Glossary
Picture-in-picture
A camera feed drawn as a small window over a screen recording, so the viewer sees the presenter and the screen at the same time.
Picture-in-picture is a second video drawn as a small window over the first. In a screen recording it means the camera: the presenter's face in a corner of the frame while the screen fills the rest. Webcam overlay, camera bubble and facecam are the same thing under other names.
What it is for
A face makes a recording easier to watch. The viewer can see who is talking, read the emphasis, and stay with a three-minute walkthrough they would have skimmed as a silent screen. It is also the difference between a demo and a screencast in the viewer's mind: one is a recording, the other is a person showing them something.
Where it goes
A corner, over the part of the screen that matters least. Which corner depends on the app: a sidebar on the left means the camera goes bottom right; a toolbar along the bottom means it goes up. The mistake is putting it where the work is, so the presenter's head covers the button being clicked.
Shape and size are taste. A circle reads as informal and takes less of the frame; a rounded rectangle shows more of the room. A fifth of the frame's height is a common size; larger than a third and it competes with the screen.
Baked in or a layer
A recorder that composites the camera into the frames as it records has fixed its position for good. One that records the camera as its own track can move, resize, reshape or remove it in the edit, and switch to a camera-only layout for the intro and back. Prequel does the second, and the camera and layout pages cover the controls.
Related terms
- Aspect ratioThe proportion of a video's width to its height. 16:9 is landscape and the default for screens; 9:16 is vertical and what Shorts, Reels and TikTok want.
- System audioThe sound the Mac itself plays, from any app, captured as part of a screen recording. macOS records it only through the screen capture API, and not every recorder asks.
- Zoom and panPushing the picture in on part of the screen, then moving it to follow the action, so a viewer sees what the presenter is doing without squinting at a full screen.
Questions people ask
- Where should the camera go in a screen recording?
- A bottom corner, over a part of the screen that does not matter, is the convention. Which corner depends on the app being recorded: put the camera where the sidebar or empty space is, never over the part being demonstrated.
- Can I move the camera after recording?
- Only if the recorder kept the camera as its own track. A recorder that composites the camera into the frames while recording has baked it in, and it cannot be moved, resized or removed afterwards. Prequel records the camera separately, so it can be moved at any point in the edit.