 2 hour presentation on zoom. I record it also, but with a different view, so I can edit them together like a 2-camera shoot. I need my recording to be frame-accurate so it syncs with the zoom recording, and I need to record audio from the computer, not from my mic. That last thing seems to often be the spoiler. I am now trying to learn to use Quicktime for my “second cam” recording – easy – and to get it to record audio from the application, not my mic – less easy.

[Enno Jacobsen]

Maybe give iShowU another shot. I find it to be a good piece of software. In the preferences in iShowU, you can chose a codec optimized for editors. Maybe that already remedies your problem. If not, try emailing the developer. He’s very responsive. I had an audio device problem that caused me not being able to record the audio output from Premiere, and the developer got on a video call with me, and did live troubleshooting. (And fixed the problem.)

[David Mayer]

Great idea. I can’t get audio to record internally. Downloaded the app, didn’t work. Emailed with him and he tried but it didn’t help. I will email him back and ask for a video call. Only other problem i noticed is drift – client records zoom, i record iShowU, after 10 minutes there is drift. Wondering if different software is frame accurate.