Playing Sharing and YouTube

Playing, sharing and YouTube

ShadePlay guide › Your clips

How to play your clips, what to check before you share one, and how to put clips on YouTube.

Playing clips

• VLC plays every clip ShadePlay makes.
• The Windows Media Player app needs Microsoft's AV1 Video Extension (free, from the Microsoft Store) for AV1 clips, or the HEVC Video Extension for HEVC clips.
• HDR clips look their best on an HDR screen; good players adapt them for other screens (HDR clips).
• Clips have their index at the front of the file (Fast start, on by default), so a clip streamed from a network folder or a website starts playing sooner.

Sharing clips

• Size: how big a minute of clip gets depends on the quality, resolution and frame rate; the settings page shows it under Quality. Details: file sizes. For a chat app with an upload limit, trim the clip or choose a lower quality.
• Sound: most apps and sites play only the first track, the Mix, which has everything.
• Trimming: any video editor can cut a clip shorter. ShadePlay puts a keyframe in every second by default, so cuts and clip starts are accurate to about a second.

Before you share

A clip is a recording of your screen and your sound, so check what is in it:

• the picture: notifications, chat messages and anything else that was on the recorded monitor;
• the sound: other people's voices are in the Discord track and the Mix, and your microphone in the Mic track and the Mix. Ask before you share a call;
• the .json clip info file next to the clip, if you turned it on or use an after-save command: it holds your Windows user name in paths, and window titles. You don't need to share it with the clip.

More in Privacy.

YouTube

Upload the clip as it is. A clip at 240 fps with AV1, HDR and all five sound tracks was tested and came out right:

• YouTube plays videos at up to 60 fps. The sound came out right with all five tracks in the file.
• YouTube keeps HDR. The HDR version appears a few hours after the upload; until then YouTube shows SDR.

The optional YouTube helper

In advanced mode you can switch on a small helper that saves a few clicks: after a save, clicking the Clip saved notification (or the tray menu's Upload last clip to YouTube…) opens YouTube's upload page in your browser and a File Explorer window with the clip selected, ready to drag in. It is off by default. There is no Google sign-in: ShadePlay never uploads anything itself. Details: YouTube helper.

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Next: The settings window

See also: HDR clips · Audio tracks · Privacy