I have been using this program for many years! And I am 100% satisfied with it even now!

When you play your favorite video games and want to capture a good moment, then you need a simple program to capture video and then post it to YouTube! This program will give you high quality with minimal load on your CPU and RAM!

Of course, if you want to get more, something like... for example, streaming and recording at the same time, then you need to look at a different version of this program! Or other programs;)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/746390/PlayClaw__Overlays_Game_Recording__Streaming/

But if you need a small handy program for high-quality video capture - then this is my choice!

You can also watch my videos on my
https://www.youtube.com/FoxLeks
Where almost all videos are made thanks to this program!

Also don't forget to follow me everywhere =)

The marketplace for screen capture tools is starting to get quite crowded, but PlayClaw stands out as it strikes a great balance between ease of use and quality. The main competitors are Bandicam, Fraps, and Dxtory. PlayClaw beats Fraps as it is much less resources intensive, and produces higher quality ouput than Bandicam in most cases. Using PlayClaw usually results in nothing more than a 1 to 5 frame rate decrease and very few dropped frames during recording. Dxtory, coupled with the Lagarith codec produces slightly better results, and is even less resource intensive, but takes a bit more effort to set it up; in contrast the PlayClaw UI is very easy to navigate.

The main features are: Record in-game footage. Record the desktop. Buffer a period of footage (from 5 to 600seconds). Take screenshots. Configure input from multiple audio sources including mic. You can also stream to Twitch, YouTube and Customer Server (not tested yet)

Recording desktop / in-game and activating recording to capture the buffered footage never show any interuption or performance hit. I have tried streaming to a 10,000prm HDD, and also 5400. As with all capture tools the faster the hard drive the better, but footage was still OK on the slower drive. Being able to define the number of CPU threads the software utilises really helps performance. Other essential options are the ability to define frame rate for capture and set the resolution (although I would recommend recording native and then scaling during editing).

One thing I really like is the ability have PlayClaw write audio tracks in seperate files. This makes it a lot more convenient if editing audio as each each source (in-game or mic) gets it's own file. So no bother with extracting audio from the video file, or having all audio streams mixed.

Taking screenshots produces a nice overlay effect - it really lets you know a shot has been taken without being intrusive. Other overlays can be configured to show frame rate, recording duration, buffer, a clock and many other features. One of the most useful overlapys shows how large your recording is.

The main area where PlayClaw could improve is around the MJPEG codec. It appears they use their own custom codec and many have found it can be a pain finding editing software to support it. (Protip - If you have problems opening the files in your editor, try installing the free version of Bandicam - this will install / update the codecs - it certainly worked for Sony Movie Studio 12 and 13). It spoils what is otherwise a very easy to use application. It would be nice if they supported advanced options that allowed the user to install their own codecs. Edit: The developer has kindly clarified the MJPEG issue. But out of all the capture software I have tested over the years, PlayClaw is the only one that caused problems like this. So I am not changing my comment, as many people have found my 'pro tip' useful.

Overall PlayClaw is a great piece of software. I am using it exclusively to capture footage. It does a great job.

Edit: May 2015 - Slight changes to incorporate questions received below

I have mixed feelings on this one. tl;dr I ended up buying Fraps to get my game captures.

About me: I make a lot of fragshow/machinima movies and have about 10 years experience. This program didn't work out so well for that purpose. I also did some research on YouTube for reviews prior to my purchase, but unfortunately my mileage varied quite a bit.

I found I had to alt tab a few times to get the overlays to appear - like it wouldn't select the open game for a while. Then, even when turning all overlays off in the settings, they still appeared in my recordings.. and yes, i had turned the overlay off from the active game prior to recording!

Another problem I had was that I had to close and reopen the program a lot, and relaunch my games so PlayClaw would show up, which caused steam to go "hold the phone! we're closing or opening something" all the time [black Steam box in middle of screen.] I'd also get "failed to launch app" as PlayClaw or its "hook" which displays/hooks into games would get frozen in the background. I'd have to restart my games, steam and eventually my PC to try to get things going.

Can't blame the dev for that though, as it appears to be how Steam handles licensing. However, I can blame the dev for this: I emailed explaining my issue, and asked for a license for the non-steam version (which is feature-same, does not have new features) and was refused saying to try the new beta.

I don't want to try new betas. I want to have working software delivered through Steam if thats how I purchase it. But if one of my core issues is that I'm having problems LAUNCHING the app, I should be given a key for the non steam version as I had requested.

I can see this argument.. if you buy a game on steam, and it has issues, would you get given a normal CD key for the game AS WELL? well, no. But this is a piece of software designed to run alongside games, and maybe Steam isn't built for that.

The program also always prompts for admin rights (Win 8.1 x64) which, if you're reopening it multiple times, becomes quite the annoyance. Also each time I quit the program it would display a variable error.

Then comes the quality. I found recording the same footage in Fraps vs in PlayClaw resulted in about a 60% smaller file in PlayClaw. Maybe this is good for some people, but it wasn't good for me as I wanted to retain as much quality as possible using this type of recording method.. meaning the reds got junked up a bit due to compression.

I guess I'll close in saying that PlayClaw seems to have some cool features which I'll try to use eventually since I paid for it but it has some problems - which all software does. What wasn't cool for me was the developer refusing to let me use a non-steam version of the program I had bought a license for.

If we buy on Steam, we shouldn't have to manually install things. In my opinion If we opt to do that, we should be granted the privilege.

as a noob youtube playthrough person i enjoy using this software. Its so CPU and RAM light even though its packed with so much.
10/10 I dare anyone not to like this. Files are saved as AVI but compressed in MJPEG (Moving Jpeg) so for my Half-Life 2 sries. 30 mins at 1080p is 10-15gb. Compress it to 720p in Sony Vegas and bang >1gb
For Assassins Creed 4 its more like 20GB but its Jpeg formatted so obviously the mpre colours used the bigger the file. Still... Its an EPIC peice of software. GET IT IF YOU PLAN ON RECORDING YOUTUBE VIDS!

The first few days I used Playclaw everything worked fine, I was able to record for more than an hour in 1080p without much lag or frame drops... Then things started to get messy when I tried it on various games and started playing with the settings. The software gives error messages right from the start and it doesn't work with every game, while Fraps does.

Sure, Fraps has a higher impact on performance but overall you can record anything (including the desktop) without having to worry about the result. Playclaw is far from perfect as of now, so for the price (and the fact that the Steam license will not be updated anymore after X years, as read in the official forums) I don't think this software is worth it. I'd recommend Fraps for now if you have a configuration that can handle the CPU/GPU stress. Playclaw has its pros (webcam display, separating audio files for editing,... and much more!) but it's way too unstable/unpredictable.

While with a few hours of tweaking you can get decent recordings, but if you have a recent pc with any newish nvidia GTX with shadowplay [NVENC] or any cpu thats i5 sandy bridge or later [Intel Quicksync] You can capture using hardware with nearly lossless video quality using shadowplay or OBS, which makes this program a tough sell.

For starters, this software requires online activation EVERY LAUNCH, EVERY TIME. Your internet goes out and you want to record something to give you something to do? too bad.

The best method for recording video using this program for me is mjpeg or motion jpeg. Works well even on lower end gaming rigs but it comes with a caveat if you use adobe premiere or adobe premiere elements (i use elements 13). You will need to buy a codec called Morgan M-Jpeg Codec 64 bit in my case.

The support was decent, my mac pro pc was having problems because of its xenon processors and they made a special beta just for me! Now on my nice i5 1050ti gtx gaming rig there is almost no need. Using OBS I can capture 1080p 60fps using quicksync (onboard graphics processor IN the cpu) If your using a graphics card that onboard isnt used so it can be used to encode video making the cpu and graphics card not take any hit.

Shadowplay with nvidia cards is also a very tiny hit since these cards come with hardware built specifically for this. This can also be accessed in OBS called Nvidia NVENC came out with the geforce 600 series in 2012.

So the question you have to ask is do you have a sandy bridge intel quicksync (or amd equivalent if there is one) or do you have an nvidia graphics card with shadowplay (or an amd equivalent)?

If you dont have either, Such as an older AMD chip with an older AMD graphics card and OBS isnt working for you.. this "could" be an option. But the online DRM makes it impossible to recommend. Online DRM should never exist and I will never recommend a program using it.

At 40$, its too much, I got the program for 25$ or so and still feel its too much. I say use MSI afterburner or OBS which are both free. Online DRM plus so many better alternatives makes this hard to recommend.

At the time of this writing I cannot remember if you can record to a file that has both mic and game audio seperate but I think recording to .ts like obs and using ffmpeg to split out the audio and encode it is the only option.

I have to say, that all things considered: Playclaw is an amazing product and was definitely worth every penny. When I bought it originally, it was simpy a game recorded. It has evovled and it can do everything I need it to do without dropping frames. I'm even able to recorded Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare at 60FPS. The product is great and, bar any unusual mishaps or changes, I won't be looking elsewhere for screen capture programs.

At first I was very happy witht his software; it captures video quite well with few dropped frames. After I tried to do anything more than capture gameplay this software gave me nothing but problems. I had issues with importing anything captured into video editing software, maintaining 60fps while capturing at 1080p, discolouration in the captured gameplay, as well as some audio/visual desynching that I have not experienced with other software. This program also (to my knowlege) lacks the ability to capture ingame and desktop within the same stream, the recording has to be stopped and the user must specify which mode they want to use.

Overall this program only perfoms well when doing siple video capture that other free software can do just as well. If you are looking for something like that i recommend OBS; otherwise try Xsplit.

PlayClaw has it right, everything you need in a handy package. Now if we could just get some Live Streaming abilities in there :)

Oh, well. PlayClaw 5 isn't a really popular thing among content makers. So you won't find quick setups and tweaks for it anywhere, like for OBS or Fraps, or something of that much hype. And yeah, like most other software for recording/streaming video, PlayClaw does have its limits.

The user interface is quite simple, the variety of possible options is maybe not the dream-come-true, but more or less covering all the needs of the video capturing process. The thing I like the most, though, is about its very modest appetite for PC resources. You don't need to worry about your FPS even if you use some low-grade video card, like 1050, 1060, or something of that range.

However, I've witnessed enough inconveniences as well. First of all, in some action games with procedurally generating landscape, I saw the stuttering in the video, if I was trying to record it in something higher than 30 FPS. Something with the process of processing information in games with a very dynamically changing environment - maybe I need more codecs, who knows?
Second notable issue - the size of files. You can't record hours after hours, without having terabytes of free space on your hard drive. One hour of some dynamic action can take more than 20 Gb space...
Also, PlawClaw has some troubles with EasyAntiCheat - a popular resolution for many multiplayer games. It's not a general problem - usually, I record EAC-protected games just fine. But sometimes, primarily short after some EAC update, I simply can't run the game while PlawClaw is open. I think the problem is not on the PlawClaw side, but it is a notable side effect you should know about.
There might be some other issues, of course, but nothing you couldn't handle if you have at least some experience and a basic level of understanding of how such software is working.

Overall, it's a decent program for video recording and streaming, for a decent price. 7/10 grade for me. Not the greatest, but quite universal, agile, and easy-to-use software piece.