Screen and Camera Video Recording
Pixtel provides comprehensive video and audio recording functionality. Video recording includes recording screen with or without camera video feed. There are a variety of options that help to control the recording quality and the type of recording in a simple and easy to use interface. Pixtel uses high-performance screen capture technology that uses the GPU accelerated screen capture which reduces CPU utilization and capture lags significantly.
Video capture can be started using the top left Hamburger menu-> More Captures → Video as well as from the main menu File->New Capture->Video as shown below:
Click on More Captures icon (>>) to see the menu for starting Video Capture
Click on the File menu->New Capture->Video for starting Video Capture
Once the video capture is activated, the application goes into background opening a Video capture window with a selected region on the screen. It may take a couple of seconds to display the interface as it needs to check the video and audio capabilities of the system.
The screen recording area is highlighted in green color and its color turns to red when recording is started. Video recorder panel helps to select recording capture area, take snapshots while recording, reset recording in the middle to start over again, and finish recording. The left sidebar handle helps to move the panel along with the selected area anywhere on the screen. Additional options for video recording are displayed by clicking on the circular down button on the right. Full Video Recording Panel is shown below:
Record button (Rec) starts and pauses recording once the area is selected. When recording is progressing the record time is updated in the timer text box. Capture Area Selector opens a popup to select a region or window or a full display for screen recording. Selected region dimensions are displayed on the button. The snapshot button is enabled once the recording is active. This helps to take snapshots of the video which will show up as captured images in separate tabs. This is in addition to the video recording. The reset recording button is activated once the recording starts. Clicking on this button stops recording and clears current recording and helps to start recording again. This is useful if the current recording needs to be discarded for any reason.
Expand the Options button with the circular arrow icon, expands the options in the second row of the panel window. Important options include:
Options | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
| These options help to auto-set settings for better video recording.
|
| 2 |
| Depending on the quality selection, the size of the video recording changes significantly. High-quality videos require a lot of disk space. Low quality is recommended for temporary videos. For example, video to demonstrate an issue reproduction for a software application can be done with Low-Quality video as the quality is not very important. However, if there are any product demos that need to be published on the website, it is better to setup High Quality. |
| 3 |
| This sets the resolution for the video. By default, it is set to 100%, i.e., current screen resolution. However, if the video target is a mobile device, it can be set to lower resolution, say 360P, to get a smaller video recording file size. |
| 4 |
| Recording time: Video recording terminates after this time period. However, recording can be terminated at any time by clicking on the Finish button. |
Speaker and Microphone toggle buttons help to enable/disable recording sound generated from speaker and microphone. Screen and Camera toggle buttons help enable/disable screen and/or camera recording. It is not recommended to disable both.
Enabling recording boundary shows rectangle around the recorded area. Similarly, enabling cursor records cursor with a circle around the cursor for easy tracking and also with a separate circle for cursor clicks. Enabling counter counts down the counter for 3 seconds before the start recording. This time period helps to perform any pre-recording settings as required.
Once the recording is finished, the application will display the recorded video in a tab and all snapshots in separate tabs if any. Please see the Video recording tutorial for better understanding.
Recorded videos can be uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo in addition to Google Drive, DropBox, and Box. They can be directly played using the play button and also can be opened in Media Player through the right-click context menu.
User preferences provide comprehensive Video Recording Settings panel in the Capture tab. These settings are for advanced users who really understand the recording formats and the impact of settings on the video recording quality and size.
Click on Video Capture Settings Open button to see the following settings:
Unless you are aware of the settings such as Frame Rate, please don’t change the default settings. Logo settings help to apply the company logo on the video recording. The logo can be text or an image. Similarly, Cursor settings change the cursor highlight and click effect circles. GPU acceleration is recommended for systems with separate video cards with GPU processors.
Video Encoder Installation
Pixtel uses one of the best 3rd party video encoders and decoders. These video encoders need to be installed separately due to licensing restrictions. These encoders are open source and free of any charge. When the first time video recording is initiated, the application checks the system to see if the video encoders are already available. If they are not available, it opens an interface to auto-download the encoder software and executes the installer. Please go through the encoder installation before using video recording..
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