OBS Studio (FREE) - Record Background Window with Audio on Windows – Can Hear While Recording

You can do something else while the app is recording a screen but the result contains black part when window is resized or the target area won’t fit the frame.

The test steps – OBS Studio 32.0.1

On: Windows 11 Home

Download from https://obsproject.com/download

1. Go to the link above to download a file.

Open the downloaded file.

The dialog ‘User Account Control’ shows, click ‘Yes’

Follow the on-screen window to install the app.

When it’s done, click ‘Finish’.

2. OBS Studio opens.

I chose ‘Optimize just for recording….’ by clicking in front of the line, the blue circle will be placed.

The next window shows.

You can see the options I chose in the picture above.

The final result shows, click ‘Apply Settings’.

The picture above is the target window. Video and audio playing with the app called ‘VLC’.

3. The main window shows.

At section ‘Source’, click +.

Select ‘Window Capture’.

The new window shows, click ‘OK’.

The next window shows, I selected ‘VLC…’ in the list of windows. And I checked ‘Capture Audio (BETA) then click 'OK'.

In the picture above, you can see the frame and the target window. You can resize or move the target window.

At ‘Control’ section, I clicked ‘Start Recording’.

The button will be changed to ‘Stop Recording’.

The result is, this app can not recording video playing in ‘VLC’ player.

But it can record audio coming from ‘VLC’ player.

In the picture above is properties of the output video, you can see the audio and video info.

When I resized the target window while recording, there is no issue.

I moved the target window while recording but the video in the output file was not moved.

I made the target window a background window while recording but the video in the output file, the target window did not stay in the background.

4. I changed target window to Firefox browser. There was no issue, it could record audio and video playing in the browser.

When I resized the target window while recording, the background window did not show in the video in the output file.

I don’t like the black part in the output file, I remember version of this app on macOS, there is no black part if I don’t resize the target window.

 

The test steps – OBS Studio 32.0.1

On: Windows 11 Home

Download from https://obsproject.com/download