If an image is value a thousand phrases, then a video is value one million. Whether or not you are displaying somebody learn how to carry out a process in an essential utility otherwise you wish to exhibit your gaming course of, display recording in Home windows is a good way to do it.
Home windows 10 and Home windows 11 each have display recording functionality built-in as a part of the Xbox Sport Bar device, and utilizing this can be very simple, even if you wish to seize your exercise in a non-gaming app. Nonetheless, Sport Bar has some limitations, together with the truth that it may solely display document one app at a time and never the entire display, so use one other methodology corresponding to OBS for display recording for those who’re doing one thing extra advanced than simply capturing one utility at a time.Â
Beneath, we’ll present you learn how to document your display in Home windows 10 or Home windows 11, utilizing each the Xbox Sport Bar and OBS. If all you want is a nonetheless picture, see our article on learn how to take a screenshot in Home windows 11.
Report the Home windows Display screen with Xbox Sport Bar
Constructed into each Home windows 11 and Home windows 10, the Xbox Sport Bar has quite a lot of options, together with CPU and GPU monitoring. Nonetheless, its most helpful function is its skill to display document in Home windows, outputting to MP4 format.Â
XBox Gme Bar works  as properly in different functions corresponding 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 learn 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 learn how to do something within the Home windows 11 or 10 UI, corresponding to utilizing the Begin menu, you may’t. For these actions, you must use one other device corresponding to OBS, which we’ll present you learn how to display 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 recording. A small recording widget displaying how lengthy you’ve got been recording seems someplace on the display, probably in a nook. You can too get right here by launching the Xbox Gamebar (Home windows Key + G) after which discovering the seize widget, however the keyboard shortcut is way less complicated.
3. Carry out no matter actions you need and use your microphone to document audio. You can too mute the mic for those who do not wish to seize any sound.
4. Hit the Home windows Key + Alt + R once more to cease display recording. You can too hit the cease button on the widget You’re going to get an alert that claims “Sport clip recorded. In the event you click on on it, you’ll go into the Gallery part of the Gamebar app and be capable to preview the video you captured. You can too discover the MP4 file you recorded beneath your Movies/Captures folder.Â
Configuring Xbox Gamebar Display screen Recording
Whereas the default settings are most likely advantageous for most individuals, there are a number of choices you may change.
1. Navigate to Settings->Gaming->Captures.
2. Change any of the next settings. Notice that although they use the phrase “sport,” the settings ought to apply to any app you document whether or not it is a sport or not.
- Report what occurred (Win 11) / Background Recording (Win 10): this creates a 30-second (or larger for those who change the settings) buffer of mechanically recorded content material. So if you’re taking part in a sport and simply had an epic kill, you may hit Home windows key + G to launch sport bar and it can save you the 30 seconds that simply handed, though you were not actively display recording it. Notice that the identify of this setting is totally different in Home windows 11 than 10, however the function is similar.
- Max recording size: The period of time after which display recording will mechanically shut off. I like to recommend leaving this on the default two hours.
- Seize audio when recording a sport: 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 possibly can disable the audio recording solely or allow it to document system sounds or change the steadiness.
- Video body price: defaults to 30 fps, however you may change it to 60 fps.
- Video high quality: select normal or excessive.
- Seize mouse cursor when recording a sport: I like to recommend leaving this enabled, significantly if you’re recording an app that’s not a sport.
Recording the Entire Display screen with OBS Studio
The most important downside to utilizing the Xbox Gamebar to display document Home windows is that it may 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 a lot of, we like OBS Studio for this objective.
OBS Studio could be very in style within the sport streaming neighborhood as a result of it is free and nice at broadcasting video games out to Twitch and different websites. Nonetheless, you may as well use OBS to document your complete display 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. Whenever you launch OBS for the primary time, if you have not already, you may be requested whether or not you wish to optimize it for streaming or recording solely. In the event you do not plan to stream, select “Optimize only for recording.”
Additionally, you will be requested for the bottom decision (aka canvas decision) and body price. We advocate selecting the decision of the display you propose to seize (it could default to 1080p). In the event you use a better decision display to seize from than your canvas dimension, you’ll not be capturing the complete display.
If, like me, you may have a multimonitor arrange with totally different screens of various resolutions, you may all the time change the canvas dimension 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 aside from Show Seize if you would like.
5. Select a show and click on Okay. When you’ve got a couple of monitor, this could permit you to have OBS on one display whereas recording the exercise on one other. When you’ve got just one monitor, there’s just one selection.
If the show exceeds the bounds of your OBS canvas — for instance, you might be capturing a 4K show however you may have a 1920 x 1080 base decision — Â your seize will probably be lower off. Repair the issue, by going to File->Settings->Video and altering the bottom decision there. You can too set the output decision right here. If the bottom decision is greater than the output (a 1080p output of a 4K display), OBS will scale the output down however nonetheless maintain 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 functions operating in your laptop and out of your default audio enter machine. 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. Do not forget that for those who did not mute the microphone or desktop audio, it would document no matter noise you or the pc makes.
8. Decrease OBS if you’re display recording from the identical monitor that OBS is on.
9. Click on Cease Recording in OBS if you find yourself completed.
By default, your display recording movies will probably be positioned within the Home windows 11 (or 10) Movies folder. They’re saved, by default, within the .mkv file format. Nonetheless, you may change the output to MP4 or MOV information by going to the Settings->Output menu in OBS.
