Record Screen Action With the Game Bar
TAKING A STATIC SCREENSHOT IN WINDOWS 10 is incredibly easy: Just press the Print Screen key, and whatever you see on your screen is copied to the clipboard, ready for you to paste into an image-editing program. To do something more advanced, you can turn to Windows 10’s Snipping Tool, which enables you to do things such as just capturing an area of your desktop. But what about if you want to record the action happening on your screen? What if you want to make a video of what you see on your desktop?
While you could turn to a third-party app, you might be surprised to learn that Windows 10 has its own video capture tool built in. Part of the Game Bar component, the screen recorder is really designed for gamers looking to capture videos of their gaming, but there’s nothing to stop you using it for other purposes if you want. Here’s how to get started.
1 ACCESS THE GAME BAR If you’re not a gamer, you may never have investigated the Xbox and gaming-related aspects of Windows 10, but this is where to go if you want to start recording videos for free
[ ImageA]. If you browse through the Start menu, you will find—or can search for—“Game Bar.” To access the tool quickly, you can also use a keyboard shortcut: Just press Win-G.
2 CONFIGURE GAME BAR SETTINGS Now you know where the Game Bar is, you might want to jump in and start recording straight away. It’s worth spending a little time configuring a few options first, though. Go to “Start > Settings > Gaming” to go to the Game Bar section. Start by ensuring that the “Record game clips, screenshots, and broadcast using Game Bar” toggle is enabled [ Image B].
3 CUSTOMIZE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS The Game Bar’s keyboard shortcuts are incredibly useful. There’s a number built into the tool, but you can also customize them. Scroll down the settings slightly, and you can see a list of default shortcuts—simply select any that you’d like to change, and enter the key combination you’d prefer to use instead Click “Save” when you’ve finished.
4 [ Image C]. ENABLE BACKGROUND RECORDING Usually, you will want to start a recording at a particular point and stop it when you’ve finished, but you may wish you could step back in time and start a recording slightly earlier. That’s what “Background recording” is for. Enable it, and your PC constantly records, giving you the option of saving footage from 30 seconds (or more) ago to capture important action [ Image D].
5 RESTRICT RECORDING LENGTH When you start recording, it’s easy to forget that you’re capturing footage, and you may forget to stop the recording. To help avoid this, and make sure you don’t completely fill up your PC’s storage drive with recordings, you can place an upper limit on the length of the capture. Use the drop-down menu to choose anything from 30 minutes to four hours as the maximum length [ Image E].
6 AUDIO RECORDING OPTIONS When recording, it may well not just be video you are interested in—there is also audio to consider. In the “Recorded audio” section, you can choose between recording audio or not using the toggle, and use the checkbox to indicate whether audio from your microphone should be recorded as well. Beneath this, you can configure audio volume levels and recording quality
7 [ Image F]. VIDEO RECORDING QUALITY As well as configuring the audio quality, you can also choose the video quality of your recordings. The first choice you have is between 30 and 60 frames per second, which affects smoothness, and beneath this, you can choose between “High” and “Standard” recording quality [ Image G]. The final option you have is to choose whether or not your mouse cursor should be visible in recordings.
8 RECORD VIDEO FOOTAGE You’re now ready to start recording. Either call up the Game Bar using Win-G, before pressing the “Record” button, or use a keyboard shortcut to start recording directly: Win-Alt-R by default [ Image H]. Recording starts according to the settings you’ve chosen, but if you’re recording application footage rather than in a game, check the box to enable “gaming features” for recording to continue.
9 STOP RECORDING During recording, you should play your game or use your apps as normal. When you are ready to stop recording, you can either press Win-Alt-R again, or you can use the recording pop-up that appeared when recording started. Click the “Stop” button, and a notification is displayed confirming that the recording has been saved in the capture folder.
10 ACCESS YOUR RECORDINGS Your recordings are automatically saved to the capture folder, and you can access them immediately after you stop recording by clicking the pop-up that appears. Another option is to click “Show all captures” within the Game Bar, or to fire up the Xbox app, move to the “Captures” section, and browse through the videos that are listed.