Recording 2 separate windows at once

Question

It's a pretty simple requirement but I have no idea how to go about getting it done. I have a popular software "replay video capture" by applain. What this does is capture anything that's being played on the screen into a video. So even if the video is not downloadable, I am still able to capture it easily because no matter what the protection scheme is, it has to play on my monitor.

A very good feature of this software is that, unlike other screencast/screen capture tools, this software allows "background mode"; wherein the capture happens even with the window not being visible on the screen and I can use the computer for other work!

The only drawback of this software is that it allows capturing only one window at a time. So for example I am unable to capture a video on Firefox and another video on chrome at the same time. My actual requirement is to capture a real time stock chart and real time price ladder. see http://i.imgur.com/lj11aiH.png If the 2 windows were inside a single window, there would be no problem.

Possible window merging solution: Merging 2 windows together (dont know whether this can help)

Virtual machine solution: run both windows inside a virtual machine and capture that display. But to use a VM for such a simple task would be an overkill- a minimalistic VM like Mojopac would be ideal (however Mojopac won't work on win7).

Using camtasia for example on a multi-monitor setup will work but I cant carry around an extra monitor. A remote desktop kind of idea will also work but I don't think its possible to do a remote desktop to the same PC.

(I have tried a lot of hacks and even contacted their support team and they replied that the feature will be available in one of the future releases)

Answer 1

Since I am not aware of options for 'merging' windows as you say (beyond a VM), I am going to recommend changing your tool which can capture multiple sources

The tool I am familiar with is OBS. While it is primarily aimed at capturing game output and streaming that to live video services, it would more than adequately capture 2 windows at once (or more if that becomes necessary for you down the line).

The basic gist is, after installing:

1) add a scene (right click in the 'scenes' box -> add scene); call it say 'Stocks and Prices' to containthe sources you will use

2) with that scene selected, add two "window capture" sources (right click in the 'sources' box -> add -> 'window capture'); one for the stock chart, one for the price ladder

3) configure your output for local saving only as per the local recording guide

4) press 'Start Recording'. Note that if you have a previous recording OBS will automatically increment the number of the recording

5) (optional) add any other sources for decoration that you want- a background image, etc

As a bonus, this will work similarly to replay video capture's "background mode" as you put it- the windows contents will still be written to the video. You can configure the output as you wish, but if you follow the local recording guide is should be relatively small as it is already h264-encoded.

This should meet your requirements of:

• recording 2 windows
• recording windows that are in the background

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There are also official quick start and overview guides available too, but this should get you started!