Recording a webcam video is probably not what you think about when someone mentions VLC Player. In fact, there are dozens of tools under the hood that aren’t all that well known, but are incredibly useful.
Today’s tutorial will walk you through the process of shooting a webcam video using nothing but your laptop (or desktop’s) built-in webcam. You’ll need no external microphones (although you can certainly use them), camera equipment, or production software.
1. Open VLC.
2. Under the Media tab, select Open Capture Device.
3. From the Capture mode dropdown, select DirectShow.
4. Choose your audio and video device from the two dropdown menus to follow, or just use the built-in options. I’m on my iMac today, so we’re going to choose the built-in Facetime HD camera.
5. At the bottom, click the Play button to begin recording.
