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Comment by Akkuma | Hacker News Reader

You could use OBS, Open Broadcaster Software, which is open source that has features geared toward streaming, but could ultimately prove more valuable than "simple" screencasting software. For instance, want to show your code always even when you're googling answers? That is very easy in OBS.

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I second OBS. It works great for capturing windows and screens. The only issue I had with it is that Windows Media Player won't play the "Advanced Video Codec" that it records with, so I had to run it through Handbrake.

Advanced Video Codec, or AVC, is just another name for bog-standard H.264.

I wonder if it's just the profile that WMP has problems with. I'd be interested in comparing the `mediainfo` output of both a Handbrake and a OBS encoded video - I suspect Handbrake is still extremely conservative with what it outputs (at the expense of a bit of quality)

On the flip side, I found that OBS brought my -- admittedly older -- MPB to its knees such that the app I was trying to show wouldn't perform. Huge lengths of video were frozen. Same on an older first-gen i7 Windows machine. I never did figure it out.

This is probably a configuration issue, although OBS has more issues OS X for a variety of reasons. I've ran OBS on my 10 year old PC while coding without much issue.

I'd recommend using http://www.cccp-project.net/ or http://haruhichan.com/forum/showthread.php?7545-KCP-Kawaii-C... and never using WMP ever again for viewing videos.

Recommending codec packs seems like outdated advice these days. VLC has much less of an impact on the system itself.

VLC is not optimized to prioritize video quality at all last time I saw or used it. Additionally, it felt clunky and seemed to perform worse than MPC-HC.

I'd be interested in any more info about this, specifically enough information to log bug reports.

I use OBS for recording videos for my students.

The only snag I've found is that in the fairly rare case that I want to record myself (usually the course introduction video for off-campus students), the sync between the audio and video is a bit out, whereas Quicktime etc tend not to have that problem. Not sure why -- I assume it's because OBS is always putting the video through some processing.

It's not out by much -- not enough to notice for a screen recording or doc-cam for drawing on paper -- but when there's a face in the video the lip-sync isn't quite right.

I believe this often has more so to do with the hardware/os. You can also alter delay of audio/video in OBS studio to sync things up better. I regularly stream and the only lag I have is due to a weird setup I have.

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