Recording

From User Manual :: Screenbits
Revision as of 15:54, 21 January 2021 by Mchehraz (talk | contribs) (Performance)
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Location

Output Folder

By default, recorded videos are saved in Videos folder inside a folder named Screenbits. You can change the output folder to any location on your storage.

To change the output folder:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. Click Recorder from the side bar to open Recorder settings.
  3. Click Browse... button under Output section to open Browse for folder dialog.
  4. Select the folder you want to save videos into.


Note: Make sure your user account has write access to the selected folder and also the folder is in a storage device/drive with enough free space. Your security software might also prevent the application to access the output folder.

Output File

You can enter a template for the output file name that is created by Screenbits. File name may include one or more of the following placeholders:

Symbol Meaning Example
$Y Year 2017
$M Month 05
$D Day 10
$H Hour 03
$N Minute 55
$S Second 20

Default file name is $Y-$M-$D_$H$N$S. When a recording process starts, Screenbits will replace the placeholders in the file name with their actual values so using the default file name, output file name for a recording process that started at 14/05/2017 00:48:49 will be 2017-05-14_004849.mp4. If a file with the same name already exist, an underscore followed by a number will be added to the end of the name to make it unique. (e.g. 2017-05-14_004849_0001.mp4)

To use a different name for output files:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. Click Recorder from the side bar to open Recorder settings.
  3. Enter the desired template under Enter a template for file name. Optionally you can use one or more placeholders in the file name.

Output Format

Output file as saved as mpeg4 (.mp4) files to make them compatible with almost any video player and editor software. Video stream is encoded in H.264 and audio stream is encoded in AAC codec.

Video

Screenbits provides multiple options to configure the output which you can either change quickly from output options or open video settings to access to all available options.

To open output options, click Output options button from application window.

Figure 1: Output options (1)


Figure 2: Output options (2)


To open video settings:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. Click Video from the side bar to open Video settings.
Figure 3: Video settings


Resolution

Resolution is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension on the output video. You can choose how source of recording (the area on the screen which is being recorded) should transform into the output video by choosing the appropriate resolution and scaling options.

The default value for output resolution is 100% (source) which means output resolution is equal to dimensions of the source of recording. For example, if you record in full screen mode and screen dimensions is 1920 × 1080, output dimension will be 1920 × 1080 which means 1920 pixels horizontally and 1080 pixels vertically. (also referred as 1080p)

Depending on the purpose of recording, you might want to choose a different resolution than source. To choose a different resolution, select one of the available resolutions under Resolution in video options or choose Custom to enter a custom resolution.

Performance

Even though using high resolutions (or Source) increases quality of output video as the output becomes more similar to the source, it might cause fps drops. Size of the output also become larger in higher resolutions. You can choose lower resolutions to increase frame rate, reduce size of the output file and prevent performance issues.

Resolution Limit

Screenbits supports resolutions up to 3840 × 3840 (also referred as 4K) unless you are running x86 version of the app. However since recording in very high resolutions might cause performance issues which affect quality of the output video, Screenbits by default limits the output resolution to 1920 × 1920. To remove this limit, you need to turn off Limit resolution to Full HD switch from video settings.

Scaling

When using a resolution different than source, the aspect ratio of the output resolution might be different from the aspect ratio of the source of recording. By default, scaling mode is set to Aspect Ratio which means Screenbits maintains original aspect ratio of the recording source and adds black bars to the output if needed. Use the Scaling selector to change the scaling mode.

Frame rate

To change frame-rate:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. Click Video from the side bar to open Video settings.
  3. From Output section, select desired frame-rate from Frame rate selector.

Note: Select Custom from the selector to choose a custom frame-rate up to 120.

To change quality:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. Click Video from the side bar to open Video settings.
  3. From Output section, move Quality slider to increase or decrease quality.

To force recording in variable frame-rate:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. Click Video from the side bar to open Video settings.
  3. From Output section, check Prefer variable frame-rate check box.

Note: Not preferring variable frame-rate does not mean that the video will be recorded in constant frame-rate. Depending on your system performance, recorder may fall back to variable frame-rate to be able to work properly.

Audio

Screenbits allows you to configure bit-rate, sample-rate and number of channels for it.

To change format of the output audio:

  1. Select Settings from Record menu to open Settings dialog.
  2. Click Audio from the side bar to open Audio settings.
  3. From Format section, select the desired bit-rate, sample-rate and number of channels for the output audio.

Note: If multiple audio sources are selected, Screenbits mixes both audio streams into a single audio track.

Supported input formats

Screenbits supports recording the following audio formats for as input:

  • 8kHz, 11.025kHz, 16kHz, 22.05kHz, 24kHz, 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, 192kHz sample rates
  • 1 (mono), 2 (stereo), 4, 6 and 8 channels
  • 16, 24 and 32 bits per sample

If you attempt to record an audio device with an unsupported format, an error message pops up asking you to select a different format for the device.

To change the default format of an audio device:

  1. Select Settings from Menu to open Settings.
  2. From Input section under the Audio tab, click Configure to open Sound control panel.
  3. Right click on name of the device in list under the Playback or Recording tab and click Properties.
  4. From Default Format section under the Advanced Tab select one of the supported formats above.
  5. Click OK to apply changes to the device properties


Figure 3: Audio Format - Sound settings