Bandicam (stylized as BANDICAM) is a closed-source screen capture and screen recording software originally developed by Bandisoft and later by Bandicam Company that can take
screenshot
screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is a digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by the operating system or software running on the device powering the display.
Additionally, s ...
s or
record screen changes.
Bandicam consists of three main modes. One is the
Screen Recording
A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture or a screen recording, often containing audio narration. The term ''screencast'' compares with the related term ''screenshot''; whereas screenshot ...
mode, which can be used for recording a certain area on the PC screen. The other is the Game Recording mode, which can record the target created in
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...
or
OpenGL
OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...
. And the last is the Device Recording mode which records
Webcam
A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral d ...
s and
HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...
devices.
Bandicam displays an
FPS
FPS may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* "F.P.S." (''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''), an episode of the TV show ''Law & Order: Criminal Intent''
* '' fps magazine'', a defunct magazine about animation
* ''The Fabulous Picture Show'', a televi ...
count in the corner of the screen while the DirectX/OpenGL window is in active mode. When the FPS count is shown in green, it means the program is ready to record, and when it starts recording, it changes the color of the FPS count to red. The FPS count is not displayed when the program is recording in the Screen Recording mode. This software has a maximum frame rate of 144 FPS.
Bandicam is
shareware
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...
, meaning that it can be tested free of charge with limited functionality (It is often called
crippleware
Crippleware has been defined in realms of both computer software and hardware. In software, crippleware means that "vital features of the program such as printing or the ability to save files are disabled until the user purchases a registration ke ...
). The free version of Bandicam places its name as a
watermark
A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations ...
at the top of every recorded video, and each recorded video is limited to 10 minutes in length. However, users can adjust the screen margin with the video screen so that the watermark is off-screen from the video.
The created video can be saved in
AVI or
MP4 formats. Bandicam can also capture screenshots and save them as
BMP,
PNG, or
JPG
JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image ...
. Bandicam features an autocomplete recording mode which can limit the video capture process to a specified size or time value.
It supports hardware acceleration through
Nvidia NVENC
Nvidia NVENC (short for Nvidia Encoder) is a feature in Nvidia graphics cards that performs video encoding, offloading this compute-intensive task from the CPU to a dedicated part of the GPU. It was introduced with the Kepler-based GeForce 600 ...
/
HEVC
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compari ...
,
CUDA
CUDA (or Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a parallel computing platform and application programming interface (API) that allows software to use certain types of graphics processing units (GPUs) for general purpose processing, an approach ca ...
,
AMD APP and
Intel Quick Sync Video/HEVC.
See also
*
Crippleware
Crippleware has been defined in realms of both computer software and hardware. In software, crippleware means that "vital features of the program such as printing or the ability to save files are disabled until the user purchases a registration ke ...
*
Comparison of screencasting software
This page provides a comparison of notable screencasting software, used to record activities on the computer screen. This software is commonly used for desktop recording, gameplay recording and video editing. Screencasting software is typically li ...
References
External links
* {{Official website, https://www.bandicam.com
Official Reseller
2009 software
Screencasting software
Screenshot software
Windows-only software