How to screen record and record yourself at the same time on Windows?

ff mpeg is a powerful command-line tool that can capture multiple inputs and combine them into a single video with picture-in-picture overlay. It's completely free, lightweight, and offers maximum control—but requires manual command crafting. If you're wondering how to screen record and record yourself at the same time,

How to screen record and record yourself at the same time:

1. Identify your devices: Use ff mpeg -list_devices true -f dshow -i dummy to get the exact names of your webcam and microphone as recognized by Windows.

2. Craft the command: You need to combine inputs from your screen (using gdigrab for the desktop) and your webcam/mic (using dshow). The command can look something like this:

bash
ff mpeg -f gdigrab -framerate 30 -i desktop -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 23 -pix_fmt yuv420p cap.mp4

This example captures the full screen. To add the webcam, you would need to use a filter_complex to overlay the two video sources, which significantly increases the command's complexity.

Key considerations for the ff mpeg method:

• System Audio: Recording internal system audio directly with ff mpeg is tricky because it doesn't have native support for Windows' "stereo mix" or loopback. You would likely need to install an additional virtual audio cable driver to capture system sound.
• Prev iew: Seeing a live preview of your webcam while recording is even more complex and often requires scripting to manage the ff mpeg process and display the feed simultaneously.

If you're comfortable with the command line and willing to install a virtual audio cable, ff mpeg is arguably the most powerful free way to record screen + webcam on Windows 10. It's not beginner-friendly, but once you have a working command, you can save it as a .bat file and reuse it anytime.