Best Screen Recording Format: OBS, MP4, and Beyond

Screen recording is deceptively tricky to get right. You press record, do your thing, and press stop. Simple enough — until the file is corrupted because your system crashed mid-recording, or the 2-hour tutorial is 45 GB because you chose the wrong codec, or the text on screen looks like a blurry mess because your encoder settings were optimized for camera footage instead of screen content.

The format and codec you choose for screen recording affects everything: file integrity in case of crashes, file size, text clarity, encoding performance (will your game drop frames?), and compatibility with editing software. Unlike camera footage, screen recordings have unique characteristics — large areas of uniform color, sharp text edges, sudden full-frame changes, and high-contrast UI elements — that different codecs handle very differently.

This guide covers the best recording formats for every scenario: OBS Studio output settings, tutorial recordings, gaming capture, presentation recording, and professional screen capture for documentation. We will compare containers, codecs, and settings to help you choose the optimal configuration.

Why Screen Recording Is Different from Camera Recording

Camera footage has smooth gradients, natural motion blur, and organic textures. Screen content has none of that. Instead, screen recordings feature:

• Sharp text edges — Anti-aliased fonts with precisely defined pixel boundaries
• Large uniform color areas — Solid backgrounds, flat UI elements
• Sudden full-frame changes — Tab switching, application switching, slide transitions
• Mixed content — Text, UI elements, and sometimes camera footage or video playback simultaneously
• High spatial frequency — Code editors, spreadsheets, and dense UI layouts with lots of fine detail

Codecs designed for natural video use psychovisual models that assume organic content. They may smooth over fine text details, introduce ringing artifacts around sharp edges, or allocate too much bitrate to uniform areas while starving complex regions. The best screen recording setup accounts for these differences.

Container Format Comparison

The container format wraps your encoded video and audio streams. For screen recording, the container affects crash resilience, compatibility, and feature support.

MP4

MP4 is the most universally compatible container but has a critical flaw for recording: its metadata (the moov atom) is written at the end of the file. If your recording crashes, the application hangs, or your system loses power, the entire file is unrecoverable without repair tools.

Pros: Universal playback, excellent editor support, web-ready Cons: Corrupt on crash, limited codec support (no VP9)

MKV (Matroska)

MKV writes metadata incrementally throughout the recording. If your system crashes, you lose only the last few seconds — the rest of the file is playable. This makes MKV the safest container for long recordings.

Pros: Crash-resilient, supports virtually every codec, multiple audio tracks Cons: Less universal playback support, some editors require remuxing to MP4

FLV

FLV was historically popular for streaming because it also handles crashes gracefully. However, FLV is limited to older codecs (H.264 + AAC) and is increasingly deprecated.

Pros: Crash-resilient, streaming-friendly Cons: Limited to H.264, declining support, no modern codec compatibility

WebM

WebM is a subset of MKV designed for web playback with VP8/VP9/AV1 video and Vorbis/Opus audio. It inherits MKV's crash resilience.

Pros: Crash-resilient, royalty-free codecs, web-native Cons: Limited to VP8/VP9/AV1, less universal editor support

Codec Recommendations by Use Case

Tutorial and Screencast Recording

For tutorials where text readability is paramount — code editors, terminal sessions, documentation walkthroughs — you need a codec that preserves sharp edges without introducing blur.

Recommended: H.264 with CRF 18-20, or x264 with tune=animation

# OBS x264 settings for tutorials
# Rate Control: CRF
# CRF: 18
# Preset: veryfast
# Tune: animation
# Profile: high

The animation tune in x264 is often overlooked for screen recording, but it works exceptionally well. It increases the deblocking strength and reference frame count, which preserves sharp edges and handles the sudden scene changes common in screen content.

For extremely text-heavy recordings (pure terminal or code editor), consider CRF 15-16 for pixel-perfect text clarity. Check our guide on video codecs for more on how CRF affects quality.

Gaming Capture

Gaming recordings need high frame rates (60 fps or higher), fast motion handling, and minimal encoding overhead so the encoder does not steal CPU or GPU cycles from the game itself.

Recommended: NVENC H.264 (NVIDIA) or AMF H.264 (AMD) for hardware encoding, or x264 ultrafast for CPU encoding

# OBS NVENC settings for gaming
# Rate Control: CQP
# CQ Level: 20
# Preset: P5 (Slow) or P4 (Medium)
# Profile: High
# Look-ahead: On
# B-Frames: 2

Hardware encoders (NVENC, AMF, Quick Sync) are ideal for gaming because they use dedicated encoding hardware that does not impact game performance. The quality is slightly lower than equivalent CPU encoding, but the zero performance impact makes it worthwhile.

For competitive gaming where every frame matters, use NVENC with CQP 18-20. For casual gaming recordings that will be edited later, CQP 22-23 saves space while maintaining good quality.

Presentation Recording

Presentations combine slides (sharp text, graphics) with speaker video (natural content). The mixed content type requires a balanced approach.

Recommended: H.264 CRF 20-22, or AV1 CRF 28-30 for smaller files

# FFmpeg recording/conversion for presentations
ffmpeg -i presentation_raw.mkv -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -preset slow \
  -tune stillimage -c:a aac -b:a 128k presentation.mp4

The stillimage tune optimizes for content that changes infrequently — exactly what presentation slides do during extended talking sections. It reduces bitrate during static sections without sacrificing quality during transitions.

Professional Documentation

For software documentation, QA testing records, and technical demonstrations where pixel-perfect accuracy is required:

Recommended: Lossless or near-lossless encoding

# Lossless H.264 recording
ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i "1:0" -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -preset ultrafast \
  -c:a aac -b:a 192k documentation.mkv

# Near-lossless (much smaller files, virtually identical)
ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i "1:0" -c:v libx264 -crf 12 -preset veryfast \
  -c:a aac -b:a 192k documentation.mkv

CRF 0 is mathematically lossless — every pixel is perfectly preserved. File sizes are enormous (expect 500 MB+ per minute at 1080p), but when pixel accuracy matters for documentation or bug reproduction, it is worth it. CRF 12 is a practical compromise that is visually indistinguishable from lossless while producing files roughly 5-10x smaller.

OBS Studio Configuration Guide

OBS Studio is the most popular screen recording application, and its settings significantly impact recording quality. Here is how to configure OBS for each scenario.

Output Settings

Navigate to Settings > Output > Recording:

Video Settings

Post-Recording Processing

Raw screen recordings often need processing before distribution: trimming, format conversion, or compression.

Remuxing MKV to MP4

Remuxing changes the container without re-encoding — it is instantaneous and lossless:

ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -c copy recording.mp4

Compressing for Web Distribution

Screen recordings compress extremely well because of their uniform color areas. You can often achieve dramatic file size reduction with minimal visual impact:

ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset slow \
  -tune animation -c:a aac -b:a 128k compressed.mp4

For even smaller files, AV1 encoding is particularly effective on screen content. AV1's palette mode and intra-block copy tools were specifically designed for screen-like content:

ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -c:v libsvtav1 -crf 32 -preset 6 \
  -c:a libopus -b:a 128k compressed.webm

For more compression techniques, our video compression guide covers how to reduce file size without visible quality loss.

Trimming Recordings

Remove false starts, pauses, or dead time from recordings:

# Trim from 00:00:30 to 00:45:00 without re-encoding
ffmpeg -ss 00:00:30 -to 00:45:00 -i recording.mkv -c copy trimmed.mkv

For more precise trimming with frame-accurate cuts, see our video trimming guide or use the video trimmer tool.

File Size Expectations

Understanding expected file sizes helps you plan storage and estimate upload times. All values below assume 1080p resolution.

Screen content with minimal motion (slides, documents) compresses dramatically better than gaming footage. A 1-hour presentation recording at CRF 20 might be under 2 GB, while a 1-hour gaming session at the same CRF could exceed 15 GB.

Advanced: Multi-Track Recording

For professional tutorials and Let's Play content, recording separate audio tracks is invaluable for post-production editing:

In OBS Studio:

1. Go to Settings > Output > Recording
2. Set Audio Track to tracks 1, 2, and 3
3. In the Audio Mixer, assign microphone to Track 2 and desktop audio to Track 3
4. Track 1 gets the combined mix

This lets you independently adjust microphone and game audio levels during editing, fix audio issues on one track without affecting the other, or replace the voiceover entirely.

MKV containers support multiple audio tracks natively. If you remux to MP4, all tracks are preserved. To extract individual tracks later:

# Extract microphone audio (track 2)
ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -map 0:a:1 -c copy microphone.aac

# Extract desktop audio (track 3)
ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -map 0:a:2 -c copy desktop.aac

For details on extracting audio tracks, see our audio extraction guide.

Recording at Higher Resolutions

1440p and 4K Recording

Recording at resolutions above 1080p increases file sizes significantly but provides two benefits: sharper text rendering and the ability to crop or zoom in post-production without quality loss.

For 1440p tutorial recordings:

# OBS: Set Base Resolution to 2560x1440
# Output Resolution: 2560x1440 (no downscaling)
# Encoder: x264 or NVENC
# CRF/CQP: 20
# Preset: veryfast (x264) or P4 (NVENC)

For 4K recordings, hardware encoding (NVENC/AMF) is strongly recommended because CPU encoding at 4K demands substantial processing power. Refer to our 4K video conversion guide for optimal output settings.

Retina/HiDPI Display Recording

On macOS with Retina displays, the actual pixel count is 2x or 3x the logical resolution. A 1440x900 MacBook display is actually recording at 2880x1800 pixels. This produces excellent quality but very large files. Consider recording at the logical resolution (1x) if pixel-perfect Retina quality is not needed.

Converting Screen Recordings for Distribution

After recording, you often need to convert for specific platforms:

For YouTube upload:

ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow \
  -profile:v high -level 4.1 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 192k -ar 48000 \
  youtube_upload.mp4

See our YouTube video settings guide for detailed upload specifications.

For social media (short clips):

ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -ss 00:05:00 -t 60 \
  -vf "scale=1080:1920,setsar=1" -c:v libx264 -crf 20 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k social_clip.mp4

For platform-specific requirements, check our social media video format guide.

For email or messaging:

Screen recordings for sharing via email or Slack need aggressive compression:

ffmpeg -i recording.mkv -c:v libx264 -crf 28 -preset slow \
  -vf "scale=1280:720" -c:a aac -b:a 96k small.mp4

Use the video compressor for an easy way to reduce file sizes to email-friendly levels.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Blurry Text in Recording

If text appears blurry in your screen recording, the cause is almost always downscaling or suboptimal encoder settings. Ensure your output resolution matches your base resolution (no downscaling) and use a CRF value of 20 or lower. Add -tune animation for x264 to prioritize edge sharpness.

Encoding Lag (Dropped Frames)

If OBS shows "encoding lag" warnings, your encoder cannot keep up with the recording. Solutions:

1. Switch from CPU encoding (x264) to GPU encoding (NVENC/AMF/Quick Sync)
2. Use a faster preset (ultrafast or superfast for x264)
3. Reduce output resolution
4. Lower frame rate from 60 to 30 fps

Audio Sync Drift

If audio gradually drifts out of sync over long recordings, the cause is usually mismatched sample rates. Ensure both audio sources use the same sample rate (48,000 Hz is the standard for video). In OBS: Settings > Audio > Sample Rate > 48 kHz.

Large File Sizes

If your recordings are unexpectedly large, check that you are using CRF/CQP rate control (not CBR with a high bitrate), your CRF value is not too low (18-22 is the sweet spot for most screen content), and you are not recording at an unnecessarily high resolution. You can always compress later using the video converter or video compressor without significant quality loss for screen content.

Quick Decision Guide

Not sure which format to use? Follow this flow:

1. Recording safety is the priority (long recordings, unreliable system): Use MKV container
2. Need immediate sharing (no post-processing): Use MP4 container (accept crash risk)
3. Gaming content: NVENC/AMF hardware encoder, CQP 20, 60 fps
4. Tutorial/screencast: x264, CRF 18, tune=animation, 30 fps
5. Presentation: x264, CRF 20, tune=stillimage, 30 fps
6. Maximum quality archive: x264, CRF 0 (lossless), MKV container

Record in MKV, remux to MP4 for sharing, and use ConvertIntoMP4's video converter when you need to optimize for specific platforms or compress for distribution. For converting between formats while maintaining quality, check our guide on best video formats.