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Comment by ndiddy | Hacker News Reader

I think it's unacceptable that a third-party driver is necessary to record system audio on Mac. Both Windows and Linux have been able to natively record system audio for at least 20 years now. I consider it a basic required feature for something like screencasting.

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It was vastly overdue, but macOS shipped a native solution for screen recording with audio in macOS 12 and you no longer need BlackHole for that. BH is still useful for more advanced uses, but they're mostly the sort of thing where it's not jarringly weird that they require some third-party software.

Last time I checked QuickTime was still not able to. Did I miss something?

I checked and seems to be just Microphone (or other audio) input w/ QuickTime when recording sceengrab videos or recording just audio.

This is correct. And if you use a headset it won't pick up the general system sounds. Used it for an IEP call last week and found out afterwards the only audio it picked up was my own. Pretty frustrating.

yah, I just recently made the purchase for BlackHole because I couldn't get the system sounds otherwise. Great little project!

I really could have sworn that around 2017 there was a way to do this built in, but it went away pretty quickly. Or I just imagined that

But then again Windows has no native web cam multiplexing. One app has the camera, and no one else can use it. That app crashes and you need to reboot Windows.

One would think in the edge of remote work, an operating system would bring a virtual web cam driver.

I used ManyCam but they cheated me out of a lifetime license.

Is there any major company that's respected a "lifetime license" for more than five or ten years? Every one I've bought was eventually reneged on.

WinRAR!

Does a single-computer license count as "lifetime" though?

> Home users may use their single computer usage license on all computers and mobile devices (USB drive, external hard drive, etc.) which are property of the license owner.

Interesting, I could've sworn it was single-computer the last time I looked.

> I consider it a basic required feature for something like screencasting.

That's why MacOS provides this in ScreenCaptureKit

Can that record the system audio too? I mean not just the microphone like in Quicktime.

Yes, microphone access is through CoreAudio. ScreenCaptureKit is for capturing system video and audio.

I haven't used it personally but that's my understanding of why it exists. Otherwise there's no point to sending audio through it.

>I think it's unacceptable that a third-party driver is necessary to record system audio on Mac.

Good news: it's not. At least not from macOS Ventura onwards.

Wonder if it's like taking a screenshot of video on mac.

They don't want you to be able to do that.

(you get a blank area where the video is)

You sure it isn’t DRMed video? It’s the same on all platforms

I’m not at my computer to check, but if this really is true, use VLC to get screen grabs from videos

yes, but fair use should let you do it.

maybe the same thing happens with audio, but there's no drm knowledge/support so they didn't implement any of it.

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