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Record a Mac screen capture movie in Quicktime?

I need to record a narrated movie of me solving a problem on my Mac OS X system and am a bit stumped about how to proceed. I read on one site that Quicktime Player has this capability, but don't know how to use it. Can you help me out of a bind by showing me how to make a screen recording in Quicktime Player?


Dave's Answer:

There are some very slick third party solutions for this problem, including Snapz Pro X and Screenflow, but you're right, Quicktime Player on your Mac system can do the job just fine, and if you've practiced and are prepared, the results can be quite professional!

The first thing I'll suggest you use is an external microphone to record your narration. You can use the built-in mic on your Apple computer, but generally those are low gain and have a lot of ambient background noise. Much better to use something like a Blue Microphone Snowflake or even a high-end Yeti Pro, which is what I used for this tutorial. Turns out audio is the most critical element in a good video, but that's another article...

To get started, think of exactly what you want to record, perhaps even writing out a rudimentary script, then launch the app in question and move it to a central spot on the screen. Now launch Quicktime Player and look at the "File" menu:

quicktime record screen 1

The selection you seek is "New Screen Recording...". Select it and you'll be presented with a small black control window:

quicktime record screen 2

You're not quite ready to click the red "record" button yet, though. Instead, click on the small downward pointing white triangle on the right edge to produce the settings menu:

quicktime record screen 3

Here's where you can ensure that it's selected the correct audio input device. You can see I have quite a few! For this, I need to pick "BLUE USB Audio 2.0", which I do.

Now I'm ready to record. A tap on the red square button on the control window doesn't start things, however, it gives me the option of specifying a region of the screen to record or the entire window:

quicktime record screen 4

Since I'm just going to demonstrate something on the iTunes player window while it's in "mini-player" mode, I'll select the region around the player as tightly as I can:

quicktime record screen 5

Once I've clicked and dragged to select the region, it resizes for the dimensions that Quicktime Player prefers, and produces a "Start Recording" button:

quicktime record screen 6

A click on it and I'm recording the audio and whatever shows up in that window region.

When I'm done, I move the cursor back to the control window and click on the record button again, which has changed from a red square to a black "stop" square.

The recorded video appears in a control window for me to review:

quicktime record screen 7

You can see that it's 0:20 or 20 seconds in duration. Perfect. Now to save it. I accomplish this by choosing "File" --> "Export to Web...":

quicktime record screen 8

And a bunch of options appear:

quicktime record screen 9

Everything looks good? Great. Click on "Export" to save your new screen recording to a file, along with a lot of helpful information from Quicktime on how to incorporate it into your own Web page. When it's done, you'll see this:

quicktime record screen 9b

You can follow their directions on how to incorporate it into your page, but a quick click on your new desktop file and you'll see the video looks good and sounds great.

Surprisingly simple and the results are quite presentable!


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Categorized: Mac OS X Help   (Article 9952, Written by )
Tagged: mac video capture, quicktime, quicktime player, quicktime recordings, screen capture, screen movie, screen recording
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Reader Comments To Date: 6

Anonymous said, on June 12, 2012 12:24 PM:

What version of Quicktime Player are you using for this? I have version 10.0 and it does not let me select a screen area to record. How can I get the version that allows me to select the region to record?

Thanks

Dean said, on November 1, 2012 5:13 AM:

Perfect article - just what I was looking for.

Thank you Dave.

Dean

Christian said, on November 8, 2012 9:26 AM:

I have the same question as the previous person. I'm running OS X 10.6 and Quicktime 10, but I do not get the option to select an area to record. How can I fix this? Thanks in advance!

Dave Taylor said, on November 9, 2012 10:11 AM:

My version of QuickTime is "Version 10.2 (603.6)". Is that what you have? I don't see any preferences that would let you tweak or change it into "advanced" mode, so I'm not sure what's happening. I know that there used to be a difference between QuickTime and QuickTime Pro player but thought Apple had given that up...?

johnson said, on November 30, 2012 11:21 AM:

Did you EVEN read the question?

He wants to simply record/capture an onscreen audio/video recording in its entirety - audio-video-togehter at once!
Not add a voice over or any other mic induced audio - just record a friggin' vide with the accompanying audio track - record t ALL TOGETHER.
Thats the BIG problem with all you online PROBLEM SOLVERS...YOU love the sound of your own voice.
You don't answer the simple question asked!
Waste of cyber "space".

Shawn said, on January 14, 2013 6:29 PM:

I am trying to do just a simple selected screen recording, and I am not getting the same results.

i have quicktime player for my mac and just upgraded to quicktime pro on the mac (two separate quicktimes) and both do not have the options that are showing in your capture pages. I have the black recorder box, however, it does not have the time dashes on the left of the kb on the right, and the drop down menu does not have options.
I am trying to do just a simple selected screen recording, and I am not getting the same results.

Thanks for your help

Shawn

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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