Movavi Screen Recorder Review: How Good Is it?

A screen recorder is a tool that every social media content creator should possess. That’s because it records your screen, your audio, webcam feed and even lets you edit existing video clips.

Jack of all trades indeed.

In this Movavi screen recorder review, we would be talking about its capabilities, its distinct features, and how a social media marketer can leverage its full potential.

Just to be fair, we would also mention other Movavi Screen Recorder alternatives and weigh in their features against this screen recorder.

Then we would try to figure out which recorder is worth owning.

But first, let’s talk about its system requirement and platform compatibility.

Also Read: Is Movavi Safe?

Movavi Screen Recorder System Requirement & Installation

The Movavi screen recorder is currently available on Windows and Mac platforms. Its minimum system requirement for both platforms are as follows.

Click here to download the Windows version of the Movavi screen recorder. For the Mac version, click here.

Once the download is complete, run the installer and follow the steps to install the Movavi screen recorder.

Movavi Screen Recorder Features

Movavi is a pretty neat tool if you ask me. It can record your screen actions, capture your webcam feed and even record your audio from a microphone.

Let’s find out how you can make the most of this screen recorder.

• Tutorial making/ recording:- If you are an online tutor or publish your content on educational platforms like Udemy, then you can use the screen recording to create your course material.

Movavi screen recorder allows you to select the screen you want to record, use your current screen like a whiteboard, and draw on it.

It is a great way of emphasizing points and highlighting important topics in your course. By recording the webcam feed you can demonstrate practical examples while you can record your narration using your computer’s microphone.

That’s not all, as a student you can use the screen recorder to record your zoom calls, record online tutorials so that you can save it on your machine and access it offline.

This is possible because the Movavi Screen recorder even lets you record your computer’s speaker output.

• Scheduled Recording:- The Movavi Screen Recorder provides you a few scheduling options to record your actions.

From the settings menu, you can specify when you want your recording to start, and for how long you want the screen recording to continue.

Such options can come in handy while recording games and when you don’t want to be distracted from the task at hand.

• Gameplay recording:- This screen recorder is just right for capturing your video game walkthroughs. It can capture your game feed, record your reaction over the webcam and save your narrative while you are playing the game.

Depending on the game you are playing, you can change the frame rate and resolution from the setting screen. You can use the YouTube widget to directly publish your content over YouTube once you have completed recording and editing your clip.

• Swift editing capability:- The screen recorder’s editor is simple and extremely easy to use. Right after recording your screen, the editor is launched. The editor lets you trim your video, cut segments, and export it in a medium of your choice.

Here you can preview your recordings and use them to capture screenshots of your recording for further use.

Hands-on experience

After installation, when you start the Movavi screen recorder, you can see the recording widget stuck to the right panel of the screen.

The widget is easily visible & accessible yet doesn’t shift your focus from your tasks. You can drag the widget and stick it to any of the edges of your screen.

If you want you can close the widget and the screen recorder would be minimized in the taskbar. You can double-click on the Movavi icon from the taskbar to bring it to the screen. Now let’s talk about how useful it is.

Capturing screenshot

Click on the “Camera” icon on the screen recording widget to grab a screenshot of your screen. Then click on the point where you want to start capturing the screen and drag your mouse to the area that you want to cover.

In case you have wrongly selected a section, simply press “Escape” and your selection would be reverted.

You can notice the tiny magnifier right below the crosshair screenshot selector which helps you take precise screenshots. It also shows the area of the capture.

If you want to capture the whole screen, click on “Space”.

Editing Screenshots

The moment you have captured your screenshot the captured area would appear with the editor controls. In this editing mode, you can do a lot of actions on your screenshot.

You can use the selector to move around the capture portion or re-size your screenshot. 

The text labeling utility helps you to add captions in different font styles and colors. You can even resize or move the captions according to your needs.

Apart from that you can add pointers, underline text, and highlight portions of your screenshot in the editing mode.

The undo toolkit allows you to reverse any of your previous actions. If you want to remove any of your edits, simply click on the item that you had added, like texts, or pointers and click the “Delete” button.

Screenshot Sharing

I found the saving and sharing options of Movavi Screen Recorder to be very intuitive. After editing your screenshot, you can either copy the whole content to your clipboard or save it in a location or share it on different platforms. That too from the application itself. 

Screen Recording

To start screen recording click on the “Video” icon in the Movavi Screen Recorder widget. I noticed that, unlike other screen recorders, this takes some time to launch. 

When the screen recorder is launched you have to select the portion of the screen to which you want to record.

As you can see above, on the top right you can select the input options which you want the Movavi to record. You can select to record your webcam feed, microphone audio, or speaker output while recording. 

On the right edge, you can choose which events you want Movavi Screen Recorder to record. You can choose to record keystrokes, highlight cursor and mouse click too.

Once you have selected your preference, click on the Record icon to start your recording.

During recording, you can capture screenshots, pause recording or stop it using the options on the recording screen.

This is how your recording would look like when you have opted to record keystrokes, and highlight cursor and mouse clicks.

Editing Your Recording

After you have recorded your screen action, webcam feed, and audio, the editor would open and you can edit your recording.

Movavi allows you to perform very basic cutting and trimming actions to get rid of unwanted recording portions.

To trim or cut your recording simply click on “Cut” and select the portion that you want to remove.

After you have edited your content, it’s time to export it in a format of your choice. You can select from different video formats to save your recording.

You can even decide the quality of the recording depending on the platform where you wish to publish it.

You can even set advanced export settings and choose the frame rate, sampling rate, and audio channels. With the help of the social sharing widget, you can share your edited recording directly on a specific platform.

Configuring Screen Recorder

To edit settings or configure custom behavior on the screen recorder, click on the gear icon in the recorder widget. The settings screen comes with a lot of options and great features that can come in handy while recording.

You can configure keyboard shortcuts for screen recording. You can also specify the default saving location, language preference, and video frame rate for recording.

It even lets you manage your webcam recording settings and how you want your mouse actions and click events to register.

But I must say, I was impressed by the recording scheduler.

You can schedule when you want your recording to begin and what action do you want to take after the recording is completed.

PRO TIP: This type of scheduled screen recording can come in handy when teachers are conducting online exams for students remotely.

Is Movavi Screen Recorder free?

Yes, the Movavi Screen recorder is free to use.

All its features are available for free. The only catch is all screenshots and screen recordings come with a watermark.

To remove the watermark you have to purchase a licensed copy of the software.

Movavi Screen Recorder Pricing

Movavi Screen Recorder provides two purchasing options.

Either you can opt for an annual subscription at $34.95 or get a lifetime license for a one-time payment of $49.95. If you ask me I’d advise you to go for the lifetime license.

The screen recorder is a handy tool and is worth spending $15 for a perpetual license.

Once you have made the purchase, you would receive a mail containing the activation key. You can use the activation key on the installed trail copy to remove the watermarks from any subsequent recordings.

Just click on the activate license link and enter the product key to activate your copy of Movavi Screen Recorder.

Movavi Screen Recorder Alternatives

Not that you are well aware of Movavi Screen Recorder’s capabilities, let talk about other Movavi Screen Recorder alternatives and what they have in store for us.

1. Camtasia

Camtasia is a popular screen recorder and video editor. It provides you with a lot of preconfigured templates to jazz up your screen recording. Its video editor is quite powerful and lets you do a lot more than just trimming and cutting.

It also has its is a music library for adding audio scores to your recordings. It supports animation, video transition effects and also lets you denoise audio clips for a better audio-visual experience.

Pricing – You can use Camtasia for a trial period of 30 days. A lifetime license of Camtasia would cost you $249.99. 

2. Wondershare DemoCreator

Wondershare DemoCreator is a very subtle screen recorder and video recorder. It is simple to use, cheaper than other screen-recorders, and also provides decent video editing capabilities.

It is available on Windows and Mac platforms and is great for making tutorials and video game walkthroughs.

Pricing – You can use all DemoCreator’s features for free, but all exported videos and images would have a watermark.

To remove the watermark you need to buy a license. A one-time license would cost you $59.99 for a single machine.

3. SCRE.IO

Scre.io is a neat lightweight Chrome extension. You can install it on your Chrome extension or Edge browser.

It allows you to record audio, your screen actions as well as your webcam feed. You need not install any application for the recording screen, and it works in offline mode too.

Pricing – You can install the extension for free from the Chrome extension web-store or as an add-on for Edge browser on your Windows or Mac machines. No license is required.

Movavi Screen Recorder Review: Conclusion

Now that well aware of its capabilities, let’s weigh in its pros and cons

Pros

• Simple to use – Yes, it is very easy to use. Even though Movavi has dedicated documentation for the screen recorder. I don’t think you would be needing it. The UI is clutter-free and self-explanatory. You would get used to this recorder in no time. I think its simplicity and ease of use can make it popular among students.
• Scheduled recording – Scheduled recording is a cool feature. You can save multiple schedules and also specify what needs to be done after the recording stops. Online gamers would love this feature.

Cons

• The recording editor isn’t that good – The recording editor only allows you to trim or cut videos. It doesn’t allow you to add transition or effects, and other features necessary for video editing. I got the feeling that I would have to use one or the other video editor after I have recorded my screen with the Movavi Screen recorder. If that’s not your requirement, you should be good.
• Cannot edit audio recording – Even though the screen recorder lets you record your microphone audio, there is no provision for editing the audio clip, removing noise, or patching background audio. This means your audio recording is going to be as good as the recording ambiance. 
• Cannot add external audio to recording – Tutors or content creators often add voice-over to their recording to increase clarity. To do so you have to rely on other video editors.

Final Verdict

Even though Movavi Screen Recorder is simple to use, I feel it isn’t enough to cater to your screen recording needs. Even if you use the Movavi Screen Recorder you are going to rely on some other video editor for post-processing.

That’s why I feel rather than opting for a dedicated screen recorder, you should go for Movavi Video Suite.

It would be a one-stop content creation center and would allow you to record screens, edit videos, audio clips & images, and even let you burn your content into discs. This is also one of the best iMovie alternatives for windows that you can get.

At $199.95, the Video Suite can be a bit expensive, but it is worth it in the long run.

If you want to settle for a handful of features for a lesser price, then do check out Wondershare DemoCreator. Its perpetual license would cost you $59.99

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