Launches
A launch video worth the front page
The video on a launch post is doing the selling. Record it once and let Prequel hand back something that looks like it took a week.
Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · one email when the first build is ready
On a launch post the video is the pitch. People scroll, the video autoplays, and roughly six seconds later they have decided whether to read the words. A raw screen capture spends those six seconds showing a desktop.
The good launch videos are not expensive so much as edited. They cut early, they push in on the moment the product does its trick, and they never linger.
Get to the trick
Record the walkthrough once. Prequel notes your clicks and keystrokes as it captures and opens the editor with the zooms already placed on them, so the first thing you see is a version that already moves.
From there it is subtraction. The timeline has a waveform under every clip and a playhead that scrubs, so cutting a four-minute take down to sixty seconds is a handful of blade cuts rather than an evening. Zoom level and speed are set per zoom, which is how a fast cut still reads as deliberate.
One take, every placement
A launch needs the same video in several shapes — landscape for the post, vertical for social, maybe square.
Switch the frame preset and export again. Framing is stored as a fraction of the frame's shorter edge, so the vertical cut keeps the camera and the padding where you put them rather than cropping them out. The look holds across all of them without a second recording.
No render queue on launch day
Everything happens on your Mac. Capture, compositing and export all run on its own media engine — hardware H.264 or HEVC, composited in Metal — so there is no upload, no queue and nothing between you and the file at the moment you are least able to wait for it.
What comes out is one MP4 at up to 4K, with no watermark on it.
Automatic
It arrives already directed
A raw screen recording is flat — one distance from the viewer for the whole take, with the thing that matters too small to see. Prequel watches where you click and type while it records, and opens the editor with that pass already made.
- Zooms placedOn every click and every burst of typing
- Camera framedShaped, sized and set in a corner
- Background appliedPadding, radius, border and shadow
- Audio balancedMicrophone and system on separate gains
- Cursor cleaned upSmoothed, resized, hidden when it idles
The editor
Everything you would have done in post
It opens by itself when you stop recording, on the take you just made. Nothing to import, nothing to line up.
Zooms that follow the work
Push in on the cursor, a region or whatever you are typing into. Level, speed, tilt and yaw, with progressive blur falling away from the focus.
A camera you frame afterwards
Circle, squircle, rounded or wide, in any corner and any size. The webcam is never burned into the recording, so none of it is decided while you record.
Backgrounds worth shipping
Your own wallpaper by default, seven bundled presets, gradients and solids. Padding, radius, border and shadow on top.
Cuts on a real timeline
Trim the dead air, slice by slice, with a waveform under every clip and a playhead that scrubs. Layout, background and audio can all change mid-take.
A cursor that behaves
Four pointer styles, resized to survive a zoom, and gone from the frame after a few seconds of stillness rather than parked over your work.
What you see is what exports
The preview and the exporter draw the same plan, so the file is the frame you approved — not a close approximation of it.
Quality
Exports that hold up
A video that looks produced is worth nothing if the file is soft. Capture and export run on your Mac's own media engine — hardware H.264 or HEVC, composited in Metal — so 1080p60 records without dropping frames and 4K is a setting rather than a compromise.
- Resolution
- Up to 4K
- Frame rate
- Up to 120 fps
- Codecs
- H.264 · HEVC
- Encoding
- Hardware, VideoToolbox
- Compositing
- Metal
- Output
- Constant frame rate MP4
Formats
One MP4, shaped for wherever it is going
Switch a recording from landscape to vertical and the look holds — the framing is stored in proportions, not pixels, so nothing slides off the frame on the way.
- Landscape 16:9
- 4K
- Vertical 9:16
- Square 1:1
- Portrait 4:5
- YouTube
- Shorts
- TikTok
- Reels
- X
Be there for the first build
Prequel is in development. Leave an address and we will send it the day it is worth installing.
Curious about the internals? Read the blog
FAQ
Zooms, exports and the rest
How long should a product launch video be?
Sixty to ninety seconds for the video on a launch post, and under thirty for the clip that goes with the tweet. Both come off one take — record the walkthrough properly, then cut two lengths out of it.
How short can I get it without it feeling rushed?
Cuts are slices on a timeline with a waveform under every clip, so trimming to sixty seconds is a scrub and a few blade cuts. Zoom level and speed are set per zoom, which is how a fast cut still reads as deliberate rather than jumpy.
Can I make a vertical cut for social at the same time?
Yes, from the same take. Switch the frame preset and export again — the framing survives because it is stored in proportions rather than pixels.
How quickly can I turn one around on launch day?
Fast enough to redo it if the first attempt is wrong. There is no import, no render queue and no zooms to place, so the loop is record, trim, export — and export runs on your Mac's media engine rather than a queue somewhere else.
Will it look like a screen recording?
Only if you want it to. The recording sits on a background with padding, a corner radius, a border and a shadow, the webcam is framed rather than parked in a corner, and the camera moves through the video instead of holding one distance for ninety seconds.
Can I record a launch video without appearing on camera?
Yes, and you can decide after the fact. The webcam is a separate track, so a take recorded with it on can ship without it.
What do I need to record a launch video on a Mac?
An Apple Silicon Mac on macOS 14 or later and the Screen Recording permission. Everything else — the background, the framing, the cuts — is decided after the recording rather than before it.