Recording a video of just a screen section

[Redyn]

I've followed instructions on how to record a video of just a part of the screen/window: simply resize the capture area while holding alt.

I did this and it indeed produces videos of just the selected section. The problem is that the video still uses the screen resolution, with the parts outside of the capture are being black.

So it ends up looking like this:

I don't want this. I want the video to cover only the capture area. No black areas.

I also want the video to be a 1:1 capture without any scaling. So if I capture a 500x500 section, the video should be 500x500, rather than being upscaled to 1080p or such.

How can I do this?

 

[Suslik V]

OBS Settings > Video, set both canvas and output to the desired resolution (type it manually). Take in mind that encoders usually expects width and height multiply of 2, 4, 16 or 32 (exact value depends on encoder and some advanced settings).

 

[Redyn]

OBS Settings > Video, set both canvas and output to the desired resolution (type it manually). Take in mind that encoders usually expects width and height multiply of 2, 4, 16 or 32 (exact value depends on encoder and some advanced settings).

Tried that. It throws off the scaling, as OBS seems to assume that when the user sets a lower resolution than the screen/window, they want to capture the whole thing, so it downscales the image.

 

[koala]

if you edit the transform of your source, make sure the "bounding box type" is set to "no bounds". This will disable any source scaling. This is also the default, if you do a "reset transform". However, if you reset the transform, you need to crop the borders again.

As alternative, instead of ALT-dragging the borders to crop, you can add the crop filter and use it to reduce the source size. This will actually change the size of the source, so afterwards you're able to right-click your source > resize output (source size) to make your canvas exactly the size of your source. A thing not possible with the ALT-drag crop method, since that will internally not resize the source, just hide what's beyond the crop borders.

 

[Redyn]

It's already set to no bounds.

I alt-drag the borders to set the boundaries to, say, 600x300. Then I go to settings > video and set both the canvas and output to 600x300. The image gets downscaled.

I tried tried the crop filter method, and there is no more downscaling, but the capture still ends up blurry anyway:

Window I used as a test:

Recorded video:

I even set lossless quality in Recording Quality, and slowest in Encoder Preset.

For comparison, fullscreen recording with the same settings but no cropping doesn't have the blurriness.

 

[koala]

You're right, there seems different automatic resizing behavior than what I remember. It's not very intuitive for what you're trying to do.

Try a different approach.
First, set your desired canvas+output size, in Settings > Video, for example 600x600.
Then, add your source. Or if it already exists, remove any crop filter and reset its transform. Now you have the full 1:1 unscaled and uncropped source. You see the top left corner of the source in the canvas.
Now drag the source in the canvas, until the desired part of it appears. Not the corners but the whole source. The canvas is like a window, and you move the source like a picture behind it to see just the desired part of it. Move the source, so the canvas masks exactly what you want to see from the source.

 

[Suslik V]

What version of OBS?

 

[Redyn]

You're right, there seems different automatic resizing behavior than what I remember. It's not very intuitive for what you're trying to do.

Try a different approach.
First, set your desired canvas+output size, in Settings > Video, for example 600x600.
Then, add your source. Or if it already exists, remove any crop filter and reset its transform. Now you have the full 1:1 unscaled and uncropped source. You see the top left corner of the source in the canvas.
Now drag the source in the canvas, until the desired part of it appears. Not the corners but the whole source. The canvas is like a window, and you move the source like a picture behind it to see just the desired part of it. Move the source, so the canvas masks exactly what you want to see from the source.

That did it! Thank you very much

And thank you Suslik for assisting me too

What version of OBS?

Current version