How to record multiple screens at once on Windows 10
Recording a PC screen has gotten easier. There are quite a few basic tools that allow you to record your screen. For more sophisticated needs, you can buy apps that do the job and make everything easy. If you need to record multiple screens at once though, you will find your options shrink. Most solutions require that you buy an app for the job. The one free, and reliable solution that is available is of course Open Broadcaster Software.
The only downside to using OBS to record multiple screens at once is that the UI is a bit complicated. In this post, we hope to simplify everything so that it’s easy to use the app to simultaneously record multiple screens.
Download OBS and then follow the directions below. OBS is available for macOS and Linux as well so this will work if you own a Mac or are running Linux on your PC.
Set up sources
On OBS, sources are where the video is captured from. This can be the screen, a different app, or even a webcam.
Open OBS and under Sources, click the plus button to add a new source. From the menu that opens, select Display Capture.
Click Next on the window that opens, and then on the window that follows, select your primary monitor from the Display dropdown. Click OK. OBS can now record your primary monitor. Next, you need to allow it to record your second monitor as well.
Click the plus button under the Sources section again, and select Display Capture, again. Click Next on the window that opens. On the screen that follows, open the Display dropdown and select your second monitor.
Expand recording area
By default, the recording area on OBS is set to the resolution of your primary monitor. Since you’re interested in recording multiple screens at once, you need to expand this area so that it can include both screens side-by-side. To do this, click the Settings button at the bottom right.
On the Settings window, go to the Video tab. Open the ‘Base (Canvas) resolution’ dropdown and change it so that it is set to the total width of both your monitors, and the height of the tallest monitor that you have.
For example, both my monitors are 1920×1080. The resolution I set is 3840×1080.
Click Apply, and then OK.
Align screens in OBS
This is the last thing you need to do before you can start recording. With the recording area expanded, OBS looks like the screenshot below. There’s empty area along the left (yours might be on the right, no big deal). This is where you need to add your second screen.
To do this, simply click on a screen from the right, and drag & drop it on to the black area. The display sources are basically stacked on top of each other like layers. What you’re doing is dragging one layer to the side so that it sits next to the other input source.
You’re now ready to record, or stream. Click the record button and OBS will record both screens at the same time.
