A Guide to Making Demo Videos of your App for FREE (Windows)

After I finished my coding boot camp, one important thing I felt had to be done was to make demo videos for the projects that I created. I didn’t want to spend money on software, so every piece of software here is free.

The three software that I landed on are as follows

OBS Studio: Used for screen recording, this is also advertised as a streaming software. OBS studio is quick to setup and allows for easy scene management (as in, change what windows are being shown without stopping your recording).

Lightworks: Cut and edit your videos and manage the audio tracks. Fast export time but only does 720p on the free version.

Audacity: a classic and straight-forward audio recording and manipulation software. Simple to use and easy to extract files. I like to clip my videos in Lightworks and voice over it through audacity because it allows me to more precisely cut and trim my audio without having to see the video in the way.

My workflow with each software

OBS Studio

1. Scene changing can be managed on the bottom left side. the two + buttons allows you to make new scenes & add sources (windows, images, screens, videos, etc) to specific scenes.
2. Inside of the main center window, adjust the screen size by clicking on sources & moving the red button.
3. On the bottom right side, press start recording to begin recording what is shown on the center screen. You can change scenes even while you’re recording just by clicking the scene.

Lightworks

1. After creating a new project and adding your video files in, edit it down so that there’s no excess amount of time showing each feature. I like to also create a
2. To cut files, move your timer bar (red bar) use the C key to make a cut a video or audio clip into two.
3. Adjust your video size & position in the VFX section through 2D DVE. Learn how to use the x-y positioning & scale. This will allow you to show two windows on your screen at once if your application has multi-user features.
4. Export by right clicking the “All” button on the bottom right of the screen.

Audacity

1. Edit > Preferences to adjust your inputs & settings

2. Press the record button once you’re watching your video play in lightworks

3. Edit sound clarity with the effects tab

3. File > export to Mp3 & add the file to lightworks.

Lastly, toss that completed video on youtube.

Here are some demo video’s I’ve