Zero Budget? 11 OBS Studio Steps to Record Screen

Free, open source, no watermark

Screen recording, no watermark, $0: eleven OBS Studio steps, simplest first. Here's how to start. Number eleven: OBS Studio records your screen for free, and it's open source. Anyone can use it, for any reason.

There are no watermarks or other limits on what you record. It can be used commercially, with no restrictions. And there are no ads or bundled extras inside. It runs on the three main computer systems: Windows, Mac and Linux.

Volunteers around the world build it in their free time. It handles both video recording and live streaming. By our count, $0 a month makes $0 a year, with no watermark. How much computer power it needs depends on choices like resolution and frame rate.

The link is in the description. Up next, installing it.

Install it and run the wizard

Number ten: the official site has the download, where you pick your system. Downloading from there always gets you the latest version. The Windows release supports Windows ten and eleven. The Mac release supports macOS thirteen and newer.

On a Mac, you drag OBS into the Applications folder. The first time it opens, the Auto-Configuration Wizard appears. It sets OBS Studio up for what you want to do and for your computer's hardware. It gets most basic settings right for you.

To run it again later, it's under Tools, then Auto-Configuration Wizard. By our count, the getting-started list has four real steps, and the wizard is first. If step-by-step guides like this help you, subscribe. Every official page is linked below.

Coming up, the video size.

Set the video size and frame rate

Number nine: the video size comes first, in Settings, then Video. The base resolution is the space your sources fit into. By default, it's the size of your main monitor. The output resolution is the size your recording comes out at.

With full-size sources, this is where a smaller recording size is set. Changing the base later means lining up your sources again, but the output size changes freely. The frame rate should match the output you want, like thirty or sixty. Fewer frames, or a smaller output size, mean less work for the computer.

Most screens are sixteen by nine, like nineteen twenty by ten eighty. By our count, sixty frames a second is twice the work of thirty. Then, picking what to record.

Pick what to record

Number eight: the plus under Sources adds what you record. Display Capture records your whole monitor, one source per display. Window Capture records one window, even if others sit in front of it. On newer Macs, macOS Screen Capture records a display, a window or an app.

It can capture sound too, on macOS thirteen and later. Show Cursor decides whether your mouse pointer appears. Scenes can mix window captures, images, text, webcams and more. Each source can be hidden for a moment with its eye icon.

By our count, two monitors take at most two Display Capture sources. On a Mac, Screen Recording permission has to be turned on first. It's in the OBS Studio menu, under Review App Permissions. Now, building scenes.

Build scenes

Number seven: a scene is a layout, and the plus under Scenes adds one. You give it a name, then add sources to it the same way. Each scene and each source needs its own name. A source higher on the list sits in front of the ones below it.

Drag and drop, or the arrow buttons, change that order. Edit, then Transform, then Fit to Screen sizes a source to the scene. A sixteen-by-nine webcam fits well at four eighty by two seventy, or six forty by three sixty. By our count, at six forty by three sixty, the webcam fills one ninth of a ten-eighty picture.

You can make as many scenes as you want, and switch between them. Coming up, your microphone.

Set your microphone

Number six: by default, OBS Studio records your desktop sound and your microphone. The volume meters in the Audio Mixer show if both are working. If they don't move, Settings, then Audio, picks the devices by hand. Most of the time, you keep an eye on the meters, and the rest is set once.

Your voice should sit in the upper part of the yellow zone. Other sounds, like music, belong toward the lower end of the yellow. That's between minus twenty and minus nine on the meter's scale. Minus twenty was chosen to sit near the average level of speech.

A dot at the top shows the loudest point of the last twenty seconds. A Gain filter can lift a very quiet microphone, though gain is best set before OBS. By our count, that leaves eleven decibels of room for your voice. Filters sit behind the little cogwheel next to each volume bar.

Noise Suppression can quiet a computer fan or other room noise. It won't fix a very loud room, though. RNNoise sounds better and uses more processor; Speex can be adjusted. A Noise Gate cuts background noise while you're not talking.

Its close point goes just above the noise, and its open point just below your voice. Its starting values close at minus thirty-two and open at minus twenty-six decibels. On a Mac, the Microphone permission has to be on as well. Up next, the recording format.

Pick the format and quality

Number five: most recording settings sit in Settings, under Output. Simple output mode, with its recording presets, is the easy route. The presets are built in, to make high-quality recording simple. High Quality gives a high-quality video with a medium file size.

Indistinguishable looks even better, with bigger files and more load on older computers. That extra load depends on which encoder you choose. Lossless makes huge files, around seven gigabytes for every minute. By our count, ten minutes of lossless video is about seventy gigabytes.

Unless you know why to change them, the default options are recommended. Any quality other than Same as stream uses extra computer power. And recordings can't be paused while the quality is set to Same as stream. The recording format is the kind of file you get.

MKV is recommended, because it won't lose the whole file if recording stops suddenly. Recording straight to a standard video file isn't recommended, since an interrupted one may not be recoverable. A hardware encoder, if your computer has one, is worth trying for recordings. For finer control, the advanced view uses a quality number called CRF.

The pages give a range of sixteen to twenty-three. A lower number means higher quality and a larger file. Keyframe interval sits at two in that view. Then, hotkeys for start and stop.

Use hotkeys

Number four: hotkeys can run nearly every action, from scenes to recording. They're set in the Hotkeys section of Settings. Keyboard keys are supported for all of them. Starting and stopping a recording is one of those actions.

So is switching to a scene, or hiding and showing a source. Push-to-talk and push-to-mute work per microphone, with their keys set there too. Muting an audio source is one of the options as well. By our count, the guide's list shows six example actions.

A chapter marker hotkey adds chapters named Unnamed one, two and so on. Some shortcuts are built in, like Control and Z to undo an edit. On a Mac, the same keys use Command instead of Control. Control and F fits a source to the screen, and Control and D centers it.

Control and E edits a source's transform, and Control and R resets it. Holding Alt while dragging a source's box crops it. Every default shortcut is listed on one overview page. On a Mac, Accessibility permission lets shortcuts work when OBS isn't in front.

Now, saving the last moments.

Keep a moment with the Replay Buffer

Number three: the Replay Buffer records in the background, ready to save a moment. It's turned on in the Output settings. Its save key has to be set under Hotkeys. Start, stop and save each get their own hotkey.

By our count, that's three actions in one line of the hotkey list. A saved replay gets its own filename prefix and suffix. Saving a replay is one key press once that hotkey is set. OBS Studio supports launch options for automation and portable use.

One of them starts the Replay Buffer by itself when OBS opens. Its memory limit is now 75% of the computer's memory. Before that change, it was fixed at eight gigabytes. Say Maya keeps it running while she practices a demo, then saves the best moment.

The simple mode settings for it were improved in a recent update. Coming up, a test run before the real take.

Run a test take

Number two: a test run of a few minutes catches problems before the real take. First, your settings get a check in Settings, then Output. Then Start Recording, in the Controls area, begins the take. Recording a session and listening back to the file shows how it really sounds.

The pages say it plainly: test, test, test. Studio Mode previews scenes and sources before anyone sees them. Lowering the base resolution isn't generally recommended, since it complicates capture. Scenes named for each part, like Welcome, Desktop and End, are easy to tell apart.

If your screen isn't sixteen by nine, images or overlays can fill the black space. Sixty frames a second can be very taxing compared with thirty. If sixty isn't working, dropping to thirty is the fix the pages give. By our count, thirty frames a second means 1,800 fewer frames each minute.

When the video turns choppy with an encoding overloaded message, OBS needs more free resources. More complex scenes come at a price in computer power. The test answers simple questions: are the settings working, and is it running smoothly? Say Maya runs a three-minute test, then plays the file back.

Last, finding and saving the file.

Find and save the file

Number one: your recording lands where the Recording Path points, set in Settings, Output. By default, the file is named by year, month, date and the time. By our count, that's six numbers in every default file name. A checkbox makes the names come out without spaces.

The naming pattern itself can be changed in the Advanced tab of Settings. Folders can be part of the name too, like year, month and day. Remux Recordings, under File, turns a recording into a standard video file for editing or uploading. You pick the videos, press Remux, and OBS converts them for you.

A prompt shows up once the remux is done. Remuxed files are easier to upload to social media, too. An automatic remux option does it the moment you stop recording. MKV stays playable and recoverable even after a power loss.

But editing programs may need it remuxed first. A newer hybrid format stays recoverable after a crash. It also works well in editing software. Most players play one audio track at a time, so track one is the safe choice.

Say Maya records a ten-minute tutorial for a client at sixty frames a second. By our count, that's 36,000 frames for OBS to encode. Now that your tutorial's recorded, which apps pay you to edit it? Click the video on screen now.