Glossary
Frame rate
The number of still pictures a video shows each second, written as fps. Screen recordings are usually made at 30 or 60.
A video is a stack of still pictures shown quickly enough that the eye reads motion. Frame rate is how many of those pictures there are per second, written as fps. Film is 24. Television is 25 or 30 depending on the country. Screens, games and most screen recordings are 30 or 60.
What it changes in a screen recording
Most of a screen recording is still. A menu opens, the pointer moves, a page scrolls, and between those moments nothing on the frame changes at all. That is why 30 fps looks fine for a demo of a settings panel: there is not enough motion for the extra frames to show.
Where 60 earns its keep is anything that moves continuously. Scrolling a long page, dragging a window, an animation in the app, and above all a camera feed of a person talking. At 30 those read as slightly stuttery next to the rest of the screen; at 60 they are smooth.
The cost
More frames means more data. The file does not double when the frame rate does, because the encoder spends less on each of the extra frames, but it grows, and so does the time the export takes. For a recording going into a chat or an email, 30 is the sensible default. For YouTube or anything with a camera in it, 60 is worth the size.
The capture frame rate and the export frame rate are separate settings. A recorder that captures at 60 can export at 30 later, which keeps the option open; one that captured at 30 has nothing to add.
Related terms
- BitrateHow much data a video spends per second of playback, measured in megabits per second. It is the main control over file size and picture quality.
- CodecThe method used to compress video into a file and decompress it for playback. H.264 and HEVC are the two you meet when recording a screen.
- ResolutionThe size of a video's picture in pixels, width by height. 1080p is 1920 by 1080; 4K is 3840 by 2160.
- Retina and HiDPIA display that draws each point of the interface with four physical pixels, so text is sharp. A screen recording of one is twice the width and height it looks.
Questions people ask
- Is 30 fps enough for a screen recording?
- For most screen recordings, yes. Text, clicks and typing look the same at 30 and 60. The difference shows on smooth scrolling, animation and a camera, where 60 fps looks noticeably more fluid.
- Does a higher frame rate make the file bigger?
- Yes, though not in proportion. Twice the frames at the same bitrate means each frame gets half the data; twice the frames at the same quality means roughly a larger file. Most encoders land somewhere between the two.
- What frame rate does Prequel export at?
- 60 or 30 fps for MP4 and HEVC, chosen in the export dialog. GIF exports are 20 or 10 fps, because a GIF stores every frame in full and gets very large very quickly.