Selection of the part of the screen to record is more complex since 0.659b?

[Youpiiiii]

With an old OBS 0.659b I still have, selecting the part of the screen to record was easy: right click on "Monitor Capture", Properties, then "Select region" graphically by drawing a rectangle, then "Set base resolution". Finished. See screenshot below.

Now I'm using OBS 27.1.3, and I can't find a similar way to do it. I've read one has to do "Display capture" and then Filter "Crop/pad", but one has to enter X, Y coordinates manually instead of easy selection by clicking a rectangle around the zone we want to record. There is probably a better option, but I didn't find it.


Is this a UI regression or is there an obvious solution I didn't find?

 

[WBE]

Cropping can be done by holding the Alt key while dragging the red boundary box (it then becomes green), see Sources Guide.

 

[Youpiiiii]

Thanks @WBE .

I tried, but for me it didn't work with left ALT key, but only with right ALT key (which is called ALT GR on French keyboard), which is not easy to find (if you don't know in advance).

Also when doing this you cannot select in full screen the rectangle you would like to crop.

Instead, you have to drag the green boundary boxes on a smaller preview box but not the real full screen. It's less precise if you want pixel-perfect precision cropping.

This is really less handy, IMHO. Do you notice the same?

This method "Press Enter, Esc, or click outside this rectangle when complete." in OBS 0.659b was really superior and more precise, how is it possible to use this UI again in OBS?

Thanks for your ideas!

 

[koala]

In OBS Studio, if you need pixel-exact clipping, cropping, positioning, first do a rough preview using the mouse and the GUI, then right-click the source->Transform->Edit transform and edit the exact numbers. It's about the same data (and more) you edit in the "Sub-Region" part of that OBS classic dialog.

 

[Youpiiiii]

In OBS Studio, if you need pixel-exact clipping, cropping, positioning, first do a rough preview using the mouse and the GUI, then right-click the source->Transform->Edit transform and edit the exact numbers. It's about the same data (and more) you edit in the "Sub-Region" part of that OBS classic dialog.

Thanks a lot for your answer! I tried this, but this is with numbers in a text box, and not an easy selection :)

If possible, I'd like to keep the method "Press Enter, Esc, or click outside this rectangle when complete." from my last screenshot of OBS 0.659b. Is this option still available in the current OBS versions? It was a far superior UI/UX, because it allowed to select the rectangle on full screen, and see how is the rectangle on the real content (seeing this on a smaller preview is really different).

Doing a rough selection on a preview (which only shows the current OBS window, inception-style) + editing manually numbers in a textbox, is really less handy than doing a fullscreen rectangle selection like on previous versions of OBS. Is there a way to have this method again?

(PS: or maybe were you speaking about an a-posteriori post-production cropping? Would this require re-encoding?)

Thanks again :)

 

[koala]

As far as I see it, ALT-dragging the window borders to crop, is similar to what you want with the old selection method. If you maximize the OBS preview, perhaps on a second monitor, you get more to see. Usually, you don't need this so often, because you will use window capture or game capture. Yes, I can see how the classic version of OBS has an advantage with setting the crop area, but that's the way it is. Given the vast amount of improvements in OBS Studio with everything else, this cannot be the reason one will stick to classic OBS.

 

[Youpiiiii]

Thanks @koala.

I will have to stick to classic OBS for this reason for some specific recordings, because the workflow is too complex: when working with a laptop, you can't have a 2nd monitor just to do this :)

Of course, for other recordings for which Window capture is ok, I'll use the new OBS.

Would the "Press Enter, Esc, or click outside this rectangle when complete." be available somewhere in a hidden menu of the new OBS?
Maybe with a specific parameter in a .ini config file ? :) Something like:

legacyrectanglecrop=True

It would be perfect!

I'm sure I'm not the only one, working on a laptop, who likes this good old method ;)

 

[WBE]

You could post it at ideas.obsproject.com where people can react and upvote it.

 

[Youpiiiii]

Hi,
Have there been changes since 2022 about this?

TL;DR: the OBS Classic way to select a part of the screen to be recorded was much easier: just drag and drop on the sides of the rectangle, and no need to enter pixel numbers in a textbox.

Has this been added to OBS Studio ?

Or is there a branch/fork of OBS Classic which is still developed?