What are the best programs to record videos on WoW?

[Fluttershy]

Don't care if it's not free.

Also how big of a file is a 10 minute clip? I remember recording on SC2 and it wasn't that bad.

[Surfd]

Clip size is going to be completely relitave to your recording paramaters. Recording something at 30 FPS at 1080 x 640 for example is going to yield a file signifigantly larger then recording something at 20 fps at 640 x 480.

As to programs, i think Fraps is the most common one, but I am not sure what the feature set on it's freeware version is like.

[Mefistophelis]

I use Xsplit as it can record videos in high quality in flv/mp4 and also can stream on my twitch for my experiments

[Griffter]

Fraps is the most common. I've also heard good things about Bandicam, but haven't ever used it. As for file size, any HD recording is going to give you huge files. A 20 minute let's play at 1080p, 30fps, is about 85 gigs with Fraps.

[Resentful]

Most common and usually the most known is Fraps

[Lovestar]

Video questions never have simple answers, haha. I'm probably providing way more detail than you need, but ... that's just what I do. =)

The size of a 10 minute clip depends on many factors:

• The codec you're using to encode/compress the captured frames
• The resolution you're recording at (bigger area recorded per frame = more data)
• The FPS you're recording at (more frames per second = larger file size because there's just more data)
• What's going on in the scene (lots of motion and detail will be a larger file than reading from your mailbox while stationary, especially when using compression codecs)
• The color depth you choose to use (more colors = more data)

It goes on. And on. And on. But those are the big factors. So first, you need to decide some basic things:

• What kind of scenes are you recording? Soloing dailies, 10-man Normal, and 25 Heroic will have very different setup considerations.
• What FPS are you happy recording to? (The FPS you play with in-game can be different than the FPS your recording takes in)
• What quality do you need? Pixel-perfect, or can you spare some artifacts and color-changes? Think in terms of choosing a JPEG's compression level, you have "Almost identical to original" (big image file) to "Grainy blocky Minecraft simulator" (tiny image file).
• What resolution do you want to record to? 720p? 1080p?
• How much of an in-game performance hit are you willing to take? (better compression leads to smaller file sizes, but puts more pressure on your CPU to encode in realtime)
• How much will you be editing it? Higher-quality less-compressed codecs behave better for editing.
• And more...

As for recording software, again, that depends on your needs.

• Fraps is simple, easy, and has a reasonably good-quality codec with not-too-bad file sizes. However, Fraps aggressively throttles your in-game FPS to try to match recording FPS, which can frustrate people who want smoother play. Fraps does not excel in any area, but it's also very adequate.
• Dxtory is the polar opposite of Fraps, requiring a PhD to configure properly (or just some YouTube setup guides and a bit of Google ). It can use any codec you have available and use it well, so it's up to you to tailor Dxtory to your needs. Unlike Fraps, which is 1-button-fits-all. Without proper tinkering, Dxtory will create gigantic files and can heavily impact your CPU; with proper settings it usually creates high-quality, modest-sized output with minimal gameplay impact.
• Mirillis Action! is sort-of a hybrid compromise between Fraps and Dxtory, containing some of the benefits and downsides of each. Overall quality is usually quite good.
• NVIDIA Shadowplay has some serious limitations and low configurability, but also produces generally high-quality captures with low impact on gameplay. Only available on NVIDIA GPUs.
• There are many other recording options, but either I don't have good data about them, or IMO they don't stack up compared to those four. Bandicam in particular is quite awful in my experience for anything but the most rudimentary capture tasks.

MMOC user @evn ran some very helpful benchmarks and calculations here, including a nice chart that summarizes the data rate your disks need to push in order to record a given type of footage. If you have the time his YouTube videos are a good basic intro. =)

[Mezzolith]

I use OBS to record videos, seems to work well enough, with lots of options on top of being totally free and open source. Though, I've only done a few videos and not necessarily an expert. :x

http://obsproject.com/

[Peso]

Old school: Gamecam
Old school: Fraps

[Fluttershy]

How can I upload files to youtube if it's so big?

720p recording in afterburn(way smaller than fraps) is about 6gb for one boss encounter which is already compressed in mjpg the moment you record(they're still .avi files though). Is there any way to make it smaller?

- - - Updated - - -

bampf10charas

[Persada]

Recommend Bandicam. A 10 minute recording can be 100mb. That's with the free version, so might be a tad more if you want quality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfGZnEddnIg - not the best sample but it works.

[Fluttershy]

do i have to compress it afterwards or does it do it as I record? don't really have that much available space.

[Deleted]

do i have to compress it afterwards or does it do it as I record? don't really have that much available space.

If you're using a program like fraps to record in 1080p then you will have to record the clip, it'll be very, very big, then you will have to compress it with your movie program for uploading to youtube. You need a lot of space for making decent quality videos. When I was doing raid videos since I had it recording for wipes (because you never know when your first kill will be) I ended up just deleting the old footage every 200GB or so... but then guildies wanted "out takes" of bad wipes so I couldn't indiscriminately delete everything and ended up having to filter through up to 1GB of videos to find clips for the final reel /shudder.

[Deleted]

I use msi afterburner afterwards xmedia recode to make the file smaller. Still needs a long time to get it uploaded to yt.

[Fluttershy]

I use msi afterburner afterwards xmedia recode to make the file smaller. Still needs a long time to get it uploaded to yt.

how much smaller are they after you make the file smaller? 10x smaller?

[Glyphtics]

I use Open Broadcaster Software set to Local Record. Good Quality without having 50GB / 10 minute file sizes.

[Fluttershy]

Anyone know how much smaller a 6gb avi file would be after you compress it? generally.

[Merilwen]

Dxtory with the Lagarith Codec. I can record raid attempts/kills (25m) while I live stream in 1080p with no noticeable system slowdown at all. And a 10:41 raw AVI capture of my guild's Heroic Nazgrim kill I still have is 21.7GB

[Edds]

open broadcast software gets the job done.

[Deleted]

how much smaller are they after you make the file smaller? 10x smaller?

I have an old video with a duration of 2:31 which was 1,67GB and is now 140mb.

[klaps_05]

very few people know that Open Broadcaster Software(OBS) can actually record instead of streaming, and the quality can be crystal clear.