Most people are familiar with screen captures in Windows. But did you know that you can also capture and edit video as well?

Why is it important to record video?
Video recording is a very effective way to capture important non-verbal communication cues as well as raw contextual data. Video has become a major part of advertising, education and communication. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then moving pictures are worth have an incalculable value. Whether you are creating a multimillion dollar advertising campaign or just recording your conquests in Call of Duty Black Ops to share with friends, video is a key part of your project.

Video capture

Video capture using the built-in features of Windows 10 and 11.
While there are a number of third-party apps to capture video from your computer screen or camera and some of them are pretty good. There are both free apps and some that you have to pay for. Most of them are reasonably priced but a few are quite pricey. While many of these third-party apps offer some very interesting features, unless you are into some serious video work the native recoding app in Windows will probably be all you need.

Windows Xbox bar can record up to two hours of video using either your systems camera or from your computer screen. I you plan on recording something longer than two hours you can change that in Settings. Otherwise, you will have to make a two-part video or combine the two videos using a video editor. Many of the third-party recorders do not have a limit on recording time.

The Xbox bar will automatically go to the active window. Whatever you want to record needs to be open in the active window. If you plan to use the camera, have it ready before you start the Xbox bar. If you want to use the system microphone, click the microphone icon to turn it on. Otherwise, you will get system sound. When you are done click the stop button to halt the capture. By default, the captured video is stored in your Videos/Captures folder as an MP4 file.

To open the Xbox bar, press the Windows key + G. In most cases the presets will work nicely. The timer will keep a count of how much time has passed. The red light indicates that it is capturing video. you can experiment and try variations if you like. For example, try capturing in full screen mode or capturing just the window. Having multiple monitors can be very helpful when doing video capturing and editing.

If you are creating a video from your computer’s camera it is important to have good lighting on the subject. While most cameras can compensate to a certain degree insufficient light make for very poor video. Turning up the light can make color and detail stand out. Try experimenting with different lighting schemes for the best result. It might even make you look younger, thinner or more distinguished.

Creating good, professional quality videos is not easy. Using good equipment is a requirement but it takes more than that. You should have a prepared script of what you are going to say and do. Any props or demonstrations should be tested and ready. As with most things, practice makes perfect.

Protecting your work
Platforms like YouTube have developed their own security to protect their user’s content. Placing a watermark or copyright symbol and information on your work is a good idea. As of January 1, 1978 any video content produced after that date is copyrighted for the creator’s lifetime and seventy years after that. Copyright laws can be complex and confusing. You can get some information from websites like MOTIONCUE.COM or VIDEOMAKER.COM. For more detailed information you may want to contact a professional copyright lawyer.

Movies and TV
Can you capture streaming videos like movies? The short answer is no. You may not record anything from the big streaming services. As you might have guessed, it is against the rules since they want you to have a paid subscription. You can download some content from Netflix to view when you are off-line but that is about all.

So, the long answer is yes, you can capture movies and TV shows from your computer screen. Much like you can record TV content with a DVR or even an old-fashioned VCR. Technically it is possible it is just that in most cases it is against the rules.

Some of the main streaming services use Digital Rights Management, (DRM) technology to encrypt their content. If you try to capture video from Netflix or Amazon you will get the sound ok but the video will be a black screen. It is possible to get around this by turning off the hardware acceleration in the browser. You can Google up how to do that for your browser if you are interested.

Capturing a TV show, movie or sporting event so that you can watch it when you get home, (much like we used to do with a VCR) probably won’t get you in any trouble. But if you try and rebroadcast it or sell it you might very well get in into trouble. Most of what you would capture is already copyrighted so you could be asking for trouble from the owner of that movie or TX show.

Video Editing
Why do you need a video editor. To create good quality videos a good editor is a must have app. You can use various video effects like fade in and out. You can add backgrounds, sound and text. Create collages and animations. Use square and vertical aspect rations for social media clips. In short, upgrade your video to a professional level production in the shortest amount of time

While there are a great many third-party apps that can use to edit videos. You can edit your videos in Windows 10 or Windows 11 using the native, built-in apps. Windows still has the Microsoft Video Editor which can perform most of the basic editing functions. If it is not in the list of All Apps just type “video editor” in the search bar.

Recently Microsoft has acquired Clipchamp which is a more robust video editor. You can install it for free from the Microsoft store. The free video editors will get you started. Most of them can only trim video from the start or end of the clip. So, if you want to remove the part where you sneezed or knocked over the demonstration model you will have to break the video into sperate parts, trim out what you don’t want and then merge them back together.

If you are going to be doing a lot of video work then it is likely you are going to need a more powerful video editor. In other words, one of the apps you have to pay for. Cyberlink has a very good video editor called PowerDirector 365 and, of course there is Adobe Premier Pro. Tools like these have a lot of power and can do all sorts of things but to a novice they can be rather intimidating. It may take some time to become proficient. Creating a simple video is easy but that may not reflect well on you or your organization. Did I mention that creating good quality videos is not easy.

Video Converters

Video converters can transform one format into another.

• MOV, (Quick Time Movies) have good quality sound and video but can be rather large files.
• WMV, (Windows Media Video) was created by Microsoft and uses good compression to provide a small file size. However, it is not compatible with Apple devices. Apple users would need to get Windows Media Player for their devices.
• FLV is the format used by Adobe Flash Player. It was popular with online streaming platforms like You Tube but Flash Player has been discontinued.
• AVI was introduced by Microsoft way back in 1992. It can create file without any compression, (lossless recording) which results in very good quality and very large files. Lossless encryption also eliminates the use of codecs in video players.
• AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) was designed by Panasonic and Sony for professional high definition video recording. This lets you store hours of high-quality video with a very small file size by leveraging the H.264/MPEG4 codec.
• WebM is an open-source video format created by Google in 2010. It was intended for use with HTML5. It requires very little computer power to compress and unzip files. The idea was to enable online video streaming on almost any device.
• MKV also known as the Matroska video file, incorporates audio, video and subtitles in a single file. It was developed to be “future proof” because the video file will always stay updated. The MKV container supports almost any video and audio format so it is highly adaptive and easy to use.

Video converters can transform one format into another.

Most of the good video editors can make, save and publish any of these formats. Some can even convert them from one format to another, even repair a corrupted video. For this reason, a video converter is not usually an essential tool. If the need arises there are many online converters available.

Subtitles
Subtitles are not just for the hearing impaired. They can be useful when you are in a quite only environment or when there is so much noise that it is hard to hear the sound. With MP4 files you can only burn one subtitle track into the video. Most good video editors can add subtitles.

If you want subtitle for an MP4 movie that is contained in a separate file, (an SRT file). If you don’t want to spend all day typing the text to a feature length movie you can download SRT files for most popular movies and old TV shows from websites like OpenSubtitles and Subscene.

And remember — always back it up!