If an image is value a thousand phrases, then a video is value one million. Whether or not you are displaying somebody find out how to carry out a process in an essential utility otherwise you wish to exhibit your gaming course of, display screen recording in Home windows is a good way to do it.
Home windows 10 and Home windows 11 each have display screen recording functionality built-in as a part of the Xbox Recreation Bar instrument, and utilizing this can be very straightforward, even if you wish to seize your exercise in a non-gaming app. Nevertheless, Recreation Bar has some limitations, together with the truth that it could solely display screen document one app at a time and never the entire display screen, so use one other methodology akin to OBS for display screen recording if you happen to’re doing one thing extra advanced than simply capturing one utility at a time.Â
Beneath, we’ll present you find out how to document your display screen in Home windows 10 or Home windows 11, utilizing each the Xbox Recreation Bar and OBS. If all you want is a nonetheless picture, see our article on find out how to take a screenshot in Home windows 11.
Document the Home windows Display with Xbox Recreation Bar
Constructed into each Home windows 11 and Home windows 10, the Xbox Recreation Bar has a lot of options, together with CPU and GPU monitoring. Nevertheless, its most helpful characteristic is its capability to display screen document in Home windows, outputting to MP4 format.Â
XBox Gme Bar works  as effectively in different purposes akin to Chrome because it does in Video games, but it surely solely works inside a single utility at a time and can’t seize the Home windows desktop or File Explorer. So, if you wish to present somebody find out how to do a process involving a number of packages — for instance, programming an online web page in a code editor after which viewing it in a browser — you would wish to seize a number of movies. And if you wish to present them find out how to do something within the Home windows 11 or 10 UI, akin to utilizing the Begin menu, you possibly can’t. For these actions, it’s best to use one other instrument akin to OBS, which we’ll present you find out how to display screen document with later on this article.
1. Click on into the app you want to document.Â
2. Hit the Home windows Key + Alt + R to start out display screen recording. A small recording widget displaying how lengthy you’ve got been recording seems someplace on the display screen, most definitely in a nook. You may as well get right here by launching the Xbox Gamebar (Home windows Key + G) after which discovering the seize widget, however the keyboard shortcut is far less complicated.
3. Carry out no matter actions you need and use your microphone to document audio. You may as well mute the mic if you happen to do not wish to seize any sound.
4. Hit the Home windows Key + Alt + R once more to cease display screen recording. You may as well hit the cease button on the widget You’ll get an alert that claims “Recreation clip recorded. If you happen to click on on it, you’ll go into the Gallery part of the Gamebar app and have the ability to preview the video you captured. You may as well discover the MP4 file you recorded beneath your Movies/Captures folder.Â
Configuring Xbox Gamebar Display Recording
Whereas the default settings are in all probability effective for most individuals, there are just a few choices you possibly can change.
1. Navigate to Settings->Gaming->Captures.
2. Change any of the next settings. Be aware that although they use the phrase “recreation,” the settings ought to apply to any app you document whether or not it is a recreation or not.
- Document what occurred (Win 11) / Background Recording (Win 10): this creates a 30-second (or higher if you happen to change the settings) buffer of mechanically recorded content material. So if you’re enjoying a recreation and simply had an epic kill, you possibly can hit Home windows key + G to launch recreation bar and it can save you the 30 seconds that simply handed, although you were not actively display screen recording it. Be aware that the title of this setting is completely different in Home windows 11 than 10, however the characteristic is similar.
- Max recording size: The period of time after which display screen recording will mechanically shut off. I like to recommend leaving this on the default two hours.
- Seize audio when recording a recreation: By default, this data the sounds out of your mic and the sport itself, however excludes background sounds from Home windows or your different apps. You’ll be able to disable the audio recording totally or allow it to document system sounds or change the stability.
- Video body fee: defaults to 30 fps, however you possibly can change it to 60 fps.
- Video high quality: select normal or excessive.
- Seize mouse cursor when recording a recreation: I like to recommend leaving this enabled, notably if you’re recording an app that’s not a recreation.
Recording the Complete Display with OBS Studio
The largest disadvantage to utilizing the Xbox Gamebar to display screen document Home windows is that it could solely work with one app at a time and won’t present the desktop or File Explorer. To seize your complete desktop and all of the home windows on it, you want a third-party app and, whereas there are numerous, we like OBS Studio for this function.
OBS Studio may be very standard within the recreation streaming neighborhood as a result of it is free and nice at broadcasting video games out to Twitch and different websites. Nevertheless, you too can use OBS to document the whole display screen in Home windows 11 and put it aside as an MP4 file, with out ever streaming what you do.
1. Obtain, set up and launch OBS Studio. Once you launch OBS for the primary time, if you have not already, you’ll be requested whether or not you wish to optimize it for streaming or recording solely. If you happen to do not plan to stream, select “Optimize only for recording.”
Additionally, you will be requested for the bottom decision (aka canvas decision) and body fee. We advocate selecting the decision of the display screen you intend to seize (it could default to 1080p). If you happen to use a better decision display screen to seize from than your canvas measurement, you’ll not be capturing the complete display screen.
If, like me, you’ve a multimonitor arrange with completely different screens of various resolutions, you possibly can at all times change the canvas measurement once more later.
2. Click on the Plus icon beneath Sources so as to add a brand new supply.
3. Choose Show Seize.
4. Click on Okay on the dialog field that pops up. You may give the supply a reputation apart from Show Seize if you would like.
5. Select a show and click on Okay. In case you have multiple monitor, this is able to assist you to have OBS on one display screen whereas recording the exercise on one other. In case you have just one monitor, there’s just one alternative.
If the show exceeds the bounds of your OBS canvas — for instance, you’re capturing a 4K show however you’ve a 1920 x 1080 base decision — Â your seize shall be reduce off. Repair the issue, by going to File->Settings->Video and altering the bottom decision there. You may as well set the output decision right here. If the bottom decision is larger than the output (a 1080p output of a 4K display screen), OBS will scale the output down however nonetheless preserve all the things within the body.
6. Mute the desktop and  / or microphone audio if you do not need both or each of these sounds captured. By default, OBS will seize audio from any purposes operating in your laptop and out of your default audio enter gadget. To quiet these, you simply click on on the speaker icons within the audio mixer.Â
7. Click on the Begin Recording button within the decrease proper nook of the display screen. Do not forget that if you happen to did not mute the microphone or desktop audio, it is going to document no matter noise you or the pc makes.
8. Decrease OBS if you’re display screen recording from the identical monitor that OBS is on.
9. Click on Cease Recording in OBS when you’re completed.
By default, your display screen recording movies shall be positioned within the Home windows 11 (or 10) Movies folder. They’re saved, by default, within the .mkv file format. Nevertheless, you possibly can change the output to MP4 or MOV information by going to the Settings->Output menu in OBS.
